The Hindu : Plan to set up centre on climate change

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 10, 2002

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National

Plan to set up centre on climate change

By P.Sunderarajan

NEW DELHI Aug. 9. The Centre has proposed to set up a specialised institution to help the country participate in international discussions on climate change more effectively and to its advantage.

The institution would, however, not be totally India-centric. It would be a centre for all the countries in the tropical Asian region, considering that their problems and needs were by and large common.

According to official sources, the proposal came up at an informal meeting on the sidelines of a conference of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change in London in September last year and several countries readily agreed to support the project. The centre is to be modelled on the lines of the International Crop Research Centre for Semi-Arid Tropics at Hyderabad, which is sponsored by a multi-lateral forum called the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.The main aim of the Centre would be to create comprehensive data and information infrastructure at the regional, national and local levels, focussing on climate change-related aspects of various activity sectors such as natural resources, agriculture, health, energy, water, transport and urbanisation. It would, among other things, support multi-disciplinary research and serve as a hub for networking between governments, academia, activist organisations, industry and the local community It would also develop communication strategies to generate awareness at various levels.

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