No action on climate change yet: Experts

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 26

While we hear a lot of talk on what should be done to deal with the perilous effects of unfolding climate change across the world, when it comes on the ground we do not see enough action — this appeared to be the general consensus in the discussion by an expert panel from India and Russia on concerns flagged recently by the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC’s foreboding account comes ahead of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP24, in Poland this December that will mark the culmination of three years of negotiations since Paris COP21 in 2015. 

The panel warned that commitments in the Paris Agreement on Climate (2015) are not enough to keep the temperature rise within 1.5 degrees and some urgent, unprecedented measures are required to abandon fossil fuels. 

However, despite a global buzz on the urgency to prevent climate change from spiraling out of control, official negotiations appear to be headed nowhere even to limit the damage to a median level. While the US had walked out of the Paris Agreement, Russia is yet to ratify it.

 Today’s discussion “Climate Change and natural Disasters: UN Sounds Alarm” was held via video-conferencing organised by the Information Department of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in India along with Russian News Agency  “Rossia Segodnya”.

The discussion included Joydeep Gupta, director, Third Pole Project, and Harjeet Singh of ActionAid from India and Alexander Bedritsky, president, World Meteorological Organisation, and Sergey Semenov from the Yu.A Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology.  

The general consensus was that despite scientists sounding desperate warnings, the situation was getting serious year after year. What had been predicted had started happening but implementation of suggested mitigation and adaptation plans remained a concern.

The COP 24 is expected to finalise rules for implementing the Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse emissions and providing aid to vulnerable countries.