CHENNAI: One of the buzzwords ever since the DMK came to power in the state is climate change, and how to tackle it. A slew of big-ticket missions was announced, with steep targets and international experts roped into the Tamil Nadu Governing Council on Climate Change. Now, the question is will the state government walk the talk and become climate resilient?
The current actions will shape the future of the state, considering 43% of the coastline eroding, weather patterns changing and more industries putting enormous stress on land and water. So far, the government has fared well. The Tamil Nadu Climate Change Mission announced by Chief Minister MK Stalin with a total outlay of Rs 500 crore is a first of its kind at the sub-national level.
In the year 2022-23, several preparatory works - rehabilitation of coastal habitats for climate change adaptation through nature-based solutions, climate-smart villages under which a set of 11 villages are hand-picked to make them climate resilient - have started. Also, the government has established a climate studio called the Centre for Climate Change and Disaster Management (CCCDM) at Anna University with a high-performance computation facility cluster and accessories for climate modelling.
The CCCDM will provide high-resolution and robust cadastral-level regional climate scenarios for micro-level policy planning, covering the entire Tamil Nadu. Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary of, the Environment, Forest & Climate Change department, told TNIE the government understands the threat posed by climate change and that some of the initiatives undertaken in the past one year will help the state mitigate the problem in the long run. “We have not just framed the policies.
Realistic targets are fixed and work is under way to achieve them. For instance, to support climate change mitigation and greening projects, the government has set up Tamil Nadu Green Climate Fund (TNGCF) with a fund size of Rs 1,000 crore,” Sahu said. Minister for Environment Siva V Meyyanathan said the process of registering TNGCF as a category 1 (social venture fund) under the SEBI Alternative Investment Fund Regulations, 2012 is in the final stages of completion.
“Once the registration is done, we will open the efforts.”
G Sundararajan from the city-based environmental advocacy group, Poovulagin Nanbargal, said though the government is taking proactive steps, some of the projects envisaged recently puts questions on its wisdom like building Pen Monument, and the proposed Chennai’s second airport in Parandur, destroying hundreds of acres of wetland.
“The recent IPCC reports show the gap to achieve or mitigate climate change is closing very fast. The report states the city will reach its wet-bulb temperature very soon. In Tamil Nadu, disaster risks are high while officials are largely reactive in their responses or act in silos. There is an urgent need for hybrid, comprehensive solutions to adapt to climate change and create resilience,” he said.
The DMK government, so far, has fared well on the climate front; Tamil Nadu Climate Change Mission with an outlay of Rs 500 cr is a first-of-its-kind initiative at the sub-national level; the govt established a climate studio at Anna University with a high-performance computation facility cluster and accessories for climate modelling
