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Climate Change and India’s STRATEGY to deal with it
A Brief Introduction:
• Climate change is a burning issue both in terms of metaphor and reality.
• The year 1979 witnessed first conference on climate change during which the evidence of
change was basically observed through data interpretation.
• But in 2019 the condition has aggravated to such an extent that climate change has
become tangible in our daily life, be it starless nights of the cities or highest recorded
temperature of 21 degree Celsius in the Arctic region or even worse being the heat wave
in Europe where the temperature soared upto a massive 40 degrees.
• Before delving into the depth of the topic, it is essential to note, What is Climate?
• Climate is the pattern of weather experienced over a long period of time (generally 35
years) at a place.
• The changes occurring to this pattern which exhibits adverse effects can be called as
climate change.
Causes: There are several causes of climate change which can be
classified into:
Natural Anthropogenic
 Contribution of nature itself in climate change is limited to the  Human activities result in emissions of four principal
incidents of volcanic eruptions and wildfires. greenhouse gases: CO2, CH4, N2O and the halocarbons.
 Other small amount of greenhouse gases are contributed by  CO2 is emitted in huge amounts by transportation, heating
wetlands and oceanic gas release. and cooling systems, manufacturing companies e.g.
 According to NASA, on average, volcanoes emit between 130 cement.
and 230 million tons of CO2 per year. Again on an average  CH4 has increased as a result of agricultural and animal
8 million acres of land are engulfed by wildfires rearing activities.
contributing to a huge amount of CO2, MNO2 in the  N2O are released by fossil fuel burning and more
environment. importantly by fertilizers.
 This leads to the thickening of the layers of atmosphere  Principal halocarbons include the chlorofluorocarbons (e.g.,
which in turn absorbs more and radiates less sun rays, CFC-11 and CFC-12), used extensively as refrigeration
this is known as the greenhouse effect. agents and in other industrial processes, their presence in the
 This causes global warming and thus climate change. atmosphere is found to cause stratospheric ozone depletion. All
 90% of factors leading to global climate change are man these gases contribute to the greenhouse effect which leads to
made. climate change.
India and Climate Change:
• According to the Global Climate Risk Index of 2018, published by German Watch,
India is the 12th most vulnerable country to climate change impacts.
• This has been long known and thus in 2008 India launched its National Action
Plan on Climate Change, making it one of the 10 countries to have such a plan.
• Eight National Missions form the core of the NAPCC, which represents a multi-
pronged, long-term and integrated approach for achieving key goals in the
context of climate change.
8 Core Missions:
• National Solar Mission: The objective of the National Solar Mission is to establish India as
a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across
the country as quickly as possible. It has surpassed the initial target of 20GW in 2018 and
now targets for 100GW of solar energy usage by 2022.
• National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency: NMEEE aims to strengthen the market
for energy efficiency by creating conducive regulatory and policy regime and has
envisaged fostering innovative and sustainable business models to the energy efficiency
sector.
• National Mission on Sustainable Habitat: This is launched to make sustainable habitat
through improvement in energy efficiency in buildings, management of solid waste and
modal shift to public transport.
• National Water Mission: It is mounted to ensure proper management of water resources,
limiting wastage, increase in conservation and also proposing an equitable distribution
among the states.
8 Core Missions:
• National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem: Himalayas being the
perennial source of water, the mission aims at understanding the current situation of
glaciers through R&D. In order to safeguard the Himalayan treasure, it will collaboratively
with other South Asian countries to find out methods to restrict glacier melt.
• National Mission for a Green India: Forests play an indispensable role in sustaining the
ecological balance, NMGI aims at massive afforestation programme e.g. the Green India
campaign as announced by the prime minister will afforest 6 million hectares of land.
The target is to increase the forest cover from 23% to 33%.
• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture: This aims at making Indian agriculture more
resilient to climate change.
• National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change: This aims at setting up
platforms to conduct research and technological development through collaborative
effort. It ensures high quality funding and focused research in the area of climate
change.
India and Climate Change:
• India has in place a detailed policy and regulatory structure to deal with the causes of
climate change and restrict its impact by promoting energy efficiency in all sectors and
enhancing mass transportation. It also focuses on use of renewable energy thus
promoting solar energy through International Solar Alliance. Most importantly India has
been putting immense effort in developing novel methods by investing in R&D
technologies.
• India has shown signs of more proactive engagement on climate change issues both
internationally and at home.
• This is evident through the recent announcement made on 15th August 2019 imposing
absolute ban on plastic bags. These continuing efforts of our nation will minimize the
effects of climate change.
• But the core solution lies in reducing the population. Here we, the citizens of India are
duty bound to contribute in the process which will help in managing the crisis situation.
THANK YOU
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