Climate change conference seeks action plan to save environment
Experts gathered during the day-long ‘Noncon —- Now or Never Conversation’ at Khalsa College today urged the State and Centre to come up with a focused Climate Action Plan (CAP). Focusing on the need to tap renewable energy solutions to cut carbon emissions, they said there is no time left and governments and communities need to awaken to find ways to save the environment.
The panel of experts at the conference included Karan Avtar Singh, former Chief Secretary, Punjab and Chairperson, Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority; Rajan Mehta, Harvard alumni and author; Dr Devinder Sharma, agri-economist and Ravi Singh, Secretary General and CEO, WWF-India.
While seeking community participation and specific measures to check rising pollution, they focused on immediate and emphatic efforts to take on the environmental hazards including air, water and climatic degradation. “If we do not do something about these issues now, we might soon find ourselves regretting having missed the opportunity. Regenerative agriculture, rejuvenation of aquifers, wetlands and plantation to create forests will go a long way in mitigating the impact of climate change,” shared Ravi Singh as he presented how WWF-India has been able to engage communities in eco-conservation, whether in Sundarbans or Harike wetlands.
“We need to lower our dependency on fossil fuels for energy generation. About 35 to 37 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is produced in generation of energy by using hydrocarbons. We need to consider the redesigning of our grid systems, energy distribution and generation, which is more suitable for green energies including wind and solar. All these changes might take some time, but we need to run, not walk towards them,” said Rajan Mehta.
The pooling of resources, adopting local biodiversity, large-scale plantation of vegetation in all available spaces, focused studies on climatic conditions and water table recharging by involving students were some of the immediate measures suggested. The Noncon was organised by Dilbir Foundation and CII jointly in collaboration with Khalsa College, Amritsar.
“We are killing the earth even as we explore possibilities of life on Mars and colonising the moon. If we are to rejuvenate these barren terrains to make them habitable for human beings, we should first start mending our ways on our own planet, by far the only sphere in the universe with a known ability to sustain life,” said Gunbir Singh, Chairman, Dilbir Foundation, who was moderating the discussion.
Karan Avtar Singh said that community participation was important to chalk out the strategies and people have to be mobilised to act. Principal, Khalsa College, Dr Mehal Singh said that educating the coming generations about the challenge of climate change through such interactions would bring in fresh perspectives and solutions.
