India to soon have a national climate change mitigation programme
Two secretaries of the government on Thursday assured that India will soon have a national climate change mitigation programme, reports Chetan Chauhan.
Two secretaries of the government on Thursday assured that India will soon have a national climate change mitigation programme, for which, the work has already begin.
The announcement by Dr PS Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences and Dr T Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology was made in the presence of Dr RK Pachauri.
He heads the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that predicted a gloomy future for the entire world because of faster rate of climate change.
Goel said the government is looking at a pan-India approach by asking scientists from different fields to prepare a 'national plan' for climate change mitigation.
"Scientists from all over the country will formulate the new plan," he told HT, clarifying it was too early to given details of the proposed plan.
Ramasami said his department has sought five times increase in allocation for research project on climate change impact and environment friendly technologies. "I believe there would be a significant increase of allocation in the budget," he said, while refusing to divulge the figure asked from the Planning Commission. He, however, said the government has selected seven key areas including renewable energy, clean technologies and solar power for new research projects.
The threat of global warming on receding Himalayan glaciers has apparently prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to direct the Department Science and Technology to open a new institute for research on glaciers. "We are looking into the proposal," Ramasami replied, when asked about the fate of the directive. But, was quick to add, that no one can imagine Ganga turning into a seasonal river because of receding glaciers.
The Earth Sciences ministry is working on setting up an Institute for Environment Technology. The mandate of the institute would be to develop environment friendly technologies in collaboration with many partners like European Union. The government on Wednesday signed a 500 million Indo-EU environment framework with the union. "Scientists from both the countries will work under the framework," Ramasami said.
Earlier, Peteri Taalas of World Meteorological Organisation and Pachauri gave elaborate presentations on the possible impact of global warming on Indian economy, especially on agriculture. Taalas said that temperature is expected to increase by four to five degrees by the end of century resulting in substantial decrease in rainfall and many glaciers going missing from Himalayas. West India will face more drought, whereas floods would be rampant in northern and eastern India, he said.
Pachauri added that his institute (TERI) and Finnish Meteorological Institute would soon conduct a study to examine the cost wise impact of climate change in different parts of the country and on India's economy.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
