Climate Consciousness

The in-principle approval given to the National Mission on Strategic Knowledge — a Rs 2,200-crore project aimed at promoting indigenous research, development and capacity-building in the field of climate change — by the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change is significant in more ways than one. It is not just about indigenous research per se. The government is also trying to bring in a comprehensive and transparent data-sharing policy so that various ministries and departments working on climate change coordinate with one another. Therefore, the mission on strategic knowledge will have wider ramifications than were initially thought. If after the accomplishment of the mission the country will have its own prediction systems and a specific knowledge base, the various ministries and departments concerned, on the other hand, can easily coordinate among themselves for a climate change policy in sync with the results of new systems. Such a dynamic knowledge framework can also go a long way in contributing to ecologically sustainable development. Presently, readers would do well to know, the country depends on foreign research results and predictions when it comes to climate change issues, nor are its climate change initiatives coordinated meaningfully among the ministries and departments in the field. One hopes the strategic mission would also help us become an independent, key player at various world climate change fora. We must, if we want to be reckoned as a nation on an irreversible rise. THE SENTINEL