Summary

Nature Based Solutions have rapidly gained traction as quality carbon removals with co-benefits to biodiversity and society.

However, forestry and other Nature Based Solutions projects face significant permanence risks from forest fires and pest attacks.

As much as 20% of carbon credits are held back at issuance time from forestry and other land-use-based projects to a buffer pool by registries as an insurance mechanism against these risks.

Climate Connect identifies forest fires as a major risk theme for carbon markets and has

• Organised research indicates that changing climatic trends will increase the likelihood of forest fires
• Developed tools which enable near real-time monitoring of forest fires in areas of interest and generate actionable alerts

This White Paper presents the findings relating to rainfall, temperature, and forest fire trends over the past seven, four and two decades, respectively in India. The Paper also captures future projections for temperature and rainfall over India till 2100. The key finding has been that the temperature rise in Central India is 1 degree Celsius higher as compared to the global average temperature increase. The research also found that forest fires have increased in Central and South India over the past two decades.

These findings have important implications for Nature-Based Solutions projects in the Indian region and make a case for similar research in other parts of the world. Given the past trends and future climatic projections, forest fires are expected to increase in frequency. Hence, project developers should factor this in for future Nature Based Solutions projects in India and probably in South Asia. Software and satellite-based monitoring of forests have an important role to play in early response to reduce the loss of carbon from Nature-Based Solutions.

Introduction

The Earth’s climate has never been constant in its history; it has changed since the beginning. But the scale of these changes is of the order of thousands of years. However, anthropogenic changes, which have been evident in recent decades, are rapid and alarming. The increase of greenhouse gases generated by human activities has caused the global temperature to rise by more than 1° C since the pre-industrial period [1]. If the emissions continue at the current rates, it will lead to a temperature rise in the range of 3-5°C at the end of this century [6,7]. There are many balances in the climate system which are being disturbed by human-induced impacts. Climate change is not only associated with global temperature increase. Still, it is also linked with a significant change in rainfall patterns, an increase in the heat waves, drought, and increasing frequency and intensity of cyclones [2].

Global climate change can be directly linked to increased anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, the local climate changes are much more complex and hence need a more detailed analysis of numerous factors. As in the case of India, there are six major climatic subtypes based on the Köppen climate classification. Hence the local changes and their impacts can be quite complex. India’s average temperature has increased by about 0.7°C in the past century. Under the RCP 8.5 climate scenario, it is likely to rise more than 4°C relative to the period 1976-2005 by the end of this century [3]. Along with the average temperature occurrence of warm days and warm nights, the frequency of heat waves is also projected to rise in the same scenario. Indian monsoon rainfall has declined significantly from 1951-2015 over the Indo-Gangetic plains and western ghats.

The impact of climate change on forest ecosystems is noticed through compound events acting together, such as

i) Increasing length and intensity of heat waves during pre-monsoon season. [3]

ii) Changing rainfall patterns in terms of altering the distribution of wet and dry spells [5].

The persistence of high temperatures leads to heat waves and crop failure, which in turn leads to more burden on forests. Forest fires are supported by heat waves, i.e., higher temperatures, less rainfall, and less humid conditions. This study attempts to understand the impact of climate change on India by studying the change in patterns of precipitation, temperature and forest fires in the recent past and future projections till the end of the century. The main objective of the study is to understand the changing pattern of rainfall in terms of dry and wet episodes and its relationship with the forest fire for the pre-monsoon and monsoon periods.

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