Meet on climate change kick-started
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 22 2015:
A two-day international meet on climate change was opened today at Lamyanba Shanglen, Palace Compound.
The programme is being jointly organised by the Department of Social Work, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Regional Campus, Manipur in collaboration with the United NGOs Mission, Manipur, Centre for Research and Advocacy, Manipur and Biodiversity, Ecology & Environment Network, Manipur.
Dr RK Nimai, Consultant, Government of Manipur, and Dr M Homeshwor, Director, Directorate of Environment Government of Manipur were the chief guest and guest of honour of the inaugural function respectively.
Professor W Vishwanath, Dean, School of Life Sciences, Manipur University presided the inaugural function.
Dr RK Nimai opined that global warming and climate change is natural cycle of the earth.
Different phases such as the cold or the warm periods that earth witnessed was natural.
It is not because of human activity that deserts such as the Sahara desert were formed.
The tendency of climatologist to say anthropogenic activities resulted in climate change is slightly misplaced.
In Manipur, micro climatic changes are taking place because plants have been cut down.
Imphal was full of wetlands, but how many survives today.
There is certainly relationship between human activity and climate.
Thus, there is greater responsibility, although climate change is natural, on the parts of human beings to conserve the ecosystem, Dr Nimai asserted.
One also needs to appreciate the aesthetics of loving the natural processes, he added.
Dr M Homeshwor Singh observed that State Action Plan on Climate Change for Manipur started in the year 2010.Academicians, NGOs and community members were involved in the process of preparation of the action plan document and submitted the same in 2014 to the Government of Manipur.
He also shared that Jharkhand and Manipur was identified as two model pilot States by UNDP (Global environmental facilities) to make energy efficient States.
In this, the Directorate acted as a nodal agency.
He stated that NABARD acts as a financial agency for any kind of mitigation and adaptation projects based on livelihood.
Finally he concluded that capacity building is very important to meet challenges of climate change.
Action plan can undergo changes with changing times, and thus, consultation such as the present ones are very important to collectively face the threats of climate change.
Professor W Vishwanath Singh observed that there are two ecosystems such as terrestrial ecosystem and aquatic environment.
Focusing on the latter he remarked that two-third of the whole world is covered by water but water mankind needs, i.e fresh water constitutes only 0.01 percent of the total volume of water.
This small volume of water is very important for sustenance of lives, he asserted.
He concluded that NGOS today have a very important role to play in the face of global warming and climate change.
Dr Homen Thangjam, co-convener of the international meet proposed the vote of thanks.
In the first technical session, entitled Climate Change, Biodiversity, Ecosystem and Environment, four resource persons presented papers.
A Brajakumar Sharma, Chairperson, Manipur Cultural Integration Conference chaired the session.
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