The international climate community was apprised of the forthcoming Kolkata Climate Action Plan on the sidelines of the recently-concluded UN climate conference, COP-29, at Baku, Azerbaijan. This was done by Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) mayor in-council member and legislator Debasis Kumar, who is also the vice-chair of the committee preparing the plan.
He said this while addressing a seminar organised on the sidelines of COP-29 by the UN Habitat Centre on the issue of urbanisation and climate change. He said that no outside agency has been assigned to prepare the plan, the experts on various issues are contributing to it, which will be approved by the committee overseeing it. He also said that the plan would be announced soon.
Kumar also addressed another seminar organised by Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) on the sidelines of COP-29. It was on the impact of climate change on urban life and livelihood. He said among the 50 million permanent population in Kolkata city area, 70 per cent are living in the slums. He also informed that as per the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), which is another UN body to assess impact of climate change, 47 per cent of the wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation are vulnerable due to global warming. He hoped that the Kolkata Climate Action Plan will definitely try to solve the problem. He also said Kolkata is the first city in Asia to have taken a pledge to make the city carbon-free.
Sundernan has also come up for discussion at a forum on the sidelines. The sea level rise and land erosion causing disappearance of a couple of islands and climate migration in the delta was on focus, which evoked a lot of concern among the delegates and observers present along with the attention of the international media.