PTI

Ahmedabad: Global warming has hit agricultural productivity, particularly wheat production in the country, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Kumar Pachauri said today.

“The warmth of the last half-century is unusual,” he said delivering a keynote address at the 4th International Conference on Environmental Education being held at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) here.

“In recent years, temperatures have increased. The earth is warming at a faster pace than at any time that we can think of in the past couple of generations,” Pachauri said.

“Clearly, there is a lot to worry about,” he said, adding the effects of global warming have also been seen in India.

“In case of India, we have observed some impacts like the increase of 0.68 degree Celsius in temperature,” Pachauri said while explaining how temperatures in the country have risen in recent times.

“The warming of land area has been more pronounced in post-monsoon and winter period,” the IPCC Head, who recently shared the Noble Peace Prize with Al Gore, said.

“This has a very serious effect on agriculture,” he added. “Agriculture productivity, particularly of wheat, has shown signs of going down as a result of the climate change,” Pachauri said.