New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) India is the country most vulnerable to climate change, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said here Thursday.
Replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, on India’s position at the Dec 7-18 climate summit in Copenhagen, Ramesh said India was most vulnerable to climate change due to four reasons.

First, two-thirds of India’s population was still dependent on the monsoon, which was impacted by climate change.

Two, climate change impacted the Himalayan glaciers, which were receding, endangering the water flow in the rivers of northern India.

Third, ecologically sensitive areas such as the Western Ghats, the North East, Andamans, Lakshadweep were being impacted by climate change.

Fourth, climate change would exacerbate the effect of mining in forest areas of Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh.

Ramesh said the problem was that India had hardly any information of its own on climate change effects, which he called “a pathetic state of affairs”. He said most of the information was derived from Western sources and talked of the urgent need to start research and have “our own scientific capacity” to study all aspects of climate change in India.