A six-day international symposium on 'Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia' will begin in the city tomorrow. Dhaka University and Ohio State University of the USA, in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (Fao) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (Escap) will jointly organise the symposium. Some 70 foreign and 200 local experts mainly from Dhaka University and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) will take part in the symposium. President Iajuddin Ahmed will inaugurate the symposium at Sonargaon Hotel while Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed will be the chief guest at the closing session on August 30. Vice-chancellor of Dhaka University Prof SMA Faiz disclosed this at an opinion exchange meeting with senior journalists at his conference room yesterday. He said this is a follow-up of the President's visit to the United States as a keynote speaker at an international lecture on global warming effects on sea level rise at the Centenary Celebration of American Society of Agronomy and Ohio State University. The VC said the symposium also coincides with the UN Secretary General's colloquium about the role of universities in relation to climate change that took place in the University of New York on November 28-29 in 2007. The invitees to the colloquium included 25 leading research universities including the University of Dhaka, University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Princeton University, Seoul National University, University of Tokyo, Yale University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bangkok University, University of British Columbia and University of Amsterdam. South Asia, home to 22 percent of the global population, is a predominantly agricultural region, said Prof Faiz, adding that future project of climate change indicates that in some South Asian countries, especially in Bangladesh, a substantial reduction in agricultural crops would occur. On account of its geographical location and topography, Bangladesh is likely to experience severe climate consequences as global temperature rises and severe weather conditions take hold worldwide, he said. The VC said urgent steps are needed to address the change in astute and concrete terms. While scientific pursuit, research and teaching are on a very high priority, creative thinking in humanities, social sciences and also in other areas are needed concerning the philosophical, social, political, legal and cultural dimensions of climate change, he added.