The Chief Ministers’ Conclave on Indian Himalayas: Glaciers, Climate Change and Livelihoods started in Shimla on Thursday with technical sessions by experts from across the country and abroad, generating a hot debate on the receding glaciers. Climate and environment experts across the board agreed that there was need to create a climate change information base to have more authentic data to assess the future needs.

Professor S I Hasnain of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, said there was a need to study the impact of carbon deposits on the glaciers as the deposits were responsible for increasing the pace of their melting. He said TERI was working on the subject.

Dr Anil V Kulkarni of Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad, quoted studies of Chenab and Sutlej basin and said the pattern of the melting of glaciers was not uniform across the entire Himalayan region and thus the strategy for combating it had to be devised accordingly.

Professor S K Dash of the Centre of Atmosphere Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, observed that with the shrinking of winter season, there had been erratic patterns of rains. “Heavy rains concentrated in a few days of the monsoons and increase in short dry spells is one evident phenomenon. More satellite data centres are required in the Himalayan region to closely observe the changes,” he said.

Addressing the inaugural session, Himachal Pradesh Chief Secretary Asha Swaroop said: “Hill states are facing stress of various kinds, due to the fast pace of urbanisation and growth of tourism. This has had devastating effect with the given measures of environmental protection and conservation in practice. The average temperature of Shimla has risen in the recent past as the world feels the heat of global warming.”

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