When the first instalment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released in August this year, the bugle call for countries to “act now” was written all over it. The report by the United Nation’s body, which blamed “human-induced climate change for affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe”, pointed out the need for immediate and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to limit the disastrous effects of global warming. In the wake of no action, the report, offering a definitive timeline, stated that temperatures would reach (or exceed) the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold of warming by 2040.

The Maharashtra government, which over the last couple of years has been at the receiving end of shifty and cataclysmic weather changes, didn’t ignore the signs, shares Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, principal secretary, Department of Environment and Climate Change, in a telephone interview with mid-day.