Workshop on mitigation strategies to combat climate change

The  Department of Environmental Science, Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni in collaboration with Ambuja Cement Foundation, Darlaghat organized a workshop on the theme ‘Ways to fight climate change’ to find out the sector-wise adaptation and mitigation strategies to combat climate change.
 
The workshop brought together more than a dozen experts from environmental science, agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry sectors, members of the watershed development team, members of climate-proofing projects and farmers to jointly discuss the causes and impacts of climate change on these various sectors as well as suitable adaptation and mitigation strategies. Over 100 participants took part in the workshop and discussed the problems faced due to climate change. Dr. SK Bhardwaj, Coordinator cum head of the department briefed about the status of climate change and its global challenge. He pointed out that the average temperature has increased by 1.5 ºC during the last 120 years in Himachal Pradesh.
 
Presently, every country in the world is working to keep the temperature rise below 2ºC but still the results are not satisfactory and there are projections that by the end of this century temperature may increase beyond 2ºC which can be very devastating and indicate a climate emergency. Dr. Bhardwaj said that under the climate change situation there is a need to create climate literacy so that we at the individual level start living in harmony with nature to make a sustainable human society. He advocated having a low-carbon style at the individual level.
 
Dr. Inder Dev, Director of Extension Education, UHF, Nauni was the Chief Guest on the occasion. He was of the view that we need to kickstart an individual initiative to tackle climate change. He pointed out various impacts of climate change such as the melting of glaciers, prolonged dry spell, cloud burst and sea level rise. He discussed that from the period of 1901-2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by 2 mm per year and the rate is accelerating, with sea levels now rising by 3.7 mm per year. He emphasized the need to grow more trees at the individual level and adopt mixed farming in the fields. Dr. Hukum Sharma Co-coordinator of the workshop also discussed various ways to tackle climate change and outlined the importance of various adaptation practices to be adopted at the farm level under climate change scenarios to ensure food and nutritional security.
 
Bhupender Gandhi, Programme Manager, Ambuja Cement Foundation, Darlaghat, enlisted various adaptation practices being promoted at farmers' fields to combat climate change in agriculture. Surender Thakur, Project Director, ATMA stressed on the need to adopt natural farming to combat climate change. Dr. Pratima presented the vote of thanks and said that more such workshops will be organized in the future to discuss adaptation and mitigation strategies to tackle climate change problems.
 
All the participants agreed that crop diversification is a solution to cope with climate change and enhance the nutritional value of food and there is a need to focus on reaching a new universal agreement to fight climate change. Literature related to mitigation and adaptation practices in agriculture was distributed to the participants.