New Delhi, (Samajweekly) A high-level dialogue would identify the futuristic climate scenario and challenges, long term vision for science, technology and policy integration and localisation for 100 most vulnerable districts from five states in eastern India.
The process would involve understanding financial mechanisms and governing tools for climate resilience and envision the impact of disruptive technology for effective models, a release from the Ministry of Science and Technology said here on Friday.
Of the 612 districts across India studied that are vulnerable to climate change, there are 100 districts, mostly from eastern parts that are most vulnerable as per the Vulnerability Assessment Study carried out by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore along with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi and IIT Guwahati.
The Assessment Study, released in April 2021, was supported by the Department of Science & Technology.
Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Assam, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh, all in the eastern India, were found to have higher vulnerability, Senior Adviser and Head, Policy Coordination & Programme Management (PCPM) Division, Dr Akhilesh Gupta, said.
Gupta, who is also a climate change expert at the Department of Science and Technology (DST), underlined at a policy dialogue: “Out of 100 most vulnerable districts in the country, 70 per cent of them are in five states of Eastern India – Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa.”
Dr Gupta said at the inaugural session of the two-day policy dialogue on ‘Localizing Climate Resilience Agenda: Vision 2050 and 2100’ under CAP-RES DST-GOI Project.
“As projected by the recent Working Group I report of the IPCC, the global temperature which has already increased to 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era level is likely to further increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius in next two decades. India too is expected to experience greater impact of global warming in the time to come,” Dr Gupta pointed out at the programme organised by National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), Ministry of Home Affairs and DST in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
Executive Director, NIDM, Maj Gen MK Bindal warned that the danger mark has been reached; rapid access to information is needed to protect lives and livelihood and the use of STI is key to fight climate change problems.
“The sixth IPCC report has pushed the button to act now, and it is time to act locally. Good policies need to be translated into action. We are working with state governments for localising action plan,” Head of Economic Cooperation & Development, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christiane Hieronymus said.
