Environmental Issues in India

33

GLOBAL WARMING AND INDIA

Anand Patwardhan

Global warming has emerged as one of the most important environmental issues ever to confront humanity. This concern arises from the fact that our everyday activities may be leading to changes in the earth's atmosphere that have the potential to significantly alter the planet's heat and radiation balance. It could lead to a warmer climate in the next century and thereafter, portending a potpourri of possible effects, mostly adverse.

International efforts to address this problem have been going on for the last decade, with the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992 as an important launching point, and the Conference of Parties in Buenos Aires in 1998 as the most recent step. Although India as a developing country ...