Delivering a talk on “Climate change – impact and implications to society” here on Thursday, Dr. Rayner, scientist at the Laboratory for Science of Climate and Environment, Paris, said: “climate change is real and potentially severe.” The availability of fresh water would decrease drastically in various countries of Asia and people would be at risk of diarrhoeal diseases.

— Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

Sounding a warning: (From left) V.K. Gaur, professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore; Chairman of the Legislative Council B.K. Chandrashekar; Peter Rayner, scientist at the Laboratory for Science of Climate and Environment, Paris; and Morag Logan, wife of Dr. Rayner at a talk on ‘Climate change – impact and implications to society’ in Bangalore on Thursday.

Since the late 1950s a steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration had been established. This gas was currently the single largest contributor to the enhanced greenhouse effect, a contributor to climate change.

“Any solution to control climate change must involve everyone,” he said and suggested that countries adopt methods to quantify and understand the processes controlling carbon dioxide exchange between the earth’s surface and atmosphere.

Dr. Rayner has published over 60 papers in leading journals and has contributed to the last three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

“Increasing fossil fuel use and then cleaning up later will not work,” he observed and said a great deal about the processes controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration remained unclear. Further, there was the possibility that future climate change itself would increase the pressure on natural resources, the scientist said.

Dr. Rayner is an environmental scientist working to find an adaptable solution to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol, framed in 1997, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an amendment to the international treaty on climate change and it assigns targets for reduction of greenhouse gases.

Earlier, V.S. Prakash of the Drought Monitoring Cell said that climate change had caused damage to 226 km of roads, 31,000 hectares of lands, and had displaced 3.75 lakh people in the State in the past few years.

Legislative Council Chairman B.K. Chandrashekar said climate change manifested itself in many shapes and forms, such as sea level rise, variability of precipitation patterns, change in frequency of extreme events (cyclones). Changes in humidity, water flooding, growth of vegetation, and desertification had been noticed in the State due to climate change, he said.

Abhjit Das Gupta, Principal Secretary (Forest and Ecology); Lakshmi Venkatachalam, Principal Secretary (Planning); and V.K. Gaur, professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, were among those who attended the programme.

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