Climate Information and Sustainable Development Goals in the context of the Himalayas

(Invited talk delivered on 10^th December 2025 in HimMet2025 organised                    by DGRE, Chandigarh during 8-10 December 2025)

Dr. Sushil Kumar Dash was invited by the Director, DGRE, Chandigarh to deliver a talk in the session on the theme named ‘Climate Change over Himalaya’ on 10^th December 2025. The summary of his talk is given below.

Now-a-days we are experiencing several unusual weather events triggered by global warming and associated climate changes across the globe. Studies indicate that in future, there will be more frequent and intense extreme heat and heavy rain events. Further, in some regions droughts may increase and wildfires become more frequent. The more dangerous change may occur in the oceans in terms of its warming, acidifying and losing oxygen. We all know that climate change is a global problem and Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emission is the main cause. The major solution lies in the reduction of GHGs which is linked to industrial revolution leading to the economic growth. In this way, reduction of GHGs is connected to geo-politics. Combating emissions is a complex issue for which international negotiations are going on in a slow pace. Adapting to climate changes by building resilience is an important aspect which will also help the society. Keeping that in mind, the 2023 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by all United Nations members in 2015. With the aim of ‘Peace and Prosperity’ for people and the planet, in total 17 World Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been created. The goal 15 aims to protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverses land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. This goal has a lot of relevance for the Himalayan ecosystem. The main issue in the implementation of SDGs is the availability of accurate local level climate information. The present status of climate information points to inaccuracies arising out of unavailable, unusable or unsuitable high resolution data. Such data weakness leads to lack of proper understanding of climate changes occurring over a village, a district or a region. Such data problem is more severe over the Himalayan region where the locals live amidst the nature consisting of a number of snow laden high peaks, slopes, valleys, springs, forests and biodiversity. In addition to environmental issues, there are societal matters such as poverty, unemployment, gender inequality, human health and social disparities.

Sophisticated climate models have been providing weather and climate data at the regional scale from which it is possible to derive useful climate information. Scientists are also engaged in the improvements in the current numerical climate models. Further, AIML is the latest tool which either on its own or in combination with the numerical models will be able to provide more accurate climate information in the coming days. The Himalayas due to its complex terrain needs special scientific attention in generating suitable data set for its use in SDGs. Intensive drive for observational network, climate information from models at high resolution, research on climate risks, integration of science and social science, multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder decision making, climate education at all levels and innovative ideas in conserving the Himalayan ecosystem will help India in developing adequate resilience to face the adverse effects of climate change.