India Monsoon Cahnge Danger Ahead

Greenpeace calls on world leaders to act on climate change and save the Indian Monsoon

Mumbai, India, 4 June, 2009: The Indian monsoon – the lifeline of the subcontinent - will be significantly affected by climate change, according to a Greenpeace report released on the eve of World Environment Day. As negotiators in Bonn try to revive stalled negotiations on a Climate Treaty, Greenpeace activists in India hung an 80-foot banner from the Mumbai-Thane bridge with the message “Dr Manmohan Singh, Save our Monsoon” to the Indian Prime Minister.

If the current negotiation text (including President Obama’s target of bringing the US emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020) becomes the final deal, global temperature will more than likely rise 3°C(3). A rise of 3° by the end of the century could have, among other things, the following impacts(4):

• 1.2 – 3 billion people suffering from water shortage;
• Increasing desertification in southern Europe and more heat waves as in the summer of 2003
• Stronger cyclones and hurricanes, like cyclone Aila last month and Hurricane Katrina in 2005
• Increased global sea-level rise which could threaten major urban centers like New York, Shanghai, and Hamburg
• 125 million displaced people in South Asia (5).