The Centre for Environmental Law, Advocacy and Research (CELAR), a research centre of National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam, organized a two-day International Conference on Climate Change on 9th and 10th March 2019. It was co-sponsored by the prestigious Shastri Programme Development Grant (SPDG) of the binational Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, New Delhi. The focal area of the Conference was to explore the multidisciplinary contours of climate change. As such, the conference witnessed the presentation of research made by seventy select people across various academic disciplines, like law, economics, technology, geography, sociology, business, commerce and technology. It also witnessed the scholarly presence of over fifty delegates. The participants hailed from Assam and other places across the length and breadth of India as well as from several foreign countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Mexico.

The Conference dwelled on three primary themes namely, the international dimension on climate change, focussing specially on the Indo-Canadian dimension and the national and north east Indian dimension on climate change. To stimulate discussions and debates, eminent personalities and experts in each of the thematic dimensions were present. The luminaries included judges like Chief Justice A.S. Bopanna, Justice S. Shyam and Justice U. Bhuyan of Gauhati High Court, Justice P.M.M. Peires, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and Dr. Ranjan Chatterjee from the National Green Tribunal. It also included lawyers like Mr. Sanjay Upadhay and Mr. Sudhir Mishra of the Supreme Court of India, academicians like Prof. (Dr.) Armin Rosencraz from Stanford University, Prof. (Dr.) Phillip Cullet from SOAS University of London, Prof. (Dr.) M.K. Ramesh from NSLIU, Prof. (Dr.) Chandan Mahanta from IIT-G and activists like Ms. Rama Rauta, Pioneer of the Save Ganga Movement, Mr. Jadav Payeng, the Forest Man of India and Mr. Rajendra Singh, the Waterman of India. Led by such personalities, the technical sessions of the Conference witness some intense deliberations on how best to combat climate change, especially the peculiar climate vulnerabilities of Assam and North East India. The deliberations will soon be consolidated in the form of principles and published as the ‘Guwahati Declaration on Climate Change’. The Guwahati Declaration will be presented to the state and other non-governmental stakeholders in order to assist policy and action making aimed to combat change. The Conference will become an annual event and the Guwahati Declaration will be annually amended as and when necessary. The research proceedings of the Conference will be published in the form of a book and be made available to the public.

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