Kathmandu, August 15:

A five-day-long regional workshop on Climate Scenarios for South Asia kicked off in the capital today. Addressing the inaugural session of the workshop, Dr Swyambhu Man Amatya, secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, said: “The changing global climate has affected Nepal as well. The topic is new but holds significance in context of least developed countries like Nepal, he said. Twenty-nine representatives from Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh along with resource persons from Italy and China are participating in the workshop, which is being organised by the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) and Pakistan Meteorological Department in collaboration with Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Nepal.

“Climate change has emerged as a major worldwide concern in recent times,” said Dr Arshad Muhammad Khan, executive director, GCISC. The change in climate would effect developing countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan most as these countries have less capacity to cope with it, he said, adding: “The ever- increasing fossil fuel consumption is the major reason for the erratic climatic pattern and would have both positive and negative impact in the socio-economic sector.” Highlighting the APN CAPABLE Project, Dr Khan said the workshop would help address the adaptation method to tackle the adverse effect of climate change. The workshop will also carry an assessment of corresponding likely impact of changing global scenario, he added.

Muhammad Munir Sheikh, head Climatology Section, GCISC said the workshop will be fruitful in studying the effects of climate change over air, water, agriculture and other natural resources. Filippo Giorgi of Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy, said a network of South Asia Impact of Climate Change was formulated on the earlier workshop held on Islamabad last February and the present seminar would be important in strengthening it.