Need for ‘multi-faceted response’ to tackle global warming

The Hindu , Sunday, September 20, 2009
Correspondent : Special Correspondent
JAIPUR: Environmentalists, academicians and experts attending a sensitisation workshop on climate change here earlier this week called for evolving an urgent “multi-faceted response” to tackle the harmful fall-out of global warming with the focus on new universal standards to be set beyond the Kyoto Protocol at the International Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this year-end.

The participants in the workshop emphasised the need to take the issues of climate change and carbon emissions to the masses in the run-up to the Copenhagen Conference and said India should be cautious during negotiations on target setting for emission reduction, financial flows and technology transfer.

The Jaipur-based Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants’ Society – accredited to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – organised the workshop to add local perspective to the National Action Plan on Climate Change and strengthen public focus on the new pact to be forged by world leaders in Copenhagen.

Inaugurating the workshop, Rajasthan Rural Development Minister Bharat Singh said global warming was a disastrous consequence of unchecked exploitation of natural resources on the pretext of development: “The race for development has had an extremely harmful impact on global atmosphere resulting in destruction of forests and natural wealth.”

Mr. Singh said the climate change had led to an unpredictable alteration in the monsoon cycle which was affecting the agricultural system because of erratic and scanty rainfall. “With the crops failing to get water at the scheduled time, agrarian distress is set to rise and further complicate the problem,” he added.

The Minister pointed out that paucity of drinking water had led to the sources of irrigation waters such as dams, ponds and reservoirs being reserved for drinking purposes earlier this month.

These vital issues ought to be highlighted in the interest of the farming community and the public at large, he said.

Noted economist and Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Member V. S. Vyas said India and China had joined the club of countries with high carbon emissions and unless remedial measures were taken the situation would deteriorate in the near future.

He said wheat production had declined significantly in India, which had earlier set world records.

UNICEF State head Samuel Mawunganidze said 20 per cent of the GDP would soon be used for providing response to the impacts of global warming, while parents would be forced to divert their expenditure from education and health care of children to just feeding their families.

United Nations Population Fund State programme coordinator Sunil Thomas Jacob affirmed that a proper focus on family planning, reproductive health and population stabilisation would help deal with the challenges of climate change.

Gene Campaign chairperson Suman Sahai felt that global warming would have its biggest impact on agriculture, especially in the dry land areas. She said conservation of bio-diversity was crucial for food security while locally available seeds and soil treatment methods should be promoted to tackle agrarian crisis.

 
SOURCE : http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/20/stories/2009092055180500.htm
 


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