THE SEMINAR, ‘Climate Action: Post Bali’ began with Mani Shankar Aiyar, the minister for Panchayati Raj, Youth Affairs & Sports, government of India releasing a book titled ‘Local Environmental Governance in India’ by Lead India in collaboration with the British High Commission. Aiyar then spoke about the importance of local governance in a developing country like ours.

 

The stage was then handed over to Dr Jyoti Parikh, executive director, Integrated Research for Action and Development (IRADe) and keynote speaker for the event, who was also part of the team of delegates who had represented India at the Bali Summit. With the help of a presentation, Dr Parikh explained the importance and relevance of the carbon market to India and her developing economy.

 

After the presentation, Nitin Desai sensitised the audience about how real the threats from a changing climate are. He highlighted the fact that the first and the most severe impacts of climate change will be on developing countries like India and consequently, a bad climate change mitigation policy will be a bad news for India and that we will have to pay the price. The concern that Desai showed for his flat on the first floor of a building very close to the sea was shared by Mani Shankar Aiyar who also expressed a deep concern over the large parts of coastal India that may be submerged in the coming years owing to rising sea levels.

 

Ambassador Nigam Prakash then opened the stage for questions from the audience. One of the first to ask was Kartikeya Singh, a US based student who is here as a Compton Fellow and is an energy policy analyst with the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE). He was himself present at the Bali Summit as a youth representative from the US and expressed his concern over the missing Indian youth not just at Bali but also in all major national events of similar nature.