Webinar Report: Postulating Policy and a Systematic Model for Climate Change Laws in India

Title of the Webinar: Climate Change: Postulating Policy and a Systematic Model for Climate Change Laws in India

Hosted by: Climate Change Laws Research Team, Niti Manthan

Date: 15th June 2020

Objectives of the Event:

1. The basics of Climate Change Policy.
2. The legal situation in India pertaining to laws dealing with Climate Change.
3. The scientific considerations to be made while envisioning a climate change law for India.
4. The major impediments to the creation of a Climate Change Law in India, legally and scientifically.

Speaker Profiles:

Speaker 1: Ms Vidya Ann Jacob, an Assistant Professor at the School of Law, Christ. She was awarded the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Doctoral Fellowship during the period 2019-20 at Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland Oregon. Her research focused on how the USA has adopted different climate resilience mechanisms to address climate challenges.

Speaker 2: Ms Shikha Singh, A scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India. She is a Fulbright fellow 2019-20 and is pursuing a PhD at IIT Mumbai. She works on understanding upper ocean physics as well as on climate models with respect to the Indian region.

EVENT REPORT

The webinar was scheduled to be held on Monday, 15th June 2020 4 PM Onwards was attended by 34 participants and commenced on time without any delays. The Webinar was structured into 3 halves the first two were divided into 20-25 minutes of a lecture that was to be delivered by the speaker. The remaining 25 minutes were dedicated to a Question and Answer session to answer the questions posed by the interns of Niti Manthan.

Ms Vidya Ann Jacob commenced her speech with a concern expressed towards the lack of a scientific perspective in the policymaking process in India. Ms Vidya very eloquently discussed India’s present vulnerability status with respect to the drastic climate impacts ensuing all over the globe. She reiterated the historical focus of India to be poverty reduction that till today remains unchanged. She gave valuable insights regarding the questions that need to be answered to formulate a comprehensive policy that is to focus on the Vulnerability quotient, develop focused options and finally assessing India’s engagement with other countries and its global position. She then went to comment on the existing legal situation in India and stated that the present National Climate Change Action Plan was on of the most comprehensive policy of its time but she also pointed out that it may not be enough to tackle the future challenges posed by climate change. She mainly focused her lecture on developing linkages across sectors and stakeholder issues to climate change in which she addressed issues related to the energy sector, the water sector and also spoke about the land use and agricultural sector. She concluded her lecture by hoping that the revamp of the NAPAC would discuss critical issues such as the issues of internally displaced people, addressing issues related to all genders and stakeholders.

Ms Shikha provided a detailed scientific perspective which was premised on the question ‘Whether there is a Climate crisis or not’? She firstly began by explaining certain phenomenon related to earth system and concepts such as thermal inertia and hoe exactly the earth traps heat and the greenhouse effect in detail. She also stated that the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is constantly on the rise and that the temperature now is slowly overtaking the mean temperature. He spoke about work of a scientist Charles H. who sent up an observatory in Monaloa an active volcano in the Hawaii region. She also went on to show the June 12, 2020 air quality data released by the Scripps Oceanography the results of which are shocking. She later went on to explain what Climate Modelling essentially is and what it entails and how it measures earth’s physical processes such as precipitation, evaporation etc. She explained the various simulation test results in the worst- and best-case scenarios and also explained why running these tests is a very expensive affair. She also explained the current procedure where 23 centres that have access to the technology run tests at the same time which makes it easier to identify significant outputs. Lastly, she also showed a video that portrayed the complete disappearance of the Artic Old ice between the years 1984-2016. Thus, she concluded by stating that Climate crisis is real and it’s the pertinent need of the hour to take significant steps to cut down global emission levels.

The Question and Answer session was very productive as the interns asked pertinent, relevant and thought-provoking questions and the speakers answered the questions enthusiastically and provided valuable insights in answering the questions posed. The meeting ended at around 6.30 PM.

CONCLUSION

In all the session was a very enriching perspective as it was a wholesome experience involving the scientific as well as the legal nuances of climate change policy formulation. The Webinar instilled a sense of direction and new ideas in the minds of the interns of Niti Manthan who attended the session. The speakers were eloquent and extremely knowledgeable in their respective fields. In all the webinar was a grand success and inspirational.

Recording of the webinar can now be accessed at Niti Manthan's Youtube Page -

[The author of this report, Prathiksha Chandrasekhar is a fifth-year law student at School of Law, Christ (Deemed to be ) University and a research intern with the Climate Change Laws Research Team at Niti Manthan]