Scientists’ role in dealing with climate change crucial: Experts

ibune News Service

Dehradun, January 5

Scientists have a greater role to play in climate change mitigation in the changing world.

This was stated by Dr Ashwani Kumar, Director General, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), while speaking during the inaugural session of the five-day training programme for scientists and technologists working in the government sector on “climate change and carbon mitigation”, at FRI, here today.

Ashwani said people in the developing countries were vulnerable to climate change because they were more prone to its adverse impacts.

“India is likely to have an adverse effect by the impact of climate change. Climate change mitigation can be attained through afforestation,” he said.

He urged scientists to join hand to ensure climate change mitigation and adaptation in various agro-climatic zones of the country.

He said India was the tenth largest country covered with forest and forests contribute a lot toward climate change mitigation.

“India has been successful in improving carbon stock in its forests by 10 per cent amounting to about 600 million tons of carbon for the decade ended in 2004,” he said.

He said the Government of India’s Green Indian Mission has planed to reforest 10 million hectares of degraded land in next 10 years.

Dr Savita, DDG (Education), ICFRE, spoke on the “Importance of training and capacity building”.

Dr TP Singh, ADG, Biodiversity and Climate Change-cum- Course Director, welcomed the participants.

Dr SP Singh, DDG (Admin), said in the recent years, climate change was one of the few issues that had received tremendous global attention and was a major challenge for the developing nations like India.

In the first technical session, Dr TP Singh gave an introduction to the climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Prof HC Nailwal of HNB Garhwal University spoke on the impact of climate change on the Himalayan glaciers.

Prof Mohit Gera of Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA) delivered a lecture on “Vulnerability and adaptation strategies for climate change”.

Twenty scientists from different government scientific organisations and universities of the country are participating in the training programme.

The training programme is sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, under the “National Programme for Training of Scientists and Technologists working in Government Sector”.