Y20 Talk on Youth in Climate Action at Kumaraguru
Kumaraguru Institutions and The Plantterra – an organization creating awareness on the seriousness of climate change successfully hosted the Y20 talk in Swami Vivekananda Hall in Kumaraguru Campus on 10th June 2023.
The Plenary session was given by Mr Erik Solheim, 6th Executive Director of United Nations Environment Program, Former Minister of Norwegian Government and Governing Council member of the Tamil Nadu Climate Action Committee. They spoke on the importance and contribution of Youth in Climate Action.
Panel Discussion on “Technology on Climate Action” was moderated by Mr Balakumar Thangavelu, India Head – Outreach, Cognizant. Mr Sundar Muruganandhan, Managing Director of Versa Drives Private limited, Mr Kavin Kumar Kandasamy, CEO – Proclime and Mr Hari Prasad, CEO – Beyond Sustainability, discussed about the contribution of technology in climate action and the revolution of technology in contributing to carbon reduction.
The second panel discussion was on “Climate literacy for Climate Action” moderated by Mr Saravanan Chandrasekaran, General Manager, Kumaraguru Institutions. The panel members are Dr Jayaprakash CR, Head of Communication in PSGCAS, Mrs Sujani Balu, Convenor – Awareness, Siruthuli and Mr S Bharathidasan, Co- founder of Arulagam, emphasized the contributions of young minds to climate action through sustainable practices.
It was an insightful session which was curated with the objective to create awareness about the current situations and problems in climate action. Kumaraguru Institutions delighted to conduct the Climate Action related activities and provoking the thoughts among student community towards Sustainable practices and Climate action.
Mridula Manasvi R K founder of The Plantterra – an organisation to educate individuals on environment conservation welcomed the gathering and stressed on the importance of the discussions related to climate change.
City Police Commissioner V Balakrishnan: We anticipate two kinds of crimes in future that will keep up occupied. One is Cyber and AI related crime and the other is environment related crimes.
We anticipate environment related crimes to go up in the future as we as human race are consuming more than our due. The way we are consuming our resources is creating imbalance in the ecosystem. Though there is a balance in the universe in the macro level.
The public transport system is very important for cities like Coimbatore where over a lakhs vehicles are getting registered in a year. To make the public transport safer, police have a vital role to play.
Clean drinking water is another essential need which needs to be available in the public taps like many countries. Here even in the rural areas, packaged drinking is being relied over lack of safe water in the public taps.
Suggesting reduction of consumption in the personal level can be one vital solution, the commissioner said that individual responsibility is essential at this moment. The climate action needs to be decentralised where every individual must plant trees excess to his or her individual oxygen intake. Similarly, corporates and other industries must plant more than their carbon footprints. If such kind of decentralisation in maintaining the environment happens, the whole city can be taken care.
Speech by Mr Erik Solheim: Climatic change is a big problem, we should be aware of the consequences and take necessary precautions steps.
We should take initiatives to Go green, GREEN IS GOLD. About 10 years ago, we had only one metro facility, currently we are facilitated with 27 cities having metro system.
He mentioned Korean and German cars running up to 500 km on single charge, superfast, less noise hi-tech electric cars, which is more comfortable, and it will take over other cars in a few years.
He appreciated the initiatives and programs of tamilnadu government towards sustainability and climate change.
He insisted to protect the nature, mangroves and ecosystem. Indonesia has the second largest rainforest in the globe, the government has set powerful rules and regulations to protect wildlife. Innovation through creativity for sustainable life, every nation has unique and enormous contributions towards the world’s development, do not take negativity which was spread by one nation towards another.
Mr Kavin Kumar Kandasamy, CEO, Proclime said safety and climate are corelated. Climate change is not a crisis anymore but an opportunity. Everybody is part of the climate industry and it is the biggest industry of the future. And it is a 8 trillion dollar opportunity.
Through such events, we should look climate as an opportunity and get more market forces to come and invest in climate. So, climate as a crisis can be used to also pull people out of poverty, empower more people and create environment balance.
Dr C R Jayaprakash, Professor, Department of Communication, PSG College of Arts and Science who is also into promoting sustainable farming practises said that change in the farming practises over the recent decades has taken toll on human health.
The amount of money spent on medicines is far more than what we used to spend a few decades back. This was the fallout of change in farming practises in the recent decades. Saying that getting back to sustainable farming can help the future generation, he asked to support farmers into organic farming practises.
S Bharathidasan, Cofounder, Arulagam: What has happened over the last few decades is climate destruction and not climate change but the mankind is trying to evade from the damage occurred by terming it as climate change said
He said that the people who are largely affected by climate change are the people in the lowest strata of the society like the farmers, tribals and fishermen though their carbon footprint has remained negligible. Therefore, there is need to
Part of vulture conservation, he said that many of the tree species have been affected by the climate change because of which vultures are facing difficulty in creating their nest which again is affecting their population.
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