Kolkata hosts International Workshop on climate change

The three-day meeting, which concluded with a visit to Sunderbans on Saturday,.was organised by West Bengal Disaster Management department along with non government organisation WWF-India & EnGIO with the support of World Bank.

The visit included areas like Bijoynagar, Sonagao among others which are still to recover from the effects of tropical cyclone Aila, which had hit the regions nearly five years back.

"We have seen how people are still suffering from a storm that happened about five years back. When you consider that the area is extremely vulnerable from both immediate and long term impacts of climate change, and also nearly 1.3 billion people are at risk taking both India and Bangladesh Sundarbans; definitely Sundarbans deserves high attention from global community" said Roberto Sandoval of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United States FAO. Sandoval is from Philippines; another hotbed of climate impacts.

The FAO expert opined that the farmers should be given training how to cultivate in land affected by the ingress of saline water which often happens in Sundarbans when river water breaches or overtops the embankments. Sundarbans sea level rise and frequency of high intensity cyclones in the area  is one of the highest in the world.

Md Mafidul Islam, Joint Chief, General Economic Division, Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh, could not agree more; "Sundarbans climate change risks and its reduction should be a global priority".

The view of the experts are in tune with the claim of state government, non profits and World Bank that Sundarbans climate vulnerability deserves much greater attention that it currently enjoys.

At the concluding decision of the meeting state disaster management minister  Javed Khan urged experts, mainly those from India & Bangladesh, to highlight the climate vulnerability of Sunderbans in appropriate international platforms .

He said that a transboundary initiative is extremely important in this context.

Minister also shared with close to hundred of experts from governments, academician and non government organisations that the state government is actively considering to include climate change linked disaster threats into its future disaster management planning.

"My department will share the detailed report and proposed road map , as expected to emerge out from the meeting , with other departments so that the issue can be properly taken up" said Khan.

Tapas Paul, senior environment expert from World Bank, seconded Khan in regard to highlighting Sunderbans in global climate map and also assured all the support in driving the transboundary initiative forward.

S. Suresh Kumar , the Secretary in West Bengal disaster management department has urged WWF-India and EnGIO to submit the report quickly. ''Let us have the disaster management linked report quicklys so that we can plan accordingly''.

Jayanta Basu from EnGIO & WWF-India has summed up the major recommendations in the concluding session. The recommendations include operationalisation of MoU between India & Bangladesh on Sundarbans which was signed in 2011 & the need to adopt a Sunderban plus climate change linked disaster management policy.

"Indian Sunderbans has about 5 million people but its climate impact zone includes some of the most densely populated urban areas in world. Hence we need to undertake the climate risk management plan for this wider area'' said Basu.