MURARI LAL
Advisor, Reliance Energy, Noida
A climatologist of international repute, Murari Lal has been associated with the IPCC since its inception in 1988. In fact, he is the only Indian to have contributed to all the four Assessment Reports of the IPCC. A former professor at IIT Delhi, where he spent 21 years, Lal is one of the leading authorities on Indian monsoon and a renowned expert on global and regional climate variabilities. The 58-year-old has done extensive work on developing effective climate models and published close to 100 papers in national and international scientific journals. At present, he is working as Advisor (Environment) with Reliance Energy in Noida.
For the Fourth Assessment Report, Lal, along with three others in Working Group II, wrote the chapter on Asia. The chapter cites new findings to conclude that crop yield in many Asian countries were already showing declining trends, partly due to rising temperatures and extreme weather events. It projects 2.5 to 10 per cent decrease in crop yield in some parts of Asia in the 2020s and 5 to 30 per cent decline in 2050s compared with 1990 levels without CO2 effects.
‘‘From India’s perspective, however, the most significant finding is the likely drying up of rivers because of receding of glaciers. That would put tremendous stress on our agriculture,’’ says Lal.
The most challenging part of the entire exercise, says Lal, was to ensure that every relevant material was taken note of and every relevant voice heard. Therefore scientists working in the remote corners of the world, even when not part of IPCC family, were contacted for first-hand inputs. Then there was the difficulty of convincing the governments of findings. ‘‘The government representatives would examine each and every word and often want the language changed. We had to do a lot of convincing,’’ he says.
‘‘But the good thing that IPCC has done is to make the people aware of climate change. Governments alone cannot do much. People have to realise that natural resources are not infinite and they must make a judicious and careful use of these resources,’’ he says.
—Amitabh Sinha

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