Concern in collaboration with Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) officially launched a project on the climate change, adaptation and disaster risk reduction here on March 25.

Country director, India, of the Concern World Wide, Dipankar Datta, gave the welcome address and briefed the objective of the event.

The project inauguration was attended by dignitaries of the Government departments, academic institutions, local community representatives and civil society organisations. While it was graced by Forests and Environment Secretary Aurobindo Behara, Ambika Nanda of the UNDP, OSDMA head Nikunja Sundar Ray, Utkal University Geography Department HOD Gopal Krishna Panda, the vote of thanks was given by RCDC executive director Kailash Chandra Dash.

Climate change is now widely recognised as a major environmental problem facing the globe.

The overwhelming majority of scientists agree that our globe is undergoing through a major climatic change.

It is obvious from the satellite images and research studies that the ice caps are melting faster, our sea levels are rising and weather patterns are changing. We are experiencing more water shortages and we will see hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones increasing in ferocity and frequency.

The deserts will expand and the world will ultimately have difficulty in growing enough food.

Global warming and climate change could affect India’s economic growth unless a range of steps are taken to address the effects of increased surface temperature and its effect on monsoon pattern and river flows.

There is a wealth of evidence quantifying the economic costs of climate change in India. Experts have estimated that climate change will induce erratic rainfall, accompanied by more regional variations in temperature and rainfall. This is likely to affect agriculture and, therefore, the GDP growth.

Climate change has many implications for the State of Odisha.

For instance, over a decade, Odisha has been teetering from one extreme weather condition to another: from heat wave to cyclone, from drought to flood.

The State has been declared disaster-affected for 95 years out of the last 105 years: floods have occurred for 50 years, droughts for 32, and cyclones have struck the State for 11 years.

Since 1965, these calamities have not only become more frequent, they are striking areas that have never experienced such conditions before.

For instance, a heat wave in 1998 killed around 2,200 people and most of the casualties were from coastal Odisha, a region known for its moderate climate.Since 1998, almost 3,000 people have died due to heatstroke.

The 1999 Super Cyclone-affected places like Bhubaneswar and Nayagarh, which were never traditionally cyclone-prone.

While the 2001 drought parched fields in the coastal districts, the unprecedented floods of 2001 submerged 25 of the State’s 30 districts. Many of these areas had never witnessed floods before.

Odisha has experienced around 952 small and big cyclones and 451 tornadoes between 1891 and 1970.

From 1901 to 1981, there were 380 cyclones, of which 272 resulted from depressions in the Bay of Bengal. Twenty-nine of these cyclones were devastating.

As this is a crisis of global proportion, Concern World Wide in collaboration with Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC), a non-profit organisation based in Odisha and partners of Bangladesh, is planning to implement a multinational project with an aim to contribute towards poverty alleviation amongst the poor communities in the coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal through reducing their risk to the impact of hazards and climate change.

This multi-national project will be implemented in eight Gram Panchayats of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts in India and in Khulna, Satkira, Borguna and Potuakhali districts in Bangladesh.

The project in Odisha will cover 84 villages across eight Panchayats and target 54,148 beneficiaries directly (27,581 men and 26,567 women) and 589,602 beneficiaries indirectly (296,224 men and 293,378 women).

The objective of this project is to build resilience of the coastal communities along the Bay of Bengal by increasing their ability along with that of authorities and organisations to prepare for and adapt to the impact of hazards and climate change.

It was presumed that the poor coastal communities in particular are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Hence, it is required for them along with the local Government functionaries and civil society organisations, who are actively involved in the development, planning and implementation of disaster risk reduction activities, should enhance their knowledge and understanding about the vagaries and impacts of climate change.

This could, in turn, not only help the local communities to take effective adaptation measures but also contribute to the development of effective policies and programme which could reduce the risk of economic, property and loss of life during the times of unpredicted disasters triggered by the climate change.