Preparation of Sri Lanka’s Third National Communication on Climate Change and to develop Provincial Adaptation Plans – Eastern province
Climate Change Secretariat (CCS) of the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment (MMDE), being the National Focal Point to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is in the process of preparing the Third National Communication (TNC) on climate change to be submitted to the UNFCCC. Moreover, Sri Lanka having the National Adaptation Plan formulated is in the process of preparing Provincial Adaptation Plans (PAPs) for all the provinces. In these processes, it was expected to incorporate provincial data and information with the consultation of provincial and district level stakeholders.
In this respect, Eastern provincial council chief Secretary office with Janathakshan (Gte) limited organized a consultation workshop at the chief secretary office conference hall , Varodaya Nagar ,Kanniya Road, Trincomalee on 20th July 2018 to create awareness on climate change and its impacts on Sri Lanka to identify best ways to collect provincial, district level inputs for the preparation of national communications on climate change, while developing an understanding among stakeholders on data required from various sectors for decision making on climate change related actions (Mitigation, adaptation & reporting).
About 100 officials including the officers from department of Agriculture, department of education, department of health, department of rural devolepment, DMC, District offices of Trincomalee , Batticoloa, Ampara, provincial office and department of local government etc. took part in this important discussion. Dr. Sunimal Jayathunga, Director, Climate Change Secretariat (Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment), Ms. Ambika Tennakoon, Environment Management Officer,Climate Change Secretariat, Mr. Jagath Vidanagama, Technical Coordinator, TNC, Chief Executive Officer of Janathaksan, Mr. Ranga Pallawala, Deputy Chief Secretary of Eastern Provincial Planning and many more senior officials were among them.
Addressing the event, Chief Minister of Eastern Province TMS Abeygunawardena stated that "various development projects, initiatives for rapid economic growth, and artificial changes caused by other human activities; Now the nature of the climate has been changed and it has a lot of impacts. A process is active that proposes regional, district, provincial and national level coordination programs to mitigate the current situation as a response to a global challenge and to transform the challenge to a sustainable and sustainable challenge. Using this as a great opportunity, we have to put forward plans to cope with climate change in the Eastern Province and implement them. The impact of the climate is directly and indirectly impacting economic development, poverty eradication, food, drinking water, irrigation, health and social stability. The world has seriously focused on it. Let's see how we can proceed. In this situation, the Eastern province has its plans aligned with national and international considerations to be implemented. "
The first phase of the program is to raise awareness among government officials to implement changes in the provincial level.
