CoP debates Asian Brown haze concerns

Reacting to the controversy, Ministry of Environment and Forests director A.K. Mehta said: ‘‘India does not dispute scientific evidence of the Indian ocean experiment but there is need to conduct further experiments to determine which region the cloud comes from.’’

Earlier, India had taken exception to the UNEP report and Environment Minister T.R. Baalu had met Toepfer to question the findings. It had become a political issue as it meant that pollution in India was responsible for climatic changes and not the developed world.

INDOEXP scientists claimed the study never said it was the final word on the matter. ‘‘It was a study over one region, one season and of the winter rains. It was not related to the current drought,’’ said A.K. Mitra, one of the four scientists in the original study.