213. Climate Change

Climate change is a long-term shift in average temperature, rainfall, humidity, sea level, snow cover, wind circulation and the frequency of extreme events. The scientific core is the enhanced greenhouse effect. Solar radiation enters the Earth system mostly as short-wave energy; the surface emits long-wave infrared radiation; greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and fluorinated gases absorb part of that outgoing heat and re-radiate it. Without a natural greenhouse effect, Earth would be far colder, but human-driven emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, cement manufacture, deforestation, paddy fields, livestock, fertilisers, landfills and industrial gases have strengthened the heat trap. The UNFCCC uses the phrase greenhouse gases and climate system because warming is not just a thermometer change; it alters oceans, cryosphere, monsoon circulation, ecosystems, agriculture, human health and disaster risk. For Rajasthan, this distinction matters immediately. Heat waves in Rajasthan expose workers, schoolchildren, livestock and urban poor to heat stress, while the Thar Desert makes the link between high temperature, evaporation and water scarcity visible. The same carbon dioxide molecule emitted from a coal plant, vehicle or kiln mixes globally, but vulnerability is local: a desert district with falling groundwater, sparse vegetation and informal outdoor labour experiences climate risk differently from a coastal district.