SGVU - C3W 2013

Over the past 10 years, the issue of changes in climatic conditions around the world has become a major focus in the international debate on environment and development. With many newer threats emerging to the environment and eco-systems, time has emerged to relook and reorient our understanding of the roles of SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITIES in sustainable development with respect to climate change and water crisis. Climate change is already underway. It holds the potential to cause significant changes in physical and biological systems in all the continents. It also threatens to destabilize natural phenomena on a regional as well as global scale; some warning signs are already visible. Unprecedented occurrence of severe droughts, heat waves, storms, heavy precipitation, floods, cyclones, shifts in climate zones and seasonality, and increase in sea level and temperature have been reported from various regions of the globe. Task of mitigating and adapting to climate change is imminent and imperative. Sustainable development has been an arena of intensive scientific and socio-political debates for the last four decades and today it has become much more widespread and wide ranging in the climate change context.

INDIAN SCENARIO- ARE WE REALLY PREPARED?

India, Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with "extreme" exposure to climate shift, according to a ranking of 193 nations by Maplecroft, a British firm specializing in risk analysis. Three other Indian metropolitan areas — Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi — were listed as being at "high" risk. All these facts signals towards – "Vulnerability to climate change has the potential to undermine future development, particularly in India,"

OUR OBJECTIVE

The Convention will focus on evidences of climate change, its impacts on the environment, and tangible mitigation and adaptation options including the policy dimension. Adaptation must occur on many levels and in every aspect of society. The issues selected are of highly important in context of present day National needs. The selected issues represent a range of sensitivities to climate change, some that have been relatively unattended to, and all representing a broad range of societal systems that will be affected, including natural resources, economic activity, and social and service infrastructure. While each sector needs to respond to specific threats with specific types of adaptations, it is also imperative that we understand their interconnected nature, and how different institutions function. The technical sessions of the Convention will give us an opportunity to think together about the opportunities and constraints faced by different types of organizations (e.g., state agencies, local governments, private businesses and NGOs) as they integrate responding to climate change with their other pressing goals. Ultimately, target is to identify a set of specific and practical options that can be implemented in the short term, as well as over time, to improve the ability of our society to cope with climatic changes.Our goal for the Convention is to bring together – experts, stakeholder’s, academicians, researchers, scientists, government officers, entrepreneurs, innovators, practitioners, livelihood activists, opinion leaders and spirited individuals collectively to a platform with a view to giving a fillip to the climate change debate. And finally accessing “ARE WE REALLY PREPARED?" We wish to bring all Great Thinkers, Visionaries and best Brains of the country to initiate a discussion about how Indian society can increase resilience to a changing climate and develop response strategies.