SAARC steps up effort to tackle climate change

Stepping up efforts to tackle climate change, South Asian nations today decided to set up weather monitoring stations, forestry centre and natural disaster management system for the region.
    
SAARC Environment Ministers, at a meeting here, agreed to enhance cooperation on climate-related matters and also issue a joint statement on the sidelines of the UN summit on climate change in Copehagen in December.

Briefing reporters on the meeting, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said six key decisions were taken by the SAARC ministers to tackle global warming, which included holding of an annual workshop to review climate change actions by each of the eight member nations.
    
The first SAARC workshop is scheduled to be held in Delhi early next year where experts would discuss action plans on climate change adaptation and mitigation responses of members.

India would help set up 50 automatic weather stations in Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh to monitor weather patterns, especially storms, across the member-states.

Afghanistan and Pakistan would be covered in the second phase followed by the Maldives and Sri Lanka, Ramesh said.
    
A joint statement at Copenhagen in December, finalisation of the regional environment treaty for SAARC countries and charting a natural disaster rapid response mechanism were the other decisions taken.

India also decided to extend a grant of one million dollars for strengthening the SAARC Forestry Centre in Thimphu and an additional one million dollars for the coastal zone management centre in the Maldives.
    
Ramesh said the regional environment treaty and the natural disaster rapid response mechanism are expected to be finalised and adopted at the SAARC Summit in Thimphu in April next year.
    
Recognising that the South Asia was amongst the regions most vulnerable to climate change as around 21 per cent of the world's population lives here, the ministers stressed sustainable development and adaptation to it remained the appropriate way to address the threat.

"The ministers also underlined the need for afforestation and emphasised that the REDD Plus proposal (seeking fund for retaining forests) before the UNFCCC was an appropriate basis for such an agreement at Copenhagen," Ramesh added.