KOCHI: The directorate of environment and climate change has started to revise the Kerala state action plan on climate change. The old report was formulated in 2014 but the government failed to implement the recommendations in it despite a series of natural disasters plaguing the state that started with the drought in 2016.
The revised action plan will focus on the disaster vulnerability index of each district, each sector, adaptation and mitigation plans. Each district will be ranked based on the vulnerability index and what kind of disasters it stares at.
The disasters happening in Kerala, vulnerability and the impact will be assessed based on the methodology used in the fifth assessment report of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The directorate started holding discussions with various stakeholders, including health, dam management authority and water resources, in the government sector.
The draft of the revised plan is expected to be completed in four months and submitted to the state government, which should approve and implement the recommendations in it at the ground level.
“We have taken all the eco system, including coastal, forest, rivers and biodiversity, into consideration for the action plan. Unlike the Gadgil committee report, which focused only on the conservation of Western Ghats, we look into an integrated approach. We hope it won’t face the same fate as the Gadgil report,” said an official in the directorate.
The report will be prepared after examining all the disasters that happened in the state in the last 10 years.
In the health sector, population, density, air quality, quality of drinking water, industries, water bodies, how many vector borne diseases, how many die, number of hospitals, healthcare workers, availability of beds, ventilators and ICUs will be assessed in each sector and it will be analyzed whether each district can cope with any disaster.
Experts in the field said there should be coordinated effort on the part of all stakeholders to implement the recommendations in the action plan.
“It is shameful that human lives are lost in natural disasters at a time when revolution is happening in technology and artificial intelligence. The private sector is coming up with cutting-edge technology solutions and the government should tap that potential to address the climate change issues along with implementing the action plan in a concerted way,” said A Nambi Appadurai, director (climate resilience practice) World Resources Institute.
.png?w=600)
