'Climate change is hurting India's crops'

NEW DELHI: R K Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Friday took on the government, saying that climate change is affecting Indian agriculture unlike what 'some leaders' had claimed. His warning came while addressing MPs in a lecture organised by the Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training.

Pachauri, who is the director-general of the Energy Resource Institute and also heads the Nobel-winning IPCC, said that studies clearly showed that agriculture would be hit in the subcontinent with increase in global temperatures.

"Wheat yields would fall by 5-10% with every increase of 1 degree celsius," he said. His statement came weeks after the government had stated in reply to a parliamentary question that India did not yet have any proof of how climate change would impact the country's agrarian situation.

TOI had reported how the government had avoided informing the Parliament about a 2004 report where it had presented the dangers of falling yield to the UN in a mandatory report.

Pachauri, who is in the contention for a second shot at IPCC chair, said the scientific body had assessed data showing public health scare that could emerge out of rising temperatures, such as increase in cholera and diarroheal diseases. He pointed out that regional-level studies were required to understand the localised impacts of temperature increase.