E-Paper
Unequal geography of the climate crisis
This article is authored by Preksha Shree Chhetri, former consultant, G20 Secretariat and research associate, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.
As Darjeeling town rejoiced in the homecoming of friends, family, soldiers, and students who return once a year to celebrate Dasai (Dusshera), disaster struck. Families were wiped out in one of the most devastating landslides the region has seen. Instead of waking up to warm cups of Darjeeling tea amidst laughter and music, the morning of October 4 saw residents digging through debris to recover the bodies of loved ones.
But why Darjeeling? Why is it that whenever a climate crisis strikes, it is people who have contributed the least to global warming who bear the brunt? While the entire planet experiences the consequences of climate change, the burden is not distributed equally. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the top 10% of income households--primarily in developed economies--are responsible for over 45% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, while the bottom 50% account for barely 15%. Within this global inequality, the hills and rural communities of India represent the poorest of the poor in carbon terms. Their low-consumption lifestyles, relying on shared transport, local produce, and minimal energy use stand in stark contrast to the hyper-consumptive patterns that fuel the climate crisis.
Communities that contribute the least to global greenhouse gas emissions such as those in the Himalayan hills, tea gardens, and rural peripheries bear the disproportionate costs of a climate emergency created elsewhere. The recent Darjeeling disaster is not merely a local tragedy; it is a global indictment of the world’s moral geography of emissions.
The Global North’s consumption and industrial model drives the climate crisis, while the Global South absorbs ecological shocks. Yet even within the Global South, regions like Darjeeling are internal peripheries doubly neglected by both global and national systems of power. Mountain regions face an asymmetric vulnerability: fragile topography, colonial-era infrastructure, and poor state presence combine to create disasters waiting to happen. The steep slopes that make Darjeeling so scenic are also its curse when rainfall intensifies under a changing climate.
Contrast this with urban India. Cities have the resources and institutional capacity to adapt such as early warning systems, stormwater drains, and emergency protocols. In the hills, a night of unseasonal rain can erase entire neighbourhoods. Roads are narrow and often blocked, drains are clogged or non-existent, and informal housing on slopes turns deadly in minutes. Decades of neglect, unplanned construction, and political apathy have left these regions exposed. In the hills the residents are victims not just of nature, but of governance failure.
Each time disaster strikes, governments rush to announce compensation, relief funds, and temporary rehabilitation. But disaster management cannot begin after the disaster. The true test of state responsibility lies in its ability to anticipate, research, and prevent such calamities. That requires something the government has historically failed to do for the hills: Invest in understanding them.
There is remarkably little sustained research on the ecological and geological dynamics of Darjeeling and the Eastern Himalayas – on soil stability, drainage patterns, or the long-term consequences of unregulated construction. Without such knowledge, policymaking remains reactive rather than preventive. Investment in mountain research must be seen not as an academic luxury but as an essential part of disaster governance. The government must know the terrain it governs, the vulnerabilities it presides over, and the people it so readily forgets between one tragedy and the next.
Darjeeling is not an unknown territory to the Indian imagination. Climate-resilient governance here must go beyond road repairs and relief announcements. It must include sustained monitoring, spatial planning, and environmental education that make the region part of India’s climate policy.
It is time to ask the uncomfortable question: Why must those who emit the least pay with their lives, while those who emit the most debate mitigation in air-conditioned conference halls? This paradox sits at the heart of climate injustice. The carbon footprint of a Darjeeling household is negligible compared to that of a family in New York, London, or even Delhi. Yet, when the rains come unseasonably heavy or the glaciers melt too fast, it is the fragile slopes of the Himalayas that crumble, not the concrete comfort of urban high-rises.
Addressing this injustice requires more than sympathy, it demands mountain-sensitive climate governance. India’s climate policies must move beyond national averages to account for microregions like Darjeeling, Kalimpong, or Sikkim that face disproportionate risks. Adaptation plans must include investments in slope stabilisation, drainage management, and climate-resilient housing. But above all, they must be informed by research and data. A government that does not understand the land cannot protect it. The absence of region-specific knowledge has become a silent accomplice in every landslide.
The hills are not asking for charity; they are asking for recognition--recognition that their carbon innocence does not absolve the world of its responsibility, and that climate adaptation in India cannot be uniform across its vastly uneven geography. What happened in Darjeeling is not a local tragedy but a global indictment.
This article is authored by Preksha Shree Chhetri, former consultant, G20 Secretariat and research associate, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.
