New Delhi: The government on Thursday flagged off the ‘Science Express Climate Action Special’ train from Delhi, as part of its initiative to sensitize the masses, especially children and the youth, about the issue of climate change, in the run-up to the global climate summit in Paris slated for December.
Exhibits on the 16-coach air-conditioned train would cover specific topics like adaptation, mitigation, India’s action on mitigation, international climate change negotiations, nature conservation, innovations in India, science lab, biotechnology applications and others.
The train will run till 7 May 2016 and during the course of these eight months, it would stop at 64 locations across India, covering over 19,500 kilometres. Some of these locations are Patiala, Jaisalmer, Agra, Ambala, New Jalpaiguri, Vishakhapatnam, Vellore, Rameswaram, Mangalore and Gandhinagar.
At every location, the Climate Action Special would be open to visitors from morning till evening.
The Science Express—a joint initiative of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC), the ministry of railways and the ministry of science and technology—has had an eight-year run. Last year, its theme was biodiversity.
The Climate Action Special was flagged off by union minister for science and technology Harsh Vardhan along with railway minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu and environment minister Prakash Javadekar.
“The steps taken in India to make masses aware about climate change are unmatched across the world. It is world’s first mass education programme on wheels through exhibition. The train will cover over 20 states and we expect over 6.2 million students and people to see this. It is a big target,” said Javadekar at the launch of the train.
“The Climate Change Express will explain in detail about climate change and the actions or paths we can take to tackle climate change,” he added.
Recounting his visit to Science Express last year along with his granddaughter, the minister said he witnessed long queues. “This year there would be an exhibition on platforms similar to the one inside the train. Thus rather than standing in queues, people can visit those exhibitions to learn about climate change,” explained the environment minister.
The exhibition will also have a digital version. “We are getting a digital version of the exhibition prepared and an e-mail version as well. This digital version in CDs would be distributed to schools, colleges and other organizations so that we reach to 620 million (and not just 6.2 million people),” added Javadekar.
Over 190 countries would meet in Paris in December under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to strike a new global climate deal aimed at controlling global carbon emissions for tackling global warming.
