Hooda stresses upon public role to save earth

Gurgaon, Nov 15 (UNI) Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today urged the public to take a pledge to save the earth and pursue sustainable strategies to check the climate change.

Mr Hooda was speaking at the concluding function of three-day "School Environment Educators First Conference" at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in village Gwalpahari in this district.

About 360 teachers from schools located in various parts of the country and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Brunei attended the conference.

All agencies, including media, educational institutes and NGOs must make concerted efforts to change the mindset of the people about various aspects of environment, he stressed.

While lauding TERI's role in generating awareness about environmental issues, Mr Hooda said that teachers, specially in Haryana, were being seen as key educators to help the society in developing a relationship with the environment through the classroom. Stating that Haryana would emerge as a leading state for the cause of environment, the Chief Minister stressed that the climate change was one of the most important global environmental challenges with implications for food production, natural eco systems, fresh water supply and health.

He pointed out that evidence showed that most of global warming observed over the last 50 years was attributable to human activities and it is 0.1 degree celsius per decade.

While referring to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Chief Minister said that increase in global mean temperature has been projected between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees celsius by 2100.

He felt that this unprecedented increase would have severe impact on the global hydrological system, ecosystems, sea level, crop production and related processes. The impact would be particularly severe in the tropical areas, which mainly consist of developing countries, including India.

Mr Hooda asserted that climate policies can be more effective when consistently embedded within broader strategies designed to make national and regional development plans more sustainable.

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