New Delhi, Oct 6: While explaining the risks posed by climate change to the environment, experts said today that though policies have been framed by the governments to address these challenges, the implementation is slow or lacking.

The experts said that governments lack economic resources to implement the policies. "We need to go into modus operandi to address the challenges posed by the climate change because we are faced with challenges in climate," said Mihir Mathur, an Associate Fellow at the Earth Science and Climate Change Division at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) during an interactive session with journalists.

The theme of the session held here at the India Habitat Centre with the participation of Suruchi Bhadwal, Associate Director at Earth Science and Climate Change Division at TERI, was 'In Great Peril,' a discussion of the dangers from climate change.

The session was part of the Media Colloquium at the five-day World Sustainable Development Summit that is underway in the capital with participants and delegates from across the world.

Mathur, who works on providing models for sustainable development, said that economic constraints of the countries, both developed and developing, and inadequate investment in measures to control environmental change are among the reasons for lack of practical implementation of policies.

"Does India have enough mineral resources to meet the zero carbon emission," asked Mathur. He added that action to address climate change by the governments do not keep pace with the changes as they take place because the countries have no set precedents.

"Greatest challenge is that our ability to take decisions will get affected because we are not setting precedents. Non-normal variations are impeding our decisions. He said that people have vision "but action is lacking. This a paradox." "People are not adapting but mal-adapting. Adaptation is must," he added.

Explaining the perils of the climate changes and the slow response from the countries, Suruchi Bhadwal said that every action requires resources. "But governments are lacking resources to implement the policies," she said. "GoI is taking steps. For example, cess in coal allocation is a step in that direction."

She said that changes in climate are rapid and they have created a great concern among people how to address these changes. She said that climate change is taking place at a pace that "these changes are affecting our way of life," she said. Anthropogenic activities like deforestation, land use, pollution are well known cause that have posed challenges to the environment and climate, she argued.

"Our focus is how we address these causes and why these changes are happening," she said. Bhadwal said that in future people will experience changes in next 50-70 years even if governments will act "now." "Existing development trajectories will surely change the climate gradually. Decades from now, we may see a rise in temperature by 6-7 degree Celsius," she said.

The researchers said that agreements on climate changes like Paris agreement is a non-binding agreement. It is a pledge, so countries may or may not fulfil the pledge, they rued.