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bay of bengal
'Very, Very Scary': Intensifying Cyclone Mocha Takes Aim at World's Largest Refugee Camp
"This is a near worst-case scenario for one of the most storm surge flood vulnerable regions in the world," one scientist warned. "I hate to say it but we're looking at a potential mass casualty event."
May 12, 2023
Officials in Bangladesh and Myanmar are preparing Friday to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people as a tropical storm turbocharged by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis strengthens in the Bay of Bengal.
Cyclone Mocha is forecast to intensify further before making landfall on Sunday between western Myanmar and the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar, home to the world's largest refugee camp. Roughly 1 million Rohingya people forced to flee Myanmar amid the country's ongoing genocide against them live in the highly exposed district.
"This is a very, very scary storm," tweeted environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, pointing to its severity and current path.
"The government of Bangladesh needs to develop an inclusive evacuation plan."
The evacuation of more than 500,000 people from the Bangladeshi coast "is expected to start Saturday with 576 cyclone shelters ready to provide refuge to those who are moved from their homes," The Associated Press reported, citing government administrator Muhammad Shaheen Imran.
Bangladesh, a delta nation with more than 160 million residents, is already prone to extreme weather disasters, and that's increasingly the case as the warming Indian Ocean generates more intense and longer-lasting cyclones as well as heavier rainfall.
The impoverished Rohingya refugees living in Cox's Bazar are especially vulnerable to the incoming storm, and it's unclear how many, if any, of them are included in the Bangladeshi government's evacuation plans.
United Nations Refugee Agency spokesperson Olga Sarrado told Reuters that preparations are underway for a partial evacuation of the camp, if necessary. The World Health Organization is also setting up nearly three dozen mobile medical teams and 40 ambulances, along with emergency surgery and cholera kits for the camp.
"Still reeling from a devastating fire in March that destroyed more than 2,600 shelters and critical infrastructure, over 850,000 refugees risk losing their homes and livelihoods," the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned in a statement. "Strong wind, heavy rains, and subsequent flash floods and mudslides could destroy shelters, community centers, and health clinics, depriving thousands of essential services and humanitarian aid."
"In preparation, more than 3,000 Rohingya refugees have been trained to respond to flooding and mudslides," said the IRC, which is "scaling up its emergency response in Cox's Bazar." According to the organization: "Three mobile medical teams will be deployed to remote areas in the camps and communities to provide emergency medical treatment. Additionally, a mobile protection unit designed for emergency settings will offer protection services to vulnerable groups such as women, girls, the elderly, and those with disabilities."
IRC Bangladesh director Hasina Rahman lamented how "time and again, we have seen the devastating impact of extreme weather events in Cox’s Bazar. Since 2017, countless shelters, schools, health clinics, and safe spaces for survivors of gender-based violence have been decimated as a result of floods and mudslides, as well as preventable tragedies such as the fire in March this year."
"As a low-lying country with major cities in coastal areas, Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change, which makes annual weather events—such as cyclones—more intense and frequent," said Rahman. "The impacts—loss of life, destroyed crops, challenges to livelihoods, damage to homes and infrastructure—are often borne by the people and communities who have contributed least to the climate crisis: Bangladesh, for example, emits less than 1% of global CO2 emissions."
While a rapid and just clean energy transition and other far-reaching transformations are needed to mitigate the causes of global warming, developing nations like Bangladesh cannot "cope with continued weather shocks without support that addresses the effects of climate change, such as early warning systems, anticipatory action, improving infrastructure to protect against flooding, and investment into climate adaptation," Rahman noted.
"It is crucial to fortify shelters and critical infrastructure," Rahman continued. "This involves using durable construction materials to strengthen community facilities like child-friendly spaces, learning facilities, and mosques, which serve as safe points during emergencies."
"Additionally, the government of Bangladesh needs to develop an inclusive evacuation plan in collaboration with U.N. agencies, humanitarian organizations, and the refugee and host communities," she stressed. "The plan should prioritize access to emergency shelters, ensuring family unity, and the protection of vulnerable groups, including women, children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities."
The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM) observed that "last year, the camps escaped devastation from the Bay of Bengal cyclone Sitrang, which killed 35 people, displaced over 20,000, and caused over $35 million in damages in other parts of the country."
Cyclone Mocha, the first to form in the bay this year, "strengthened Friday into the equivalent of a category 1 Atlantic hurricane and is moving north at 11 kilometers per hour (7 miles per hour)," CNN reported, citing the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. "The storm's winds could peak at 220 kph (137 mph)—equivalent to a category 4 Atlantic hurricane—just before making landfall on Sunday morning."
India's Meteorological Department on Friday projected that "a storm surge of up to 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) was likely to inundate low-lying coastal areas in the path of the cyclone at the time of landfall," including Cox's Bazar, the outlet noted.
To assist refugees and local host communities as they brace for Cyclone Mocha, IOM said that it "is strengthening camp infrastructure, preparing for medical emergencies, and supporting volunteers in cyclone preparedness."
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also expressed "grave concerns" about the storm's potential impacts on "already vulnerable and displaced communities" in neighboring Myanmar, where a military junta rules.
"Of particular worry is the situation facing 232,100 people who are displaced across Rakhine. Many of the [internally displaced person] camps and sites in Rakhine are located in low-lying coastal areas susceptible to storm surge," said OCHA. "The suffering of more than a million displaced people and other communities in the northwest is also expected to worsen over the coming days as the ex-cyclone moves inland bringing heavy rain. Displaced people in the northwest are already living in precarious conditions in camps, displacement sites, or in forests often without proper shelter."
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis inundated Myanmar, killing more than 138,000 people, uprooting 800,000, and affecting 2.4 million.
"Extreme weather hazards will occur more frequently due to climate change in the years ahead. The linkages between climate change, migration, and displacement are increasingly pressing worldwide," IOM pointed out. "To avert, mitigate, and address displacement linked to climate disasters and strengthen people's resilience," the U.N. agency urged policymakers around the world "to implement sustainable climate adaptation, preparedness, and disaster risk reduction measures."
Despite knowing that extracting and burning more coal, oil, and gas will exacerbate the deadly effects of the climate emergency, profit-hungry fossil fuel executives are still planning to expand drilling with the continued support of many governments.
While COP27 delegates agreed to establish a loss and damage fund—after failing to commit to phasing out the fossil fuels that are causing so much harm—previous efforts to ramp up climate aid from the Global North to the Global South have fallen far short of what's needed due to the stinginess of wealthy countries, especially the United States.
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CO2 Levels Are the Highest in a Million Years as Extreme Weather and Flooding Rage Across the Globe
We can change all this, but we have to hurry to shut down CO2 emissions quickly.
Sep 01, 2022
CNN reports that satellite photos show that the overflowing Indus has created a new body of water in southern Pakistan some 62 miles (100km) wide. It will take days or weeks for the water to recede, and in the meantime millions are left homeless and over all, 33 million people have been affected by the worst monsoon floods in recorded history. CNN quotes Pakistan's Climate Minister Sherry Rahman as saying "That parts of the country 'resemble a small ocean,' and that 'by the time this is over, we could well have one-quarter or one-third of Pakistan under water.'"
Because of our burning of fossil fuels to drive cars and heat and cool buildings, the world is heating up. But the Indian Ocean is heating up a third faster than the rest of the world. Very warm waters in the Bay of Bengal are helping create more destructive cyclones and flooding. The air over warming waters contains more moisture than the 20th century average. Warming waters also make the winds that blow over them more erratic, and wayward winds from the Arabian Sea helped push the heavy monsoon rains farther north than they usually extend.
We don't have to look far for the culprits. J. Blunden, and T. Boyer, Eds., 2022: "State of the Climate in 2021" Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 103 (8), Si-S465, https://doi.org/10.1175/2022BAMSStateoftheClimate provides a state of the climate report for 2021.
It isn't good news. The concentration in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide increased another 2.6 parts per million, to a year-long average of 414.7 parts per million of CO2. We should be trying to get to zero increases of carbon dioxide, not increasing it. Arctic snow cores show that there hasn't been that must CO2 in the atmosphere for at least 800,000 years, i.e. nearly a million years. It turns out that if you go back to "1 million Years B.C." you don't find Raquel Welch, you find a steaming tropics of a world. The growth rate for methane was the highest on record. Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas, and CO2 isn't any slouch itself. Methane, though, dissipates quickly if you don't keep adding to it in the stratosphere, in as little as nine years. If you put carbon dioxide up there, though, it can last thousands and thousands of years. It is gradually absorbed by the oceans or igneous rocks, but he ocean may reach its capacity for absorption of CO2 in only 15 years, after which the stuff will just stay up there, making earth hot.
The report says that Death Valley, California, reached 54.4degC (130.46 F.) for the second time since records have been kept. Across the global ice concentrations or "cryosphere," glaciers lost ice mass for the 34th consecutive year. Now the BBC is predicting that in the near future the glacier ice lost will become so great that it will threaten the water supplies of Switzerland and other European countries.
And in horrific news for Bangladesh and Egypt, the report says, "Across the world's oceans, global mean sea level was record high for the 10th consecutive year, reaching 97.0 mm above the 1993 average when satellite measurements began, an increase of 4.9 mm over 2020."
Seas rising, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere rising to best a million-year-old-record, super-monsoons. We can change all this, but we have to hurry to shut down CO2 emissions quickly.
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Is 2020's Record-Breaking Hurricane Season What the Future Holds?
"Globally, tropical cyclones are about 25 percent more likely to be at major-hurricane intensity now than four decades ago. The chances of rapid intensification in the 1980s was about one in 100 in the Atlantic. Nowadays, the chances are 1 in 20."
Dec 09, 2020
The most active Atlantic hurricane season on record began two weeks ahead of schedule and ended on November 30, 2020. Overall, this season was one for the record books. There were 30 named storms (meaning storms where top winds were 39 miles per hour or greater instead of the average 12). Of those storms, 13 were hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or greater) and six were major hurricanes (top winds of 111 mph or greater). This season surpasses the previous record holder, 2005, which witnessed 28 storms and 15 named hurricanes, and marks only the second time in recorded history when meteorologists ran out of names before the season was over and had to resort to the Greek alphabet.
The 2020 season also forms part of a pattern that calls into question what even constitutes an "average" season. It is the fifth consecutive year with an above average hurricane season. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this year's record-breaking season was enhanced by La Nina, a global weather pattern that causes heavier storms in some areas and droughts in others. Research by climate scientists predicts that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the number of extreme weather events charged by La Nina and El Nino will likely rise as well.
Stronger hurricanes are also fueled by warmer air temperatures, which means the atmosphere can hold more rain, and by warmer ocean sea surface temperatures, which create the perfect conditions for hurricanes to grow stronger. While ocean winds often have something called vertical wind shear, which can essentially cut down a developing hurricane into smaller pieces before it can build into something dangerous, NOAA data shows that since the 1980s, vertical wind shear has become increasingly weaker in areas that are farther away from the equator, setting them up for stronger hurricanes.
Still, says Gabriel Vecchi, professor in High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University, the most remarkable part of 2020 is how rapidly storms have progressed from mild to dangerous. "Over the past few decades, since the 1980s, in the Atlantic and around the globe, the percentage of rapid intensifications has increased," Vecchi said.
Storms were able to become dangerous so quickly this year because of how warm the ocean was in many regions of the Atlantic and Caribbean. "The impact of long-term ocean warming on rapid intensification is a major reason for long-term increases in the fraction of hurricanes reaching the highest intensity levels," said Timothy M. Hall, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
A study led by James Kossin, an atmospheric research scientist at NOAA, and published in June 2020 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a significant increase of roughly 32 to 39 percent between 1979 and 2017 of hurricane intensities measured at Category 3 and higher compared with measurements at any intensity. Put differently, they found a 6 percent increase per decade of a hurricane reaching "major hurricane" status, that is, Category 3 or higher.
In the United States, Louisiana in particular bore the brunt of this year of storms. Five storms made landfall in the state--a new record. Hurricane Laura, which made landfall on August 26, was a Category 4. It struck Cameron (located between Houston and New Orleans on the coast) with 156 mph winds, destroying buildings and power infrastructure and inundating the region with a nine-to-12-foot storm surge. Six weeks later, on October 9, Category 2 Hurricane Delta hit just 20 miles east of where Laura had struck. Thousands of people were still living in shelters because their homes had been destroyed when Delta brought over-100-mph winds and over seven feet of storm surge.
Laura and Delta would have been much weaker if they had passed over a colder ocean on their way to Louisiana. "Both intensified rapidly over warm Gulf waters before Louisiana landfalls," Hall said. "Laura's intensification was especially rapid, and it occurred just prior to landfall." Hurricane Eta, which devastated parts of Nicaragua and Honduras, doubled in the 24 hours before it reached the coast.
The warmer air both hurricanes met on their journey to landfall also meant they caused more flooding. Hall said, "Hurricane winds blow over warm sea surface, causing evaporation of the seawater. The water vapor gets sucked high up in the storm, where it condenses and falls as rain." On average, says Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric sciences at Pennsylvania State University, atmospheric scientists expect to see a roughly 7 percent increase in moisture content for every 1 degree (Celsius) that air temperatures increase.
That extra rain causes problems even after the hurricane has left. Central America is still experiencing landslides due to the amount of rain following Category 5 Hurricane Iota, which dropped over 24 inches of rain on some regions of Nicaragua and Honduras when it arrived in mid-November. The earth was already saturated as a result of Category 4 Hurricane Eta, which hit the region earlier that month.
Eta and Iota also displayed another trend that climate change appears to be making worse--stalling. Like a party crasher who refused to leave, Eta stalled just off the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras, without moving on or dissipating. A study Hall and Timothy K. Kossin (NOAA) published in Nature in June 2019 found that the average forward speed of hurricanes in the North Atlantic had decreased by 17 percent between 1944 and 2017. This shift led Dorian to devastate the Bahamas in 2019, Florence to douse the Carolinas in 2018, and Harvey to inundate Houston in 2017.
"Hurricanes are 'steered' by large atmospheric wind patterns, something like a cork in a stream," said Hall. "There's good reason to think that the guiding wind patterns are becoming weaker and more prone to stagnating in a warming climate. . . . In fact, we do see an increasing percentage of hurricanes stalling in recent decades."
Signs of stalling are visible not only in hurricanes in the Atlantic but also in tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean, where the season began with Category 5 Cyclone Amphan, the strongest storm in the Bay of Bengal since 1999.
In late November, Cyclone Gati, a Category 2 storm, made landfall in Somalia--the first time a hurricane-strength storm made landfall in the country's history. In two days, Gati dropped the amount of rain that Somalia typically received in two years.
In the last days of November, Category 1 Cyclone Nivar formed in the Bay of Bengal and then struck Tamil Nadu and Chennai. It was the fourth storm in the region this year. The rains it brought, according to the Weather Channel India, were 188 percent above average between November 23 and 26. In November and December, this region was flooded by more rainfall than it usually receives in the monsoon season.
In the Pacific, the season was less active than the 2020 Atlantic season. (Typically, one region or the other is more intense.) Nonetheless, the Pacific experienced some intense storms marked by a similar pattern of rapid intensification. Vongfong (named Ambo in the Philippines) formed on May 10 and rapidly intensified into a Category 3 storm, hitting Samar Island, the third-largest island in the Philippines, on May 14, causing widespread flooding, washing out roads, and destroying crops.
In late October, Typhoon Goni (Rolly in the Philippines) rapidly intensified as a Category 5 storm struck Catanduanes Island in the Philippines, flooding buildings, bridges, and roads and destroying crops. Goni continued on, as a tropical depression, to Vietnam, where it also caused widespread flooding and landslides.
The rapid intensification of storms has made predicting disasters much harder, said Mann. "The hurricane forecasting models don't appear to capture rapid intensification episodes every well. It might be because of climate-change-related factors not in the models yet (for example, the penetration of heat further below the surface, which limits the churning up of cold waters that would otherwise slow or dampen development)."
"The net effect of this," said Mann, "is that it's hard to know days in advance just how much a hurricane will intensify before making landfall." Adds Vecchi, "It is a harder world to plan in. Either we will need to become better at forecasting or more nimble in responding."
As to what the meteorologists predict going forward, Kossin said, "the evidence continues to mount that hurricane behavior has changed over the past decades, and even the past century, and will continue to change over the next century as the climate continues to change. Globally, tropical cyclones are about 25 percent more likely to be at major-hurricane intensity now than four decades ago. The chances of rapid intensification in the 1980s was about one in 100 in the Atlantic. Nowadays, the chances are 1 in 20."
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Human Rights Groups Sound Warnings as Bangladesh Sends Rohingya Refugees to Low-Lying Silt Island
"The relocation of so many Rohingya refugees to a remote island, which is still off limits to everyone including rights groups and journalists without prior permission, poses grave concerns about independent human rights monitoring."
Dec 03, 2020
Human rights defenders this week urged Bangladesh to stop its relocation of Rohingya refugees to a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, warning of "grave concerns about independent human rights monitoring."
Bhashan Char, as BBC News previously reported, "emerged less than 20 years ago from the sea. Situated less than 2m (6ft) above sea level, the island is made entirely of silt, Himalayan sediment washed down river and into the sea."
With Bangladesh's main refugee camp, Cox's Bazar, overflowing, Bangladesh has controversially planned to move 100,000 Rohingya refugees there. Human rights groups say it will be akin to a "floating prison," where Rohingya will be forced to move involuntarily, despite humanitarian watchdogs having been blocked from assessing the safety of the conditions.
According to Reuters, Bangladesh--which asserts the relocations are happening with consent--brought roughly 1,600 Rohingya refugees to the island Friday. From Reuters:
On the mainland on Thursday, before the departure, two Rohingya told Reuters their names had appeared on lists compiled by government-appointed local leaders without their consent.
"They have taken us here forcefully," a 31-year-old man told Reuters tearfully by phone as he boarded a bus that he said was taking him from the camps near Cox's Bazar to Chittagong.
"Three days ago, when I heard that my family is on the list, I ran away from the block, but yesterday I was caught and taken here," he said.
Apart from concerns about the refugees' lack of consent to relocate and lack of verification from United Nations authorities that the island has adequate healthcare, housing, and safety measures in place, the island's high risk of flooding has prompted further warnings
"Bangladesh's announced plan to begin relocating Rohingya refugees this week to Bhasan Char--an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal--is short-sighted and inhumane," Refugees International senior advocate for human rights Daniel Sullivan said in a statement Wednesday.
The "cyclone season in the Bay of Bengal is still ongoing," added Sullivan. "As the devastation wrought by Cyclone Amphan demonstrated this summer, super cyclones are the way of the future, and conditions on the isolated island may be too dangerous for the Rohingya."
Amnesty International's South Asia campaigner, Saad Hammadi, sounded similar alarms in a statement Thursday.
"The relocation of so many Rohingya refugees to a remote island, " said Hammadi, "which is still off limits to everyone including rights groups and journalists without prior permission, poses grave concerns about independent human rights monitoring."
"No relocation plan, either to Bhashan Char or to another location, can be undertaken without the full and informed consent of the individuals involved," Hammadi added.
Human Rights Watch also has criticized the relocations, and in a Thursday statement shared ominous accounts from refugees.
"I have no idea how my name appeared there, but I never voluntarily put my name on that list," one refugee said, according to the rights group.
"I only learned I was on the list after the camp-in-charge [camp authority or CiC] called me to his office and told me. After that, I fled from my shelter. I am hearing now that the CiC volunteers and majhis (community leaders) are looking for me and my family. I am afraid that if they find me, they will force me to go," said the refugee.
Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director, accused the Bangladesh government of "actively reneging on its promise to the U.N. not to relocate any refugees to Bhasan Char island until humanitarian experts give a green light."
"If the government were genuinely confident in the habitability of the island," said Adams, "they would be transparent and not hastily circumvent U.N. technical assessments."
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Cyclone Amphan Is a Warning for the United States
The storm ravaged India and Bangladesh all the worse because of social and economic inequality. The same, or worse, could happen here.
Jun 21, 2020
In the march of the news cycle in U.S. media, the devastation of Cyclone Amphan in Bangladesh and Eastern India is all but forgotten. But the several million people who live there, and those of us with ancestral ties to the region, don't have the luxury of forgetting.
Neither, really, should anyone else. The story of Amphan -- including the surprising successes of the response as well as the horrors and the underlying causes -- hold very important lessons for everyone, including here in the United States.
Cyclone Amphan lashed Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal with 165 kph (105 mph) winds and a 5-meter (15 ft.) storm surge. Almost 100 people lost their lives in India, and another 26 in Bangladesh. According to the UN, 10 million people in Bangladesh were directly affected and 500,000 families were left homeless. On the Indian side, the Chief Minister of West Bengal estimated the damage in her state to be $13 billion.
The Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, bore the brunt of the storm. Local residents, who are poor to begin with, had their livelihoods devastated, with farmlands submerged in salt water and homes destroyed.
Kolkata, a city of 15 million (and my birthplace), was severely hit as well. Power lines went down, leading to deaths from electrocution and prolonged blackouts affecting millions. Thousands of trees were downed, killing people and blocking streets. As with any disaster, the poor were most affected, with many of the city's numerous shantytowns devastated.
Saving Lives Takes Will and Planning
Tragic as the death toll is, it could have been much worse. Both the Bangladesh and West Bengal governments acted swiftly and successfully to evacuate large numbers of people -- about 2 million and 1 million people, respectively, from each place.
There's a very important lesson here. The death toll from Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast was more than 1,800. Hurricane Maria killed about 3,000 people in Puerto Rico. Yet the respective per capitas GDP of the U.S., India, and Bangladesh are almost $63,000, just above $2,000, and less than $1,700.
Evidently, saving lives doesn't take a whole lot of resources. It takes planning, preparation, and will.
A representative of the World Meteorological Organization referred to the mobilization for the cyclone in the South Asian countries as "a textbook example of how it should be done." (A caveat -- while the evacuation planning by governments on both sides of the border was indeed commendable, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they're somehow progressive and egalitarian. They're not. More on that later.)
The question for us in the U.S. is, will we let go of our arrogant presumption that we have nothing to learn from other countries -- with an added layer of racism if the countries are majority non-white?
Inequalities of Responsibility
Next, let's ask what made such a severe storm more likely in the first place.
Bay of Bengal cyclones aren't a new phenomenon. But, just as with violent storms worldwide, they've become more severe because of the warming of our planet. Climatologists are attributing the intensification of Amphan to a warming Bay of Bengal.
As with much else in our world, not everyone is equally responsible.
India and Bangladesh have respective per capita carbon dioxide emissions of 1.7 and 0.5 kilotons, compared to 16.5 for the U.S. and an outrageous 43.9 for the oil-rich nation of Qatar.
Looking at cumulative historic emissions makes the inequalities even more stark. The U.S. alone is responsible for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions since 1751, which is more than the 28 countries of the European Union combined. This compares to 3 percent for India, and a negligible number for Bangladesh. And science says that cumulative emissions do matter. Changes in carbon dioxide concentration, in particular, can persist in the atmosphere for "thousands of years."
Transferring resources from Northern countries to the Global South to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate should not be seen as charity, but as a form of reparations.The conclusion? Rich Northern countries have a disproportionate share of the blame for the climate crisis, and countries in the Global South bear a disproportionate burden. Transferring resources from Northern countries to the Global South to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate should not be seen as charity, but as a form of reparations.
Remember that next time you hear sociopathic demagogues from rich countries ranting about how they don't want to squander money on climate action in poor countries.
Just in case you thought only one political party was to blame for America's climate criminality, recall that past Democratic administrations in the U.S. have also dragged their feet on climate action. The Obama administration is often credited with "leadership" on global climate action, specifically for its role in the Paris climate accord. However, pressure from the U.S. contributed to the Paris accord being non-binding (and consequently, toothless).
A more honest assessment of the Paris accord would be that the U.S. sabotaged it, not that it helped usher it in. The explosive growth in U.S. oil and gas production during the Obama years is still more evidence of the Obama administration's climate hypocrisy.
Inequalities of Burden
These North-South inequalities are a correct -- but not a complete -- picture. They don't take into account the grotesque inequalities of wealth and power within Global South countries.
The share of India's national income going to the top 1 percent reached a low of 6 percent in 1982, a pretty steep decline from the 20 percent level in the 1930s during British colonial rule. But then it started rising again, reaching even higher levels than in colonial times. Since the implementation of neoliberal economic "reforms" imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the early 1990s, the increase has been steady.
Even more alarmingly, the first two decades of accelerated neoliberalism saw the share of income going to the bottom half of the income distribution steadily falling, and now the top 1 percent earn more than the entire bottom half of the income distribution.
None of this was inevitable. It was the result of conscious political choices embraced by the Indian elite to restructure India's economy for their own benefit at the expense of the majority of Indians.
Neighboring Bangladesh has its own story of growing inequality, with the share of national income captured by the top 10 percent growing from 21 percent to 27 percent between 1984 and 2010, and the share of the bottom 10 percent decreasing from just above to just below 4 percent.
This matters a lot in the context of disasters such as Amphan. The poorer people are, the more vulnerable they are when disasters hit, and the less resources they have to rebuild their lives. And in highly unequal societies, the less political clout they have to demand governmental assistance.
We're already seeing evidence of this in post-Amphan India. Impoverished residents of the Sundarbans are complaining of the failure of local governments to distribute food. Landless peasants are guessing, based on their experience with past disasters, that their landlords will get all the government relief funds when they're eventually distributed.
Social Repression
In India in particular, the widening economic chasm between the haves and the have-nots is happening against a historical backdrop of deep-seated social inequalities based on factors such as caste and religion.
Dalits, who are lowest in the Hindu caste hierarchy, have faced centuries of apartheid that persists today. Adivasis, or Indigenous peoples, are routinely displaced and dispossessed for the benefit of extractive industries. Both Dalits and Adivasis are significantly poorer on average than higher caste Hindus. And both communities routinely face vigilante violence as well as state repression when they assert their rights.
The Muslim community is the prime target for state-sanctioned violence in India. India's current fascist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government (yes, the term is accurate) is rooted in political formations whose foundational agenda is Islamophobia. True to form, the BJP has pursued an unabashedly anti-Muslim agenda in power, through state policy and open incitement of vigilante violence.
This is the broader political context in which Amphan struck India. It will require vigilance and struggle to ensure that Muslims, Dalits, and Adivasis aren't discriminated against in the recovery process, or worse still, criminalized and targeted for removal and violence.
Once again, there's much for us in the U.S. to learn from the Indian context.
We also live in a deeply unequal and repressive society, where law enforcement officers routinely murder black and brown people with impunity. We haven't reached full-blown fascism yet, though there have been indications over the last several years that we're on our way down that road, and recent developments that are even more alarming. We need an urgent course correction to ensure we don't become like India during Narendra Modi's second term in office.
A Teachable Moment for the U.S.
We must reverse course domestically on economic policies that have made a few people fabulously wealthy at the expense of everyone else.There are clear takeaways for us in the U.S. from the South Asian disaster and its context.
First, we need to prioritize and put resources into responding to disasters with compassion and justice, following the lead of affected communities. If Global South countries with far less resources than the U.S. can save more lives in disasters, clearly it can be done.
Second, we need to address our vastly unequal contribution to climate chaos by cutting our own emissions and fossil fuel production, with a just transition for communities and workers. We need to contribute our fair share to addressing climate change in poor countries, accounting for our high per capita and cumulative emissions and our relative wealth. And we need to drop the hubristic notion of "American leadership," opting instead to work in good faith as an equal partner with other countries to negotiate a strong, binding international agreement on climate change.
Even as we step up on issues of global equity, we must reverse course domestically on economic policies that have made a few people fabulously wealthy at the expense of everyone else. My Institute for Policy Studies colleagues and numerous other experts have developed policy prescriptions to do that.
Most urgently, we have to reverse our slide into fascism. And we can't do that without confronting longstanding white supremacy, as large numbers of people across the country are demanding right now.
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'Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm' Amphan Barrels Towards India, Bangladesh
Meteorologists say there's "catastrophic storm surge potential."
May 19, 2020
India and Bangladesh are facing "catastrophic storm surge potential" from Cyclone Amphan as the major storm triggers mass evacuations a day before it's expected to make landfall on the Bengal coast.
The India Meteorological Department classified Amphan on Tuesday as an "extremely severe cyclonic storm" that would likely carry maximum sustained wind speeds of 155-165 kilometers per hour gusting to 185 kmp when the cyclone hits India's West Bengal state and Bangladesh.
The storm has weakened since Monday night when it was recorded as the Bay of Bengal's strongest ever storm, packing sustained winds of 270 kilometers per hour (165 miles per hours). Meteorologist Eric Holthaus warned Tuesday morning that Amphan could still bring major damage.
"This storm is deadly serious," Holthaus tweeted.
"Amphan will likely make landfall as a Category 2 equivalent, perhaps a Category 3," meteorologist Bob Henson wrote Tuesday. "Nevertheless, a major storm surge is almost certain given the storm's trajectory and the geography of the Bay of Bengal."
Henson explained further:
Although Amphan's high winds will wreak havoc, and its torrential rainfall will cause inland flooding--a major concern in itself, given the storm's vast envelope of moisture--the most serious threat posed by Amphan is potentially catastrophic storm surge. Even if Amphan's top winds weaken further, the storm surge threat will likely remain extreme. Amphan is a large cyclone that is already pushing a tremendous amount of water northward into the Bay of Bengal, which exerts a funneling effect on northward-moving cyclones. There is a great deal of momentum in the water pushed by large, powerful storms when their peak winds weaken but their overall wind fields expand, as evidenced by 2008's Hurricane Ike in Texas and 2012's Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York.
Compounding the difficulties of keeping people safe during evacuations is the ongoing threat of Covid-19. From BBC News:
This time round there is the coronavirus pandemic to contend with too--social distancing protocols to curb the spread of infection mean more shelters are needed, and thousands of migrant workers displaced by lockdown restrictions in India are on the move, many heading by foot to coastal villages.
Preparations to shelter millions in Bangladesh are already underway, the Associated Press reports:
Authorities in Bangladesh warned that the cyclone could flood vast swaths of southwestern and southern areas. Junior Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Enamur Rahman said evacuations had begun in the southwest, where residents of Satkhira district, which was devastated by a 2009 cyclone, will be moved to shelters.
Rahman said he ordered local authorities to prepare thousands of shelters and makeshift structures to protect more than 5 million people before the cyclone crosses the region.
Amphan is the second ever recorded super cyclone to hit the Bay of Bengal. The other, the Odisha Cyclone, struck in 1999.
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Over a Million Forced to Evacuate as 'Potentially Catastrophic' Cyclone Fani Makes Landfall in India
Tens of millions of people are in the path of the storm, which was described as "one of the strongest landfalling cyclones in the country's recorded history."
May 03, 2019
A storm that meteorologist Eric Holthaus characterized as "one of the strongest" cyclones in India's recorded history made landfall on Friday amid warnings of "potentially catastrophic" wind, rain, and ocean surges.
Over a million people were reportedly forced to evacuate Thursday as Cyclone Fani--classified as the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane--hurtled toward India. Tens of millions of people are in the path of the massive storm.
"Meteorologists are calling the storm a near-worst-case scenario for coastal zones, as it will push an enormous storm surge inland, inundating homes, roads, and businesses near sea level--not just in eastern India but potentially also north into Bangladesh," the Washington Post reported. "This low-lying stretch of coast along the Bay of Bengal is one of the most vulnerable to storm surge in the world."
this is something scary effect of fani...
stey safe averyone #Odisha #CycloneFani pic.twitter.com/13XE8kHM8p-- lipun_12o8 (@Iamlipunk) May 3, 2019
Bishnupada Sethi, special relief commissioner for the Indian state of Odisha, told Al Jazeera that at least two people have died since the storm made landfall Friday.
Oxfam India, which is helping deliver emergency relief in response to Cyclone Fani, said the storm has already "wreaked havoc in the state of Odisha."
"Heavy rainfall and high-speed winds have destroyed livelihoods leaving families in urgent need of help," the group wrote. "They are in urgent need of safe drinking water, medical and hygiene supplies, food, and long-term recovery and rehabilitation support to cope with the disaster."
Bimal Pandia, an officer with Oxfam, told The Guardian Friday morning that the storm is "quite serious now; the wind is blowing at between 120 and 150km/hour."
Many trees have been uprooted outside our house," Pandia said, "but since we are not able to venture outside it's difficult to tell the damage."
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India Opens Largest Nuclear Plant on Tsunami-Exposed Coast, Defying Mass Protests
Local residents worried Fukushima-style disaster could wreak havoc on people and environment
Oct 22, 2013
Despite years of opposition and protest from local residents, India opened its largest nuclear power plant on Tuesday in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu on a stretch of coast slammed by a 2004 tsunami.
The joint Indo-Russian Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant opened at the tail-end of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Russia. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., which, according to Bloomberg, is the country's only atomic energy producer, started up part of one of its reactors worth $2.84 billion on Tuesday.
The opening moved forward despite a thousands-strong protest over the weekend in which over 200 people were arrested.
The plant, which was planned in 1988 and started undergoing construction in 1997, has faced a series of delays due to protests from local communities concerned that it will ruin the Bay of Bengal ecosystem and devastate the local fishing economy, AsiaNews reports.
Protests increased in intensity and regularity following the tsunami-sparked meltdown and ongoing disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
To mark the second anniversary of the Fukushima meltdown in March 2013, 600 boats filled with 4,000 workers in the fishing industry waved black flags in the sea behind the Kudankulam plant.
Despite widespread concerns, Singh has vowed to drastically expand nuclear power in India.
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India Must Rename Cyclone Phailin and Call Attention to Global Warming
Oct 11, 2013
Last month I wrote two articles (here, here), gave an interview to The Real News Network (here), and an interview to Uprising Radio (here) about the devastating floods in Colorado. With Boulder as its epicenter, the floods damaged more than 2,000 squares miles along the Colorado Front Range--from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. Ten people were killed, nearly 18,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, hundreds of miles of road were washed out, and thousands of oil and gas wells flooded resulting in environmental contamination from toxic fracking fluids and nearly 40,000 gallons of spilled oil. Boulder got nearly its annual average rainfall in just five days, and it happened at a wrong time--September, not July/August, when rain usually falls in the desert southwest.
My main contribution was to raise the noise level that the corporate media had failed miserably in its reporting of the Colorado floods. Not a single journalist had raised the question on corporate TV: Did global warming play a part in causing or intensifying the Colorado floods?
Bamboozled by the lure of technology, humans have become deeply amnesic. We forget a tragedy soon after the corporate media stops reporting on a particular catastrophe. In a globally warmed Earth, however, before amnesia sets in, the next assault arrives.
This morning I woke up to the news of super cyclone Phailin in the Bay of Bengal that will make landfall tomorrow in the east coast of India. "Odisha and Andhra Pradesh braced for the "very severe" cyclone [Phailin] that is expected to hit the east coast with winds gusting up to 220 kmph [136 mph] tomorrow evening, as lakhs [1 lakh=100,000] of people were being evacuated to safer places and the military kept on standby," The Hindu reports.
I had lived in the American southwest for eleven years, and I was born and grew up in Bengal. So, the recent Colorado floods and the super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal are personal.
There are already many news articles on the India cyclone that you can read: The Hindu here, Times of India here, India Today here, BBC here, Washington Post here. I won't go into the details; instead, I'll focus on bringing attention to two things: naming and blaming.
Apparently Phailin was named by Thailand and it means sapphire in Thai. What nonsense. Some humans do desire the precious stone, but no one, I'd think, is desiring Phailin. India should rename this meaningless obfuscation and call attention to global warming immediately.
There was also some confusion about whether this is a 'cyclone' or a 'super cyclone'. On Thursday the India Meteorological Department had "indicated that the wind speed would be limited to 185 kmph." But now the forecast is at 220 kmph, and the US Navy has indicated that the "wind speed will be above 240 kmph." So before the cyclone makes a landfall, it will turn into a deadly super cyclone--yet another example of extreme weather event.
The India Today has posted a very useful article "What is a super cyclone?" The article gives an excellent explanation of the 1999 Odisha super cyclone, also known as Cyclone 05B. "It struck the coast of Odisha with a height of [ocean water] 26 feet (8 meters). Approximately 275,000 homes were destroyed leaving 1.67 million people homeless. Another 19.5 million people were affected by the super cyclone to some degree. A total of 9,803 people officially died from the storm. Though it is believed that 15,000 people died," the India Today reports. The article also mentions how the rescue operation proceeded. By placing this article in the context of the impending super cyclone in the exact same landscape, journalists in India are doing a better job than how the Colorado floods were reported last month. But it could be better, it needs to better, and make an explicit connection to global warming.
India Today explained: "Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy from the evaporation of water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation." There is our clue--connection of the impending super cyclone with global warming. All the articles I have come across on the impending Bay of Bengal cyclone, however, avoided using the phrase--global warming.
The anthropogenic global warming caused by accumulation of greenhouse gases is making the oceans warmer, which in turn is causing more frequent and more intense cyclones/hurricanes and floods.
The UN IPCC Fifth Assessment Report's (AR5) first part, the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), was released two weeks ago. More than a 1,000 scientists from all over the world contributed to the report, and the team worked for six years. The SPM was approved by 190 nations. All that means that the IPCC AR5 is a conservative estimate of global warming. The reality will likely be worse than what the IPCC is saying.
Having said all that, the IPCC reports states: "Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0-700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010..."
India-based Dr. Rajendra Pachauri has been, since 2002, the chairperson of IPCC, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. I'd urge Dr. Pachauri to go on TV and explain the anthropogenic warming of oceans and its relevance to the impending super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal that will undoubtedly bring massive deaths--humans and nonhuman species--and devastation.
India must rename Phailin and connect the impending super cyclone to global warming.
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India Bracing for Potentially Catastrophic Cyclone Phailin
Developing...
India is bracing for "very severe" Cyclone Phailin, a potentially catastrophic storm now barreling across the Bay of Bengal, threatening the safety of millions.
Oct 11, 2013
Developing...
India is bracing for "very severe" Cyclone Phailin, a potentially catastrophic storm now barreling across the Bay of Bengal, threatening the safety of millions.
Tens of thousands of people in the eastern states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha (also referred to as Orissa) are being evacuated in preparation for the rapidly intensifying storm that has grown to half the size of India.
Winds are currently gusting as high as 190 miles per hour, and meteorologist Eric Holthaus warns that Phailin already officially reached Category 5 status. He adds:
Should the storm maintain its current strength--or strengthen even further--India could be facing a true catastrophe. A worst case scenario would have Phailin tracking slightly eastward of its current forecasted track, toward Kolkata and the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh, which is home to tens of millions of people living just a few meters above sea level.
The Indian Meteorological Department predicts Phailin will make landfall on Saturday evening, bringing with it up to 140 mile per hour winds, as much as 10 inches of rain, and storm surges of about 10 feet above normal tides, though climatologist and storm surge expert Hal Needham warns that
Phailin has the potential to generate a surge at least 6 meters (20 feet) high. This surge height would be comparable to the storm surge generated by the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. This storm devastated Galveston Island, Texas, killing between 6,000 and 8,000 people in the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters reports that "Phailin is likely to be the strongest tropical cyclone to affect India in fourteen years, since the great 1999 Odisha Cyclone" that killed over 10,000 people.
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