1st or 3rd world, no discrimination here

You'd think natural calamities like floods won't leave death and destruction in their wake in the First World. Well, as the flash floods that have devastated Texas, killing more than 100 and leaving dozens, including children, missing, climate-induced natural disasters are a great leveller. More used to such tragedies occurring in our part of the world, the flash floods and landslides claiming almost 80 lives, with dozens missing, in Himachal Pradesh have been no less tragic. But the two disaster zones separated by thousands of miles have the same problems: geography, 'unnatural' rainfall, and unhelpful human intervention and lack of preparedness. And, yet, many governments like the US are deprioritising climate change, heralding what the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change calls the 'Apathy Era'. The Trump regime has drastically reduced funding for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and wants to 'eliminate' the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

While nature's fury does not discriminate between rich, not-so-rich and poor nations, costs are far higher for developing countries. Even so, building resilience and minimising losses from climate-induced extreme weather events has now become a concern for the developed world as well. The sequence of events leading to the Texas floods is eerily familiar - a slow-moving storm bringing intense rainfall, overwhelming riverbanks, and inundating small towns with water that rose faster than many could escape.

No country can afford to disregard climate risk in its economic and policy calculus. Strengthening infra and integrating climate risk into planning and construction, improving weather forecasting, and investing in robust early warning systems are critical.