The Second Meeting of the Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Climate Change was held at the SAARC Secretariat on 16-17 April 2012. The Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Climate Change was established by the Thimphu Statement on Climate Change with the mandate to monitor and review the implementation of the Thimphu Statement on Climate Change and make recommendations to facilitate its implementation.

The Thimphu Statement on Climate Change which was adopted by the Heads of State or Government of Member States of SAARC at the Sixteenth SAARC Summit (Thimphu, 28-29 April 2010) contains a number of initiatives to be implemented at the national and regional level to address the adverse effects of climate change.

The First Meeting of the Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Climate Change was held in Colombo on 29-30 June 2011. The Second Meeting of the Inter-Governmental Expert Group on Climate Change took stock of the progress made towards the implementation of the various initiatives since its first meeting and made a number of recommendations to ensure timely implementation of the Thimphu Statement.

Among others, Member States provided updates on the initiatives being undertaken at the national level with regard to the implementation of the Dhaka Declaration and Action Plan on Climate Change. The meeting also reviewed the status of implementation of the SAARC Inter-governmental Mountain Initiative by the SAARC Forestry Center; the Climate-related Disasters Initiative by the SAARC Disaster Management Center; the Monsoon Initiative by the SAARC Meteorological Research Center; and the Marine Initiative by the SAARC Coastal Zone Management Center. It also took stock of the progress made with regard to commissioning the SAARC Regional Study on “Climate Risks in the region: ways to comprehensively address the related social, economic and environmental challenges”.

The Third Meeting of Inter-governmental Expert Group on Climate Change will be held in the last quarter of 2012.