Despite being a global leader in clean defence mechanism (CDM) projects, India appears to be attracting very little foreign money or technology in the sector.

The fact is majority of CDM projects, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat imminent climate change and its fall-outs on economy, livelihood and food security of the world, are largely sourced from Indian money and technology.

The broad scientific consensus today is that human-induced climate change is taking place at a significant rate, posing a substantial threat to global development efforts. These risks could undermine gains in agriculture, health and infrastructure, impeding India’s progress towards meeting millennium developmental goals.

With the climate change and its effect on economy now becoming a reality, global climate experts, policy makers and academicians from the world over have gathered here in the Capital, seeking to come up with strategic solutions to integrate climate adaptation strategies into the India’s core defence mechanism

Speaking on the sidelines of the international conference on “Adaptation to climate change” in the Capital today, MoEF Secretary Pradipto Ghosh admitted that despite CDM being the fastest growing sector in the Indian market, what disappointed him was the scale of foreign direct investment and technology.

Urging for financial support and technology transfer from developed countries, the MoEF secretary said better promotion of Indian CDM projects at international meetings and climate negotiations was needed.

The conference, being jointly organised by the MoEF along with the multilateral groups -the European Commission and the World Bank-besides bilateral organisations like TERI (India) and the DFID (Britain), hopes to come up with strategic solutions to integrating climate adaptation strategies.

A country like India with its geophysical and climate characteristics is prone to the occurrence of extreme events. Also its economy is tied to climate-sensitive sectors, primarily agriculture, which is the backbone of economy. It is now beginning to see the effects of climate change in terms of altered rainfall and precipitation. The risks associated with climate variability and change are well documented.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts an increase in the magnitude of extreme events, including droughts, floods and cyclones, suggesting a strong need to introduce or strengthen strategies to deal with climatic changes.

While Dr Ghosh refused to pinpoint any particular event as a clear-cut example of climate change in India, he told The Tribune that a study of series of climatic events in the past years indicated the manifestation of climate change in the country, making it now important for policy makers to recognise climate change as an economical and not just an environmental issue.