Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Think Global, Act Local

As the world leaders and national delegations attend the Coppenhagen summit for developing a meaningful framework on climate change, nothing substantial really developed for overcoming the consequences of climate change.
Though the issue of climate change has reached global frontiers many environmentalist in the state believe that the action has to also take place locally.
Dr Surajit Barua, State Coordinator, World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) feels that Assam also needs to wake up to the reality of Global warming and contribute in its own means to ensure sustainable livelihood in the state and understand ways through which it can conserve and protect the environment.
Many environmentalists in the state also feel that Assam should take up serious steps for curbing pollution in the state and must also go for eco friendly Technologies.
“A state like Assam cannot adapt to latest technologies for tackling climate change but can resort to large scale afforestation and plantation programme in order to deal with the increase emission of carbon dioxide from vehicles,” claimed Baruah.
Studies have found out that 25 percent of the greenhouse gases triggering climate change are emitted from vehicles plying in the streets in the world. Sadly Guwahati city has a number of vehicles which are very old, leaving behind a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Recently the German Government has committed to finance a sum of Rs 56 million Euros in the departments of Forestry for the Climate Change Adaptation Project for the North East and Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF), Territorial, R P Agarwal feels that as north east is regarded as an eco sensitive zone in the wake of climate change such a programme is extremely essential.
Though plans have been taken up by the state government a large scale awareness campaign is the utmost requirement in a growing city like Guwahati which is also feeling the heat of global warming.
(This was published in Eastern Chronicle newspaper on December 5, 2010)

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