Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Indian industries discuss climate change, safety tips

Indian Express: Industrialists from various clusters in Ahmedabad met on Tuesday to study how climate change can ruin their businesses if precautions are not taken, even as organizers prepare a vulnerability map of industrial clusters across Gujarat.

The need to prepare businesses for possible impacts of climate change was a pressing concern, given case studies tabled at the meet saying that industrial estates could experience climate change induced floods and a rise in temperature that could make production costlier since much depends on efficient cooling systems.

Dieter Mutz, director of GIZ, a German government body working to promote international cooperation for sustainable development and which is assisting the state chapter of FICCI in the effort, said it was conceived because preparing for climate change has been popular in rural, urban and agricultural sectors but not among industries.

“Industries often say they want to curb their emissions and effluents, but they don’t talk about preparing for the risks,” Mutz said, adding preparing against climate change induced disasters is even more important for industrial estates that lie on the state’s coasts.

Representatives of German think-tank Adelphi, who spoke at the meet, said climate change forecasts predict Gujarat could experience rising temperatures and more rainfall in shorter periods. In other words, intense rains that would increase surface run-offs, drought during non-rainy seasons and sudden floods. These could hamper businesses, especially supply routes and logistics, wear down infrastructure and cause hardships to workers without whom production would suffer, they said...

A COSCO factory in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, shot by Coscoindia, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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