Gandhinagar: The first segment of Climate Action Now (CAN) 2020 Workshop Series being conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) culminated on February 28, 2020 and marked an end of five-days’ presentations, discussions and deliberations on “Climate Policy and Governance”. This workshop series was inaugurated on February 11, 2020. The Workshops were held at the green campus of IIT Gandhinagar in collaboration with GEER Foundation, Gandhinagar. The series was also supported by The Kiran Patel Centre for Sustainable Development, IITGN.

The five-days workshops included talks on a vast gamut of sectors that are directly linked to climate change, including – climate policy, environment, water, agriculture, power, energy, sustainable urban and rural development, industry and mining, climate risks and vulnerability, sustainable transport, forests, biodiversity and wildlife and climate finance and economics. This encompassing mix of subjects opened up many dimensions of data sets, policies, practices and sustainable actions.

A total of 12 theme based technical sessions were held which interknitted talks by 44 expert speakers who were invited from different corners of the country. The speakers came from CEA, FSI, ICFRE, MoEFCC, BIRD, SIDBI, TERI, CEPT, IIM, IIT GN, METRO, GIFT, GMDC, GIDM, Deendayal Port, Adani Solar, Kanoda, SPRERI, GEDA, GIDR, among others. More than 300 people participated in this segment of CAN 2020 and shared thoughts, experiences and knowledge. The workshop facilitated networking amongst participating individuals and organisations. As the overarching theme of this segment was ‘Policy and Governance’, the participants represented different government departments and organisations from the respective sectors that were covered during the workshop.

In addition, about 8 students from various educational institutions from across the country also participated in the event under the Youth and Innovation Sessions and presented their research work relating to climate change.

Further set of workshops under the CAN 2020 series will be conducted from March 17-21, 2020, on “Climate Action and Industries” and from April 16-22, 2020, on “Climate Change Research and Technology”.