Bhubaneswar: Vasudha Foundation, New Delhi and Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) jointly organized a national conference to seek stakeholder perspectives and inputs on the possible pathways that the State of Odisha could embark on towards becoming a Net Zero economy and specifically on the issue of opportunities, challenges, and potential solutions that the state could implement towards becoming Net Zero.The program was Presided by Chief Guest, Member Secretary of Odisha State Pollution Control Board and Director of State Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of Odisha Dr. K. Murugesan. The other dignitaries present at the inaugural sessions were Dr. Malay Kumar Pradhan, Deputy Director of Directorate of Factories and Boilers , Government of Odisha & Advisor to ICC ESH Committee, Shri. J B Pany, Chairperson, Indian Chamber of Commerce State Council, Shri. N R Sahoo, Convenor of ESH Committee, ICC Odisha State and Chief Environmental Engineer of Odisha State Pollution Control Board, Shri. Rajesh Kanungo, Member Core and Advisory Committee, and Co-Convenor, ESH Committee, ICC Odisha State, Shri. Srinivas Krishnaswamy, Chief Executive Officer, Vasudha Foundation and Shri. J P Pal, Regional Director-ICC.
Dr. Murugesan highlighted that the State of Odisha was the first State in the country to prepare the State Action Plan for Climate Change, and currently actively preparing a roadmap for Net Zero strategy for the State of Odisha. Dr. Malay Kumar Pradhan provided a bouquet of solutions particularly from the Industry side on reducing their carbon footprint and play a role towards making Odisha Net Carbon.Shri. N R Sahoo highlighted the importance of Mission LiFE.Dr. J P Pany and Shri. Srinivas Krishnaswamy welcomed the participants and set the context and purpose of the workshop. They also gave a brief overview on the expectations from the workshop and the way forward.
The inaugural session was followed by two key technical sessions. Technical session 1 focused on opportunities and possible approaches towards mitigating GHG emissions in Odisha. The key speakers in the session were Dr. Malay Kumar Pradhan, Shri. Rajesh Kanungo, Shri. Srinivas Krishnaswamy, Mr. Prafulla Dhal, State Head, CSR and Sustainability, JK Paper Mills Limited and Shri. Brahma Mishra, President, UCCI and Managing Director, Bait Snaayou Smart Solutions Pvt Limited.
Dr. Malay Kumar Pradhan highlighted the importance of scaling up energy efficiency across industries in Odisha. He also highlighted the importance of scaling up renewable energy installations across Industries and particularly energy intensive industries.
Dr. Rajesh Kanungo made a very detailed presentation on the issues, approach and solutions towards industrial decarbonisation.Shri. Srinivas Krishnaswamy highlighted the importance of access to data and information for the development of robust pathways for decarbonisation and showcased the effort done by Vasudha Foundation in this front, by presenting the India Climate and Energy Dashboard, which Vasudha Foundation has developed in partnership with NITI Aayog.
Shri. Prafulla Dhal and Shri. Brahma Mishra added to the rich insights in the panel of talking of solutions ranging from reducing emissions from agriculture and waste sectors.
The technical session II was on the topic of role of adaptation strategies and localisation of climate action.
The key speakers in this session were Dr. Sutapa Pati, Dean, School of Sustainability, XIM University, Dr. Pradipta Panigrahi, Convenor, MSME Committee, ICC State Council, Dr. S Satapathy, Advisor-Climate, Vasudha Foundation, Mr. Nabaghan Ojha, UNDP, and Dr. Payodhar Padhi, Chairman, Hi Tech Medical College and Hospitals.The speakers in this session provided rich insights and inputs on the importance of localisation of climate action, highlighted solutions that can be done at the local level and scaled up to the state and national level and also spoke of initiatives and programmes of the National and State Governments in this effort. A detailed minutes of the meeting with all the inputs would be converted into a compendium and presented to the Government of Odisha, as inputs from this stakeholder consultation.