Dear Friends,
Greetings from FOCUS ORISSA FORUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE!
A year ago FOCUS ORISSA had organized a two-days' workshop on Climate Change on 15th and 16th November, 2008 at the Redcross Bhavan, Bhubaneswar. Since then, while the concerns and actions of civil society and people in general is multiplying to prevent climate change, the world has been witnessing frustrating and non-serious approaches by the world governments including Indian counter part in policy level dialogues and necessary follow ups to reverse the trend. It has been painfully marked that there is hardly any change in the rate of increase of global warming.
You might be knowing that COP (Conference of Parties) 15 – the 15th Conference of United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is going to be held during 7th to 18th December at Copenhagen involving environment ministers and concerned officials of 189 countries to review the progress till now after the its 1st Conference in 1995 at Berlin and to reconcile the protocols on climate change. About 10000 participants including representatives of business groups, non-governmental organizations and others as observers may participate in it.
After 15 years of engagements by world governments, corporations through such COPs; it hardly achieved anything in terms of controlling CFC emissions, global warming and minimizing the trends of climate change. Even, it failed to bring out a consensus among leading countries. Many are not much hopeful about the outcomes of the COP 15 other than some giveaways to corporations and continuance of failed Kyoto protocol. The alternatives by COPs attempted so-far are basically profit based corporate friendly solutions such as Carbon Trading, Green Technology, Clean Development Mechanism, Agrofuels etc. Unfortunately, our country India like China instead of taking a pro-active role in controlling GHG emissions, it is seeking for maximum monetary inflows through the CDM, and the undue importance India is also giving to domestic trading in credits under its mitigation programmes.
In contrast with the approach taken up by India and China apart from G8 countries for letting to hand over the future of the human civilizations in the hands of corporates, now, many climate activists drawing from different countries have raised their voices. They call for changes in the agenda of COPs and policies governments. According to them, there are needs to stop the use of fossil fuels, community control over production, re-localising food productions, reduction of over-consumption by northern countries, respecting rights of indigenous, forest dwelling people, fisherfolks, recognizing ecological and climate debt owed to the people of Global South and making reparations.
In this context, we need to discuss the issue intensively and take a position viewing forthcoming COP 15. We need to inform our concerns as regards to the policies and approaches of the Government of India and participants of COP 15. Keeping this purpose in view and to workout our future action plans, FOCUS ORISSA FORUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE is going to organize a State level Workshop on Climate Justice - Our Message to COP 15 on 6 &18, December, 2009 in Bhubaneswar.
ODISHA
This is widely expressed that Orissa needs to have a Task Force on the Climate Change which has been emerged in a two-day consultation organized by Focus Orissa during 15-16 November, 2008 at Red cross Bhawan, Bhubaneswar. It is also consented that to have various research studies and action programs in the line of adaptation and mitigation of climate change. That must be people's focus and environment friendly. At the same time it is very important for having a network of all sections of people to take this campaign forward under the banner of Focus Orissa.
It is mentioned in the conference that Puri, Gopalpur Satabhaya and Kantiagarh sea beaches are mostly vulnerable and prone to sea erosion while Titilagarh, Talcher, Sukinda and Jharsuguda are recorded as the highly warming up areas so far as geographical areas of Orissa is concerned. Unprecedented floods, cyclone, drought and sunstroke are being experienced every year where thousands of causalities and loss of habitats & livelihoods are reported. This concern was widely felt over by the workshop and subsequent needs also emerged to have research upon it for taking up various adaptation & mitigation measures.
Orissa has never experienced any such year where it does not have any natural disaster. So far as the issue is concerned, one hundred disasters are recorded in last 100 years. Orissa Govt. has already installed radar in Paradeep with an investment of Rs 12 crore for Tsunami & cyclone warning assessment with an aim to protect life and livelihood of human being as well as domestic animals. Accroding to govt sources several other projects are also in the pipeline and to be installed in collaboration with Govt. of India. Notebly among the developments as has been claimed by the govt is that the state is now equipped with all technology to enable us to evacuate at least two lakhs of people within a span of 2/3 hours during any disaster waning.
We would take the opportunity to invite you to, please, participate in the Workshop and make your valuable contributions to make a successful programme.
Date: 6 & 18, December, 2009 (10am to 6pm)
Venue: REGIONAL SCIENCE CENTRE, Acharya Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa
Sincerely,
Sudarshan Chhotray
Convenor & Moderator-
FOCUS ORISSA FORUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Mangaraj Panda, Dhirendra Panda, Pranab R Choudhury (co-Convenors)
Advisory/Organising Committee
Dr.S N Patro(Orissa Environment Society),Dr.Bhagawan Prakash(Columinist),Achyut Das(Agragamee),Praffula Sahoo(CYSD),Dr.Shahid Ummer(Sr.Geo-Sciencetist),Binayak Swain(BAT-NET),Amar Jyoti. Nayak(Action Aid),Md.Amin(Adhikar),Tapan K Padhi(NID),Kailash C Dash(RCDC),Prashant Mohanty(Vasundhara),Dhanad K Mishra(HDF),Manas Ranjan(Social Researcher),Dr.Manoj Mohapatra(Social Researcher),Prabhat C Sutar(Kalinga Devlopment Foundation)),Mrs.Gitanjali Swayin(IT Proffessional),Ms.Aurosmita(Actress),Ms.Swapna Pati(Actress),Ms.Monalisha Behera(Bio-Care),Jagannath Chatterjee(Living Farms),Umi Daniel(Aid-de-Action),Bisikesan Jani(Odisha Adivasi Pratishtan),Kishore Patnaik(ODAF),Sai Prassan(JVM),Ashish Senapati(Journalist),Sripati Mohapatra(Coastnet),K. Aleya(Orissa Traditioal Fish Workers Union)
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