'Creative approach needed to mitigate climate change'

Analysis of problem from international to local level needed, says Prof Stern

Speaking at a discussion on “Climate Change Action Plan for Karnataka” after launching the Bangalore Climate Change Initiative - Karnataka (BCCI-K) at a function in Vikasa Soudha, he said: “We need to adopt a highly creative approach for development in order to mitigate climate change. For this to happen, we need to analyse the problem from international to local level. The coalition of creative and analytical abilities will be able to deliver better results (in mitigating climate change).”

Prof Stern, who heads a new India Observatory within LSE’s Asia Research Centre and whose ‘Stern Report’ in 2006 alerted the world to the financial costs of climate change, said he was greatly impressed with R K Narayan and Visvesvaraya.

Giving tips on chalking out the proposed action plan on climate change for Karnataka, he said the plan should identify local level challenges of climate change and types of activities needed, besides developing a mechanism to understand the effectiveness of these activities.

“Local level approach is extremely important for mitigating the problem. For instance, we need to identify areas that are subject to floods frequently. We need to invest in those areas and deal with the problem using technology,” he explained.

Action plans by 2011

The Union Government, which has already adopted the National Climate Change Action Plan, has directed all the states to prepare state-level climate change action plans by March 2011.

Prof N H Ravindranath of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies, IISc, said the action plan should identify sectors contributing greenhouse gas emission, long term climate change projections and opportunities for mitigation. Besides, the plan should spell out how all stakeholders can be involved in the initiative. “Karnataka is highly vulnerable to climate change with large extent of dry land farming, Western Ghats, floods and droughts. We need to identify vulnerable spots and create awareness among people,” he added.

Prof B K Chandrashekar, chairman of BCCI-K, stressed on the need for establishing proactive linkages between technology, regulatory and legislative measures to effectively deal with the problem.

“We need a detailed identification and analysis of the eco-system, dependent community and production system that might be vulnerable to climate change,” he stated.