Bhupender Yadav, Union minister of environment, forests and climate change, said that we can change people’s lives by linking affordability with sustainability.
Releasing Down To Earth’s Annual State of India’s Environment Report 2022 at the Anil Agarwal Dialogue organised by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), on Monday, he highlighted three extremely critical issues that confronted India today — climate change, desertification and the sustainability-affordability linkage.
“ We have to link traditional knowledge with scientific temperament; we sometimes are so proud of traditional knowledge that we forget logic. But we have to think of logic and affordability along with tradition to make it work” he added..
The Union Minister assured that his ministry was keen to have an “open debate on environment “Our goals are the same: how to ensure a good life for everybody. We should learn from each other”, he said.
Yadav pointed out that since emissions from the energy sector were the highest, the government was putting more emphasis on it.
According to him, the Indian government targets are : By 2030, we plan to have 500 GW from renewable energy. Railways will be electrified by 2030 — that will reduce 80 billion tonnes of emissions. We also plan to employ LED bulbs at a large scale, which can reduce 40 billion tonnes of emissions.
He said that they are also focussing on hydrogen. If we can make hydrogen sustainable and affordable, we can bring big changes in the world.
He pointed out that environmental negotiations “is not about give and take — it is about saving humanity. The developed nations must take historic responsibility and consider what their ancestors have done in the past.”
The Anil Agarwal Dialogue is a four-day annual conclave of journalists. It is back in its physical form after a pandemic- and lockdown-induced hiatus of almost two years.
The event, which has over 60 journalists participating from across India, is being held at CSE’s state-of-the-art residential environmental training facility, the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI), in Nimli, Alwar district, Rajasthan.
CSE director general Sunita Narain said: “In the last two years, the world has seen disruption at a scale not seen before. Both COVID-19 and climate change are the result of our ‘dystopian’ relationship with nature — call this the revenge of nature.”
COVID-19 happened because humans had broken the barrier between wild habitats and the way humanity produced its food. Climate change was the result of emissions needed for economic growth, Narain said.
“Both are also linked and are being exacerbated because of our mismanagement of health systems and the environment,” she added.
