Government reconstitutes Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change

On 5^th November 2014, Union government reconstituted the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change.
The new Council on Climate Change will be headed by Prime Minister. It will formulate and coordinate the National Action Plan for Assessment, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change.
The council will have 18 members, which includes 13 government representatives and 5 non-government members. Among 13 government representatives, 8 will be ministers.
The council will focus on the following tasks:

• The new council will coordinate the action plan and advise the government on proactive measures that can be taken to deal with the challenge of climate change.
• It will facilitate inter-ministerial coordination and guide policy in relevant areas.
• The council will evolve a coordinated response to issues relating to climate change at the national level.
• It will provide oversight for formulation of action plans in the area of assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change and periodically monitor key policy decisions.

The composition of the re-constituted Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change:

1. Prime Minister(Head of Council)
2. Minister for External Affairs
3. Union Finance Minister
4. Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change: It will assist the Prime Minister’s Office in facilitating the work of the council.
5. Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
6. Union Minister for Agriculture.
7. Union Minister for Urban Development.
8. Union Minister for Science and Technology.
9. Union MoS of Power, Coal and NRE.
10. Principal Secretary to PM (Member-convener of this panel)
11. Cabinet Secretary.
12. Foreign Secretary.
13. Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

Retained members from previous council

4. R. K. Pachauri, Chairperson ofIPCC and TERI.
5. Nitin Desai.
6. Chandrasekar Dasgupta

Newly added members

7. Ajay Mathur, Chairperson, BEE
8. M. Mouskar, retired IAS officer.

Previous Council
The first and previous was formed in 2007. It was chaired by then Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. It included government representatives and non-government members. But this council had not met for over three years.
Sunita Narain, Raj Chengappa, R.Ramachandran,Prodopto Ghosh and RatanTata were the members of this council who are dropped from this year’s council.
The country’s National Action Plan on Climate Change was framed by this Council.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2014