During a meeting on World Environment Day on Monday, mayor Firhad Hakim admitted that Kolkata was under acute climatic stress and pointed out that the situation had turned worse owing to a spate of environmental violations over the last two decades.
The programme was organised by the Environment Governed Integrated Organisation (EnGIO), with support from the Prabha Khaitan Foundation (PKF) and My Kolkata.
Hakim announced a slew of measures to combat the threat, including preparation of Kolkata Climate Action Plan that he launched during the event. A coalition of pan-India organisations and experts led by Kolkata Municipal Corporation would prepare the plan within six months.
Environmental non-profit EnGIO and green platform Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) will coordinate the preparation, while Observer Research Foundation Kolkata, Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries (BCCI), Climate Trends and Press Club, Kolkata, will also contribute.
“Years ago, monsoon would have arrived by this time, while this year we are having 40-degree Celsius temperature at daytime. We have made it worse as nearly 3,500 water bodies have been filled up over the last two decades and we lost about 20,000 trees only during Cyclone Amphan,” said the mayor in the meeting.
“We used to call Kolkata the ‘City of Joy’; now with mounting air pollution, it is about to become a city of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease),” said Hakim, adding that the civic body had decided to plant 25 lakh trees on both banks of the Hooghly till Dakshineswar, on the banks of Tolly’s Nullah and in the East Kolkata Wetlands besides on land reclaimed from waste dumping site in Dhapa.
Dignitaries from the state government and consulates as well as environmentalists, academicians and experts from various fields attended the event
“We have announced in Copenhagen and subsequently in Glasgow that city transport will be shifted from fossil fuel by 2030. We are working on that commitment besides also creating a charging infrastructure around the city. We expect that the Kolkata Climate Action Plan would be finalised within six months,” said the mayor.
Debasish Kumar, who represented KMC in the last global climate summit at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, said that the civic body would provide all support to the proposed initiative.
The expert committee announced to guide the process would have specialists from all related sectors such as industry, transport, power, drainage, public health, biodiversity, air pollution, economics and communication. Many represented these sectors during the meeting on Monday.
“I am very happy to be part of the committee and would provide all inputs in framing the Kolkata Climate Action Plan. Climate change is quickly becoming unmanageable and cutting emission from fossil fuel burning is a key issue,” said Subimal Ghosh of IIT Mumbai, a climate science expert and an author of the recently published IPCC’s sixth assessment report on climate change and also a member of the Kolkata committee.
“From the transport sector, we would provide all relevant information and will support through our IIT-based team,” added Bhargav Maitra of IIT Kharagpur; another member.
Abhijeet Chatterjee, a scientist from Bose Institute and also a committee member supposed to provide expert input on air pollution of the city and its linkage to climate change, pointed out that his team was already working on the agenda.
Other committee members Aniruddha Mukherjee, a professor of Calcutta University, Arunabha Majumdar, a former director-head of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an expert from the Center for Science and Environment, CANSA director Sanjay Vashist were also present, the latter digitally.
“We plan to generate sector-wise status report and recommendations; inputs from series of stakeholder meetings and finally, a matrix combining all the inputs , and expect to come up with an agreed and pragmatic climate action plan for the city within scheduled period,” said Jayanta Basu, a communications specialist attached to EnGIO and also a committee member.