The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Climate change is a symptom of larger malaise’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 22, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Climate change is a symptom of larger malaise’

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: Climate change is a “symptom of the larger malaise” of choosing the wrong development model and has the potential to disrupt peace and stability of the world, said R.K. Pachauri, chairman of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Delivering a lecture on “Climate change and sustainability” at the Bangalore International Centre here on Wednesday, Dr. Pachauri said disruptions could be particularly devastating in nations that were already under stress. There was an ethical dimension to the issue, he said and pointed out that while perpetrators of climate change were wealthy, the victims were those who did not have any means to adapt and survive.

He drew extensively from IPCC’s report submitted last week to illustrate implications of climate change on the world and on India in particular. Sea level rise could alter the contours of the globe forever and escalating temperature could lead to extinction of a large number of species, he said. Dr. Pachauri drew attention to the close link between climate change in India and the nation’s food security and water resource issues. There was already evidence, he said, that climate change affected wheat productivity, which had huge implications on food security. “This should force us to develop new varieties of crops and re-think our water consumption patterns,” he said.

Speaking of Bangalore’s crawling traffic as a metaphor for lopsided development, he said that attracting global capital to the information technology sector was not the only indicator of society’s progress. “While Bangalore has a great vitality, it needs to get its act together on sustainable development,” said Dr. Pachauri.

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