Addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday, former Legislative Council Chairmen B.K. Chandrashekar and V.R. Sudarshan; Deputy Chairperson of the Karnataka State Planning Board D.H. Shankaramurthy; MP Chandre Gowda and several experts, suggested that such an action plan was a must for the State to seek technical and financial assistance from the national and international agencies for mitigating the effect of climate change.

The Centre, which has already adopted the National Climate Change Action Plan, has asked the States to prepare State-level climate action plans, Prof. Chandrashekar said. Preparation of such a plan at the earliest would put Karnataka at an advantageous position over other States, he said.

Independent body

He suggested that the Government should form an independent body comprising experts from various organisations, NGOs and stakeholders, including Indian Institute of Science, University of Agricultural Sciences, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre and TERI, to formulate and implement such a plan.

Prof. Chandrashekar said such an action plan was a must for Karnataka as it was one of the States likely to be seriously impacted by climate change owing to its large dependence on monsoon, vast extent of rain-fed agriculture system and frequent droughts and floods. The rich bio-diversity of the Western Ghats and a large number of fishermen in coastal areas were expected to be affected by climate change. Climate change would aggravate the problems of drought and floods in addition to creating various other problems such as pest occurrence and bio-diversity loss, he said.