The Hindu : Kerala News : Pachauri for more trains and buses, not cheap cars

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 07, 2007
ePaper

Kerala

Kerala

Pachauri for more trains and buses, not cheap cars

K.P.M. Basheer

KOCHI: Against the backdrop of a warming globe, India should go in for more of public transport and not for cheaper cars. This could, according to R.K. Pachauri, who heads the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, help reduce carbon emission that fuels global warming.

“Resources should go into public transport,” Mr. Pachauri said in a face-to-face with a group of Asian journalists attending a UNDP-organised workshop on climate change in Delhi recently. Dr. Pachauri, whose organisation shared the Nobel Peace Prize this year with Al Gore, noted that automobile emissions constituted a major chunk of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. He advised India and China, the two fastest growing economies, to find a growth pathway different from that of the advanced nations in order to avoid the mistakes made by them.

He said climate change was a grave threat to the human society and that global warming was an irrefutable reality. The IPCC’s recent report that warned of dire consequences if mitigation and adaptation measures were not taken immediately was based on ‘solid and robust’ scientific evidence. It was the outcome of the work of some 7,000 scientists and others. The report had predicted a global temperature rise of 1.8 degree Celsius to 4 degree Celsius by the end of this century. Sea water rise, ranging from 18 cm to 59 cm, was another possibility. “Even a one-foot rise in sea level will have very serious consequences—many parts of Kolkata, Dhaka and Shanghai will get inundated.” Even if the greenhouse gas emissions peaked at the current level, climate change would continue for decades.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala