With climate change posing a serious threat to Himachal Pradesh’s development path, the first UNDP Himachal Pradesh Human Development Report 2025 has issued a stark warning about a potential temperature rise of up to three percent by 2050, accompanied by extreme rainfall and accelerated glacial melting.
The report highlights multiple indicators of climate change, including a 1.5°C decrease in temperature since 1901, unpredictable monsoons, cloudbursts, heatwaves, and seasonal shifts. It also notes that the state has incurred losses worth Rs 46,000 crore over the past five years due to extreme weather events. Alarmingly, the number of forest fire alerts jumped from 714 in the summer of 2022-23 to over 10,000 in 2023-24.
The findings further reveal that 70 percent of Himachal’s traditional water sources are at risk. The report evaluates the state’s progress and vulnerabilities across five key sectors — agriculture, water and forestry, construction and tourism, health, and climate finance and governance.
Himachal is among the top five states in the country on the SDG India Index 2023-24 besides being a consistently high performer state. Himachal’s Human Development Index (HDI) at 0.78 is also higher than the national average of 0.63.
“Himachal has made important strides in mainstreaming climate action into state’s policies but it is imperative to deepen the integration of resilience, inclusivity and sustainability into state’s development journey,” the report says.
The report highlights that tourism, which contributes 7.8 per cent to the GSDP, is facing growing risk from declining snowfall and extreme weather events which reduce tourist inflow and threaten hospitality dependent livelihoods. It points towards increasing use of diesel vehicle in construction and tourism despite rising diesel prices.
Another cause of concern is the observation made on unregulated tourism and construction activities which are resulting in deforestation, accelerated glacial melt, disruption of water cycles and threatening fragile mountain ecosystems.
Construction and tourism are the fastest growing sectors in the state’s economy with construction accounting for 11.5 per cent and tourism 14 per cent of total employment. Unregulated tourism infrastructure is contributing to pollution, waste accumulation. It has also been pointed out that environment degradation is compounded by hydropower expansion and inadequate urban planning.
The report highlights that climate change is reshaping Himachal’s health landscape with new patterns of vector and water borne disease, including dengue, diarrhoea and typhoid emerging.
The report recommends phasing out subsidies for polluting sectors and embedding climate priorities in state budgeting for aligning financial flow with low carbon and climate resilient development.
Source: Shafaqna India