State to tackle challenges due to climate change: Pinarayi

The State government will use all possible mechanisms to counter the challenges due to climate change while following a path of sustainable development, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.

In his article to mark World Environment Day, he touched upon the spate of floods, extremely high temperatures and drought which Kerala has been experiencing recently due to climate change.

“In 2023-24, we experienced the climate phenomenon of El Nino, which caused a huge spike in temperatures and led to a drought-like situation. Now, we are experiencing the phenomenon of La Nina, which has been causing floods and landslips due to heavy spells of rain in a short period. Over the past two weeks, the State has experienced the ravages due to this phenomenon in various places. Such climate change induced phenomena causing major destruction are bound to repeat in the coming years,” he said.

Mr.Vijayan said that the State government’s interventions in the environment sector has been scientific as well as imaginative. The Haritha Keralam Mission has been helming such activities since 2016 to revitalise the environment. He highlighted the ‘Pachathuruthu’ initiative to create green islets across the State. Over 1,000 green islets will be created as part of the initiative. Over the past five years, a total of 2,950 acres of green islets have been created across 856.23 acres of land, he said.

He said that the Pachathuruthuu initiative will have a key role to play in achieving the State’s aim of Net Zero Carbon by 2050. The local bodies across the State have been playing a leading role in the greening initiative. The preparation of water budget, currently being taken up in 342 local bodies under the Haritha Keralam Mission, will be expanded to all local bodies. The water budget considers the amount of water that a particular region will get over a period of time and maps this against the water consumption based on population numbers.