Environment Protection Training & Research Institute (EPTRI), a nodal agency on Climate Change for TS, has developed a knowledge portal to strengthen the Climate Change Centre, here supported by the Department of Science & Technology.
Chief Secretary S.P. Singh launched the portal in the presence of EPTRI DG B. Kalyan Chakravarthy and other senior officials here on Thursday.
The portal helps as a repository for storing and retrieving climate change information at the State level, to be useful to departments of agriculture, forestry, etc. and institutes/universities, public etc.
Mr. Chakravarthy said the portal would help build a data-bank on climate change for Telangana and can be accessed www.eptri.com/tsccc/index.html. Earlier, the steering committee led by the CS, approved the draft report on State of Environment Report on Hyderabad-2015, prepared by EPTRI.
The draft report sponsored by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change documents the status of TS from 2011 to 2016. EPTRI is in the process of compiling the final draft of the report.
Mr. Singh observed that the report has been well-drafted and would bring out the important trends of environmental indicators with regard to air pollution, urbanisation, transportation, industrial development, water demand, green cover and loss of water bodies in Hyderabad.
The expectation is that the report would assist in arriving at an action plan and a road map for mitigating the pressures and threats to the environment of the city.
EPTRI had also updated the CS about the project on ‘Low Carbon Development Pathway for TS’, being developed in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)- Godrej Green Business Centre.
It was noticed that TS, with State GDP growth rate more than 14.5%, is also directly proportional to the GHG emissions, specially in sectors of energy, waste, agriculture, industries, transportation and so on. Strategies, technologies and innovative interventions in these sectors are being designed and developed. to reduce GHG emissions to the extent possible.
The institute has been working on another project ‘Enhancing Climatic Resilience for Hyderabad Metropolitan area by Sustainable Management of Urban Forest Ecosystems” under Green Climate Fund (GCF). It was decided to rope in agencies like GHMC and HMDA into the exercise.
