India pavilion at climate change summit sees heavy footfall

Various sessions including that on sustainable lifestyles and climate justice was organised at the Indian pavilion at the ongoing climate change summit in Marrakech which registered a heavy footfall on the first day.
After inaugurating the pavilion yesterday, Union Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave had also shared his thoughts on the importance of adopting sustainable practices and had termed it as the way forward to battle climate change.
The theme of the first session held at the pavilion yesterday was "Sustainable Lifestyles and Climate Justice" which discussed various factors that go into developing and evolving a sustainable lifestyle.
The discussion also focused on how education had a major transformative role to play and would involve not just formal education, but also non-formal and in-formal education, an official statement today said.

Adriana Valenzuela of UNFCCC also elaborated about how guidelines had been developed for Article 6 - on education, public awareness and empowerment - which will be launched during the ongoing COP22.
During the session, Vijeta Rattani from Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) also shared data on consumption pattern in the US and how it was grossly wasteful and many times that of developing countries.

Another side-event held yesterday was on "Climate Change Adaptation Actions in India" and served as an important platform to deliberate on the lessons that have been learnt so far in terms of adaptation, planning, prioritization and implementation under national and international funding mechanisms.

It also discussed the challenges being faced in terms of stakeholder engagement, technical and capacity building support and scaling-up of adaptation.
"The panel deliberated on sharing of national and international perspectives on adaptation actions and synergy of national and international funding mechanism for adaptation action in India and at the global level.
Special Secretary R R Rashmi emphasised the importance of adaptation and said that five out of eight National Missions of India are exclusively devoted to adaptation.