World Environment Day ('WED') is celebrated every year on June 5 to raise global awareness to take positive environmental action to protect nature and the planet Earth. It is run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Under this background, Birla Institute Of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India observed the day on 5th June, 2014 at its Kolkata Campus.
The 2014 theme for World Environment Day focussed on 'Small Islands and Climate Change', the official slogan for the year 2014 is ‘Raise Your Voice Not The Sea Level’.
In millions of places in the world the day has been celebrated under this theme, with the goal of raising awareness of their unique development challenges and successes regarding a range of environmental problems, including climate change, waste management, unsustainable consumption, degradation of natural resources, and extreme natural disasters.
The slogan ‘Raise Your Voice Not The Sea Level’, is self explanatory enough to focus on the issues of Global Warming, Climate Change and Sea Level Rise. Global warming is the most important science issue of the 21st century, challenging the very structure of our global society. The problem is that global warming is not just a scientific concern, but encompasses economics, sociology, geopolitics, local politics and individual’s choice of lifestyle.
The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change or IPCC, amounting to nearly 3000 pages of detailed review and analysis of published research states that there is clear evidence for a 0.75 degree centigrade rise in global temperature and 22 centimetre rise in sea level during the 20th Century. The IPCC also predicts that global temperatures could rise further by between 1.1 degree centigrade to 6.4 degree centigrade by 2100 and sea level could rise by between 28 cm to 79 cm, more if the melting of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates. In addition, weather patterns will become less predictable and the occurrence of extreme climate events, such as storms, floods, heat waves and droughts will increase.
Professor Mark Maslin, Director of the University College London and executive Director of Carbon Auditors Ltd, a leading climatologist, wrote in his book on Global Warming published from Oxford, that there are two major problems facing humanity in the 21st century, Global Poverty and Global Warming. He wrote that “…to deal with global warming , we must deal with developing countries, and thus we must for the first time in humanity’s history tackle the unequal distribution of global wealth. Hence, global warming is making us face the forgotten billions of people on the planet, and we must make the world a fairer place. In the 21st century, we must deal with both global poverty and global warming.”
Government of India released India’s first National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) outlining existing and future policies and programs addressing climate mitigation and adaptation on June 30, 2008. The plan identifies eight core “national missions” running through 2017 emphasizing the overriding priority of maintaining high economic growth rates to raise living standards, the plan “identifies measures that promote our development objectives while also yielding co-benefits for addressing climate change effectively.” It says these national measures would be more successful with assistance from developed countries, and pledges that India’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions “will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue our development objectives.”
These National Missions are (1) National Solar Mission (2) National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (3) National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (4) National Water Mission (5) National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (6) National Mission for a “Green India” (7) National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (8) National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change with other programmes.
Accordingly, the state governments also prepared their own climate change adaptation programmes in various states.
As it was mentioned earlier that climate cannot be the subject of a single projection but requires an assessment of probabilities, we should avoid analyses and decision-making procedures, that collapse the wide range of possible developments too quickly into a single ‘best guess’ forecast, on which our attention then focuses. Indeed, scientific uncertainty is one of the key distinguishing features of climate change policy. This uncertainty is not the result of bad science, or inadequate research effort. It is inherent in the fact that we are moving into unknown territory, and can only speculate about the effects on the complex and possibly precarious balance of the earth’s ecosystem using what we know from the past and current experience. Devoting massive additional resources to a scientific research effort of the highest quality would certainly help us learn more about what is likely to happen, but it would not transform the basic situation.
Under this policy and perspective, as an academic institution, FEAS proposes here to participate and discuss on the related issues from all fields of society.
The most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change or IPCC, amounting to nearly 3000 pages of detailed review and analysis of published research states that there is clear evidence for a 0.75 degree centigrade rise in global temperature and 22 centimetre rise in sea level during the 20th Century. The IPCC also predicts that global temperatures could rise further by between 1.1 degree centigrade to 6.4 degree centigrade by 2100 and sea level could rise by between 28 cm to 79 cm, more if the melting of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates. In addition, weather patterns will become less predictable and the occurrence of extreme climate events, such as storms, floods, heat waves and droughts will increase.
Professor Mark Maslin, Director of the University College London and executive Director of Carbon Auditors Ltd, a leading climatologist, wrote in his book on Global Warming published from Oxford, that there are two major problems facing humanity in the 21st century, Global Poverty and Global Warming. He wrote that “…to deal with global warming , we must deal with developing countries, and thus we must for the first time in humanity’s history tackle the unequal distribution of global wealth. Hence, global warming is making us face the forgotten billions of people on the planet, and we must make the world a fairer place. In the 21st century, we must deal with both global poverty and global warming.”
Government of India released India’s first National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) outlining existing and future policies and programs addressing climate mitigation and adaptation on June 30, 2008. The plan identifies eight core “national missions” running through 2017 emphasizing the overriding priority of maintaining high economic growth rates to raise living standards, the plan “identifies measures that promote our development objectives while also yielding co-benefits for addressing climate change effectively.” It says these national measures would be more successful with assistance from developed countries, and pledges that India’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions “will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue our development objectives.”
These National Missions are (1) National Solar Mission (2) National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (3) National Mission on Sustainable Habitat (4) National Water Mission (5) National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (6) National Mission for a “Green India” (7) National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (8) National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change with other programmes.
Accordingly, the state governments also prepared their own climate change adaptation programmes in various states.
As it was mentioned earlier that climate cannot be the subject of a single projection but requires an assessment of probabilities, we should avoid analyses and decision-making procedures, that collapse the wide range of possible developments too quickly into a single ‘best guess’ forecast, on which our attention then focuses. Indeed, scientific uncertainty is one of the key distinguishing features of climate change policy. This uncertainty is not the result of bad science, or inadequate research effort. It is inherent in the fact that we are moving into unknown territory, and can only speculate about the effects on the complex and possibly precarious balance of the earth’s ecosystem using what we know from the past and current experience. Devoting massive additional resources to a scientific research effort of the highest quality would certainly help us learn more about what is likely to happen, but it would not transform the basic situation.
Under this policy and perspective, as an academic institution, FEAS proposes here to participate and discuss on the related issues from all fields of society.
Future program of action of FEAS:
- This interactive blog will publish research documents, views, actions on climate change issues with special emphasis on most vulnerable regions of eastern and north-eastern India
- Sensitization programmes on climate change adaptation in regional basis
- Capacity building programmes on climate change adaptation in regional basis
- Micro-level scientific study and research programmes on climate change adaptation in regional basis
- Endorsing knowledge development, social mobilisation and network building, ground truthing on livelihood issues, enabling policy and governance on climate change adaptation in regional basis
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