Count your climate losses

Climate-change-related disasters have swept across Southasia in 2021, with forest fires and floods in the Himalaya, heavy rains followed by deadly floods in Sri Lanka, and severe cyclones in parts of India and Bangladesh. This does not include the confluence of the pandemic with extreme weather, with some recent research suggesting that poor air quality can significantly increase the risk of dying from COVID-19.

Despite its relatively low per capita carbon emissions, Southasia continues to feature prominently in various lists of countries most vulnerable to global climate crisis. As the Asian Development Bank's 2020 report points out, "South Asia is a region… where one can clearly make a case for how countries that have contributed relatively so little to the causes driving climate change stand to lose so much from its adverse effects."

This explainer surveys several recently published reports on climate-change-related casualties and losses in Southasia to make a region-wide assessment of the climate crisis. At the same time, it also examines how these studies, and the institutions undertaking the research, reflect differing definitions of "casualty" or "loss". Some of the best-resourced reports on climate change prioritise not the human cost of climatological disaster, but rather the risk for potential investors interested in developing the region for profit, or the economic losses following extreme weather events. Meanwhile, other reports, particularly those that lack the same access to funding, take a different approach, partnering with local education and research hubs to illustrate climate change from the ground up. We, therefore, found that these reports could be divided into two categories: those that investigate economic risk, capital and development, and those that focus on mortality, health, labour, living conditions, migration and displacement of people.

In order to understand the data presented in each report, it is necessary to understand how each source defines climate-change-induced loss. For instance, we found that financial institutions approached climate change as an economic risk as well as opportunity; research organisations from within the region tended to write about the environment as a vital and traditional lifeline for millions of people; and policy institutions outside Southasia analysed climate change as a factor in international power configurations.

In 2018, the World Bank published its flagship report on climate change and development in Southasia. Titled 'South Asia's hotspots: the impact of temperature and precipitation changes on living standards', the widely cited report illustrates how household living standards shift, not just due to extreme one-time events but in response to long-term changes in weather. Data is gathered from household surveys conducted in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The report and the World Bank's press release emphasise the researchers' focus on "living standards", as measured by per capita consumption rates. The World Bank's lead economist for Southasia worries that climate change will depress per capita consumption rates.

Other studies are more transparent in how they weigh economic versus human cost. For example, the McKinsey Institute's report 'Will India get too hot to work?' examines rising "wet-bulb temperatures" in India, explaining that the human body can only withstand a certain amount of exposure to heat and humidity before death. The report worries that adults will be affected by potentially deadly spikes in heat, causing productivity to decline in the country.