The Rajya Sabha on Thursday took up a short-duration discussion on the “Serious Effects of Global Warming and the Need for Remedial Steps to Tackle it”. The motion was moved by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) Tiruchi Siva, Congress’ Pramod Tiwari and Communist Party of India’s (CPI) Santhosh Kumar P.
Opening the discussion, Mr. Siva said that India would be among the seven countries worst-affected by climate change and had to prepare a remedial response for it. The target of the Union government is zero carbon emission status by 2070, but it is the next 20 years that are important and the alarm bells are ringing, he said.
The DMK MP said that Tamil Nadu had announced some policies and would achieve zero carbon emission status by 2027. By 2030, the electricity generation would come from renewable energy sources, he said.
Amee Yajnik, Congress MP from Gujarat, called for proper monitoring of industrial pollutants and the modernisation of pollution monitoring systems.
The Trinamool Congress’ Jawhar Sircar said that the rising sea levels would impact coastal States the most. He said that the Sundarbans in West Bengal were an example of how nature controlled the sea. Citing the annual cylones, he said that the only reason Bengal was saved from the invasion of the sea was the mangrove plantations. “We have pleaded (to the Centre) again and again throughout this year that we need to replant mangrove saplings, there was no reply,” he said.
Suggesting ways to handle climate challenges, the BJD’s Amar Patnaik said that “we have to move from security to resilience.”
BJP member Sudhanshu Trivedi said that India has become the third-leading country in terms of solar cell capacity and the second in terms of water heating through solar energy.
John Brittas, Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Kerala said that the issue of climate change should be beyond the scope of the nation or the States. “We should not be setting the agenda by saying that we have a solution for everything. As a nation, we should be very clear that we are paying for the greed of humans, especially the developed countries and capitalists,” he said.
The discussion will be continued on December 19 when the Minister is expected to reply.
Published - December 15, 2022 09:51 pm IST
