'Rising sea levels: Coastal cities at risk'

Addressing a gathering on the theme ‘Engineering solutions to combat climate change’ at the Institution of Engineers here, Prof Srinivasan said that developed countries such as the United States, China, Russia and Japan are amongst the top ten carbon dioxide emitters, while India ranked fifth followed by Germany, Canada, UK, Korea and Italy.

Srinivasan stressed on the need to cut down the emission of green house gases which has caused the increase in the temperature.

Over the last two decades, Gangotri glacier had retreated more than 850 mts due to global warming, which would result in coastal flooding, hunger, malaria and water shortage.
Prof Srinivasan said that solar energy should be extensively used to be energy independent, reduce air pollution and combat climate change.

“Production cost of solar energy should be brought down and every household should adopt solar technology for domestic purposes” he pointed out.

He called upon the government to frame policies where people are given tax incentives to adopt the solar technology, and also urged engineers to invent new harmless technologies to generate energy.