Climate Change
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Karnataka State Pollution Control Board Recommendations to State Action Plan on Climate Change Based on state wide public consultations and internal studies ºÀªÁUÀÄt ¨sÁVzÁgÀgÀ C©ü¥ÁæAiÀÄ ¸ÀAUÀæºÀ PÁAiÀÄðPÀæªÀÄ ¸ÀgÀtÂUÉ §zÀ¯ÁªÀuÉ ªÁå¥ÀPÀ d£À¸ÀàAzÀ£É Recommendations to State Action Plan on Climate Change Based on state wide public consultations and internal studies Compiled by Shankar Sharma Consultant & Power Policy Analyst, Mysuru May 2015 Karnataka State Pollution Control Board “Parisara Bhavan”, #49,4th & 5th Floor, Church Street, Bangalore-560001 Ph No: 080-25581383 / 25589112 / 25589113 / 25586520 Fax: 25586321 E-mails Chairman: [email protected] Member Secretary: [email protected] General: [email protected] ªÉ¨ï¸ÉÊmï kspcb.gov.in ¨ÁèUï kspcb.wordpress.com ¥sÉøï§ÄPï kspcbofficial FªÉÄʯï [email protected] BLANK PAGE Acknowledgement The confidence shown by the Chairman and Members of KSPCB in entrusting this sacred job to me is gratefully acknowledged. The huge efforts put in by the staff of KSPCB in the entire exercise are admirable, and their enthusiasm to make the task successful and meaningful deserves a lot of appreciation. Their contribution in the preparation of this report is also admirable. In particular, the assistance /co-operation provided by Sri. Nanda Kumar, Sri. Ganeshan G R, Sri. Harishankar Y S, Sri. Ramesh C, Dr. Ravi D R, Smt. Vijaya Hegde, and Smt. Viji Karthikeyan are thankfully acknowledged. During the course of public consultations many institutions, industries, Government Departments, NGOs and civic conscious individuals have contributed hugely to the successful conduct of the meetings, and also have provided kind hospitality. Their kindness is well acknowledged. It is heartening to note that in the midst of what appears to be general ignorance/ indifference to the threats of Climate Change at the societal level, the participating public came in decent numbers and enthusiastically contributed to the consultation process, and have made the overall recommendations truly meaningful. Many NGOs and individuals have sent articles over e-mail. Many individuals and groups have also responded enthusiastically for the request to prepare high level district/regional plans for sustainable development keeping in perspective the threats of Climate Change. Their civic sense and enthusiasm on matter of societal importance deserve a lot of appreciation and gratitude from the larger civil society. Acknowledgements are also due to Dr. Bhamy V Shenoy and Col C P Muthanna, who helped in fine tuning some of the themes in the report. Acknowledgements are also due to Sri. Beluru Sudarshana, for his efforts in developing the an attractive layout of the report, which is also suitable for web posting. While participating in various public consultations he was also instrumental in providing adequate media focus for the consultation meetings. While credit for some of the photographs used in this report is given to various openly shareable sources, and to NIE-CREST, the origin of few others is not known. However, their usage is thankfully acknowledged. i Dedication This report is dedicated to all those people, flora and fauna which have been either impacted adversely because of the accelerated degradation of the environment, and/or have become ‘Climate Refugees’ because of the looming Climate Change. It is sincerely hoped that the admirable objective of the State Government in initiating such public consultations, and the continuing efforts by civil society groups and individuals in climate related fields will lead to the minimization of the risks of Climate Change and prepare our communities to face the same with adequate knowledge and enabling mechanisms. ii Preface by the author he phenomenon of Global Warming and the consequent impacts of Climate TChange (CC) are increasingly being seen as an existential threat to the life on this planet. The international community such as IPCC has said that without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally. IPCC is also of the conviction that there are multiple mitigation pathways which can limit warming to below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels. These pathways would require substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades and near zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases by the end of the century. Implementing such reductions poses substantial technological, economic, social and institutional challenges, which will increase with delays in additional mitigation and if key technologies are not available for all countries. Many adaptation and mitigation options can help address climate change, but no single option is considered sufficient by itself. Effective implementation depends on policies and cooperation at all scales and can be enhanced through integrated responses that link mitigation and adaptation with other societal objectives. Such integrated responses that link mitigation and adaptation with other societal objectives cannot be feasible without an objective participation of various sections of our society on a continuing basis. The recent decision by the State Government to seek feedback on the state action plan on CC from the line departments / state undertakings, and the consequent decision by KSPCB to go for multiple public consultations need to be deeply appreciated from this perspective. The recommendations from these public consultations are meant to be included in the state action plan on Climate Change with the overall objective to make the state plan clearly relevant to the state’s ground realities and also to reflect the public opinion. In this context Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) constituted a study to address the climate change issues falling within Board’s purview. The objective of this study to prepare an exhaustive report on the list of recommendations for the development of policy proposals to ‘mitigate’ and ‘adapt’ keeping in view the related issues in Karnataka, and which were to be based on interactive meetings with various stakeholders was a novel idea, associated with the uniqueness that such an effort might not have been undertaken anywhere else in the country. Participating public also appreciated these efforts, and have recommended that such public consultations should be held in all taluks of the state, and across the length and breadth of the country for enabling effective ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’ at the national level. It was in this context that the author was delighted to accept the assignment as a consultant for the overall co- ordination of stake holder meetings and to compile an exhaustive report on people’s action plan on CC. Keeping in view the huge importance of such an action plan for the long term interest of the state, the civil society groups in the state were looking for such public consultations in order to make the action plan people centric. Twenty one public consultations, which were held in different parts of the state, were a great opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds and listen to their views on Climate Change, and to know about their ideas for the developmental pathway for the state. It was an enriching experience to know about traditional knowledge based ideas for sustainable life styles, which have become highly relevant and urgent from CC perspective. It was a pleasure to receive a large number of recommendations of huge relevance to address the threat of CC, even from non-specialists on CC issues. People from diverse background such as teachers, college Professors, doctors, engineers, NGOs, State Government employees, college students, activists, industrialists, farmers and others participated in the public consultations. It can be said that there was participation from most sections of our society, and hence these recommendations can be considered as a fair representation of public opinion on the developmental pathways for the state to ‘mitigate’ and ‘adapt’ to the CC. iii A large number of concerns /recommendations have been expressed in these meetings, and they are grouped under 19 headings as in Chapters 4 and 8. These headings are: Water and Sanitation; Land use and planning; Forests and biodiversity; Western Ghats; Coastal Ecology; Agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry; Food, dietary needs and human health; Waste management; Air quality; Transportation; Industries; Energy; Urbanisation, buildings and infrastructure; Education and general awareness campaign; Rural Karnataka, North Karnataka, and regional/district level development plans; Women’s perspective; Traditional Knowledge and life style issues; KSPCB issues; other issues of importance from the perspective of state action plan. Few overarching principles of huge importance to the society from CC perspective, and which were based on the issues raised in the public meetings, have been deliberated on in Chapter 3. Keeping in view the fact that the focus of this study was on public consultations, the study report has been structured in two parts. Part A focuses mainly on the people’s concerns/recommendations grouped under nineteen headings, and Part B provides explanatory notes on the relevant issues. Keeping in view the huge importance of effective participation by women at all levels of developing and implementing the state action plan, additional focus was given to elicit women’s views on the relevant topics.