Global efforts mandatory to save environment, says Dr. Pachauri

NEW DELHI - Chairman of the UN’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr R K Pachauri expressed his disappointment over the Copenhagen talks on Tuesday and urged upon the international community to collectively act in checking deterioration of ecology.

“This is what is happening to glaciers in the world and we know that decrease and have contributed about 28 percent of sea level rise since 1993, but what’s particularly significant in this part of the world is the fact is the reduction in the mass of ice is going to lead to the reduction in the flow of water in several of our northern rivers of the subcontinent,” said Dr. R K Pachauri.

“This is likely to have an impact on the lives of about 500 million people,” he added, while delivering a lecture organised by the Institute of Rural Research and Development.

Dr. Pachauri noted that the international negotiations have not been upto the expectations in the interest of environment.

“I want to highlight the fact that if we want to stabilise the temperature increase that we are prepared to accept in the future to say 2-2.4 degrees Celsius, then we have no more than five years in which we can allow or should allow global emissions to peak and they have to start coming down thereafter,” said Dr Pachauri.

“So, therefore there is sense of urgency in taking action to reduce emission of gases and to be quite honest, the international negotiations have been very disappointing in this regard, particularly the outcome of Copenhagen,” he added.

The latest analytical report highlights India’s growing role as a key player in the UN-led climate negotiations on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol and the need to include big developing nations in global efforts to fight climate change.

“As matter of fact, if we keep damaging the environment then what we measure as economic growth itself, will be jeopardised. I think the time has come for us to realise that protecting the environment is really the first step to ensuring economic welfare,” said Dr Pachauri.

“In fact wherever it has been done, we have found the cost of any kind of economic activity becomes that much higher and the unfavourable impacts on the people become unbearable. So, I think there is no conflict between protecting the environment and promoting the economic welfare,” he added.

It is feared that the doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere within 50 years would raise global temperatures between 1.5 degree Celsius and 4.5 degree Celsius. (ANI)