By Joydeep Gupta, IANS
Bali : Farmers in India are already adapting to climate change but there are limits to what they can do unless helped by a policy framework, an India-based member of a leading international NGO said here today.
Releasing a report called “Up in Smoke – Asia and Pacific”, on the effects of global warming, Raman Mehta of ActionAid India demanded that schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act include help to those affected by climate change.
Climate Action Network (CAN), a global coalition of over 400 NGOs, has prepared the report that was released to delegates attending Dec 3-14 UN climate change conference here.
At the release, Mehta said that climate change was making it more imperative for the Indian government to increase investments in agriculture, “with a special emphasis on rain-fed agriculture which is 60 percent of Indian agriculture with a predominance of small farms.
“Due to climate change, India will also need external assistance on adaptation in important sectors like water and agriculture and multilateral negotiations on the structure and funding of the adaptation fund need to be concluded satisfactorily,” he added.
Mehta wanted steps for disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness in vulnerable areas.
Srinivas Krishnaswamy of Greenpeace India said at the release of the report: “Mitigating climate change too must be an integral part of the strategy to deal with climate change. Though India has a low per-capita emission, there are huge disparities between the rich and the poor.”
Krishnaswamy referred to a recent Greenpeace study that had found “the Indian rich constituting just one percent of the population were contributing to an emission level of as high as five tonnes (of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita per year) as against the 800 million poor who contribute roughly 0.5 tonnes.” Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas that leads to climate change.
He said: “The contribution to the carbon pool by the rich needs to be moderated and not by way of change in lifestyles per se, even though that remains a long term goal, but largely in terms of reducing the wastage and carbon intensity of energy use.
“India’s energy sector is highly carbon intensive almost twice that of the EU for example. This is due to a combination of poor efficiencies in energy production and usage coupled with a large dependence on coal and other fossil fuels. Sixty-seven percent of India’s electricity comes from coal, and even conservative estimates show that 40 percent of India’s electricity and energy consumption can be saved through efficiency measures.”
Referring to recent initiatives by various government agencies, NGOs and individuals to improve energy efficiency, Krishnaswamy said: “They need to be broad based and replicated all over the country and this would be possible only with adequate and enabling policy measures, which would allow India to move towards sustainable, low carbon intensity energy pathways, while not compromising on development goals.”