Andaman, Nicobar Islands may not be inhabitable in future: IPCC author

New Delhi: Islands like Andaman and Nicobar might not be inhabitable in a few years due to rise in sea level and increase in climatic events like cyclones, said one of the key authors of a global report on climate change on Wednesday.

The Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), prepared by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), has cautioned that warming of oceans will increase the frequency and severity of climatic events like cyclones in India.

“Islands like Andaman and Nicobar, Maldives etc will have to be vacated. People will have to be migrated from there as due to rising sea levels, these places will become uninhabitable,” said Anjal Prakash, the coordinating lead author of the IPCC report.

He said the focus has to be on adaptation and building climate resilience.

“Even with an under two degree rise in global temperature, there will be sea level rise, glaciers will melt and many communities will be affected. Some of these events are irreversible. So focus has to be on adaptation for the coming future,” said Prakash, who is also an associate professor of Regional Water Studies at TERI School of Advanced Studies.

According to the report from the IPCC, a United Nations’ body in charge of monitoring climate change, sea level has risen globally around 15 cm during the 20th century, but it is currently rising more than twice as fast 3.6 mm per year and accelerating.

“The sea level will continue to rise. It would reach around 30-60 cm by 2100 even if the green house gas emissions are sharply reduced and global warming is limited to well below 2 degrees Celsius. In the event of high green house gas emissions, it would rise to 60-110 cm,” the report said.

India has 7,500 long coastline, which is the seventh longest coastline in Asia. The country has coastlines along the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east.