Framing the climate change debate

Integrated Research and Action for Development in partnership with the Natural Resource Defence Council and the Centre for Environment Education has organized a Climate Change Awareness Training cum Debate Competition in eight universities from Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. This project 'Framing the Climate Change Debate' was supported by U. S. Embassy (New Delhi) and aimed to raise awareness of youth on climate change who will propagate the knowledge across the society.

The event called upon the university students to acquire requisite knowledge on climate change and to inculcate proper attitudes for contributing in climate change adaptation and mitigation and ultimately to sustainable development.

As part of the initiative, an event was organised at Central University of Rajasthan, Ajmer. Around 80 shortlisted students participated in the event. Symposiums on climate change and debates were the key components of this event. The symposiums was held on first two days each, aimed at empowering the youth participants to take the right decisions and make right choices to combat the emerging challenges arising from the problem of climate change. The symposiums included sessions on introduction to climate change, impact of climate change, adaptation and mitigation, policy progress in India on climate change and international climate change policy framework. Symposium was followed by a debate on climate change on the third day. For the debate, 30 top scoring students were selected after the preliminary rounds. The winner took part in the final round at Delhi.