Event ReportsPublished on Nov 12, 2015
ORF Kolkata organised its 2nd annual Inter-University Debate Competition on 7 November, 2015. Students of the Tezpur University won the competition that saw participation of representatives from eight universities from eastern and north-eastern Indian states.
Tezpur University wins ORF Kolkata inter-varsity debate

ORF Kolkata organised its 2nd annual Inter-University Debate Competition on 7 November 2015. Students of Tezpur University won the competition that saw the participation of representatives from eight universities from eastern and north-eastern Indian states.

Kaveri Sarkar and Piyashi Dutta of Tezpur University were adjudged as the best debaters speaking for the motion and against the motion respectively, while Vivek Mishra of Sikkim University and Nayanika Chatterjee of KIIT University were the runners up.

Universities represented in the debate competition included Presidency, Calcutta, Jadavpur and Kalyani from West Bengal, IIT Guwahati and Tezpur from Assam, Sikkim University from Sikkim and KIIT from Orissa.

Calling climate change a 'fire alarm' for a 'borderless world', student debaters speaking for the motion were optimistic that nations would come together to reach an equilibrium between the developed and developing nations on climate change.

Students differentiated the Paris Conference (30 November-11 December 2015) from the earlier ones.

They argued that this time the aim is contribution rather than commitment. While the latter approach, followed in some of the earlier conferences was an imposition, the COP 21 conference had a voluntary approach. Students cited the Intended Nationality Determined Contribution (INDC) sought from the Conference of Parties as an example of the differentiated nature of the Paris conference.

Debaters arguing against the motion were apprehensive about the COP 21 achieving a major breakthrough in climate goals. Financing for climate change was one of the bottlenecks of the negotiations, impinging also on the economies of developing nations, they argued.

Three decades of climate change negotiations have achieved little, believed the debaters. Some debaters speaking against the motion argued that the developed and developing countries were not differentiated and defined. They also highlighted the centrality of self-interests of parties (nations) at the conference.

Damien Syed, Consul General of France in Kolkata, who was the chief guest, described India’s INDC as "real progress of the Indian position". He said New Delhi has rightly stressed reducing carbon intensity in the GDP of the country and increasing the share of renewable energy in the economy.

Syed however called financing, a pillar of the COP 21, a stumbling block in the negotiations. He asked how technologies can be transferred from developed to developing countries, and how developing countries could be helped to promote renewable energies and increase energy efficiency.

The judges of the competition - Nilanjan Ghosh, Senior Fellow, ORF; Anurag Danda, Head, Climate Adaptation & Sundarbans Landscape WWF-India; and senior journalist and Director, ENGIO, Jayanta Basu - unanimously agreed upon the need for concerted action by nations to combat the threat posed by climate change.

Ashok Dhar, Director of the ORF Kolkata chapter, announced a 3-month internship at ORF for the winners of the competition.

Report prepared by Mihir Bhonsale, Research Assistant, ORF Kolkata. 

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