Govt, parties urged to pay heed to IPCC warning on climate

India should seriously take the warning in new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report about climate chaos leading to floods and water linked food shortage, negating development in the country, a prominent NGO today said.
Greenpeace India said that the dangers of climate change are real, and have been clearly spelt out by the IPCC Working Group II report titled 'Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability'.
The IPCC said climate change impacts are already widespread across all continents and oceans and rapidly worsening.
According to report, climate change will have a negative impact on wheat yields in South Asia.

Global food production is reducing slowly, and IPCC chairperson, R K Pachauri has even said that in some parts of the world, the much-touted green revolution has reached a plateau.
Also an increase in riverine, coastal, and urban flooding can lead to widespread damage to infrastructure, livelihoods, and settlements, in Asia.

This might mean likely impact on cities such as, Mumbai and Kolkata in India and Dhaka in Bangladesh. But how bad it will get hinges on near-term choices.
"It clearly shows that continuing on the path of coal and high carbon emissions will hurt India's development and economy eventually and all that had been gained in improving the standard of living in the country will be negated.

"In a matter of few days India will vote again and the new government cannot be unmindful of India's vulnerability to climate change impacts," says Arpana Udupa, campaigner, Greenpeace India.
"Greenpeace demands that the new Indian government should come to the climate summit of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in September with serious offers that will help the world and India itself to achieve a clean and safe energy transition," it adds.