Addressing a meeting between NGOs, environmentalists, academicians and youth network representatives slated to participate in the Copenhagen Climate Meet at the British Deputy High Commission, he said Chennai Corporation would also accelerate efforts to effectively tackle climate change in the city. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has been according top priority to both these projects, he added.

Recently, a delegation led by Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin visited Singapore to study a project similar to that of Cooum. The Singapore river is 11 km long and had 27,500 huts on its banks prior to its beautification.

“Cooum is comparatively longer, 18 km in Chennai alone, and with a total length is 72.5 km. But we have only 10,000 huts here. In Chintadripet, 1,200 huts were removed and people relocated. The process of removing the rest of the huts are on,” the mayor said.

Earlier, delegates gave their perspectives and spoke on the action needed on climate change issue. Arivudai Nambi, firector, Climate Adaptation, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Prof Sudhir Chellarajan of IIT Madras and Prof Nagendran of Anna University participated.

British Deputy High Commissioner Mike Nithavrianakis lauded Chennai for its low per capita emission - 0.88 tonnes in 2007-08, which is below the national average of 1.2 to 2 tonnes a year. “What makes the city and the State distinct is that both have a vocal civil society base. The media and NGOs have been quite active on environmental issues, long before Copenhagen hit the headlines,” he said.