By Dominick Rodrigues
The ever-growing human demand for resources is putting tremendous pressure on the earth’s bio-diversity with 68% decline witnessed in population of animal species, fish, reptiles and amphibians over the last 60 years, even as the issue of green, gases warming of the oceans, rising temperature of the earth are a global concern, according to Ravi Singh, Secretary General and CEO WWF-India.
Singh told an ‘ASSOCHAM conference on Green Investment & Sustainability’ that “While Indian industry as an evolving and intelligent sector is making efforts to address this concern through associations such as ASSOCHAM, India is estimated to contribute or require at least US$2.5 trillion till 2030 as part of the country’s nationally determined contribution.”
“We may need to deploy $500 billion in investments to reach 4050 GW renewable energy target alone. The cost of the climate emergency is going to be fairly high and we are one of those countries that will be affected by the over 2 degrees centigrade rise in temperature,” he said.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Union Minister of State for Environment, said Forest and Climate Change Green investment and sustainability is a priority in public policy, and the government is engaging with all stakeholders for sustainable, long-term economic growth.
Highlighting various government initiatives to promote renewable energy, electric mobility, forestry, fiscal instrument design, and green growth plans, Choubey said that Central and State governments are targetting economic growth through various policies and measures related to sustainable development, climate change, energy efficiency and air pollution.
“Government schemes and policies such as Swachh Bharat mission, Pradhan Mantri AwasYojana, Smart Cities, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana and Pradhan Mantri UjjwalaYojana, etc. are all contributing towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.
“Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme, more than 8.5 Crore gas connections were given to women of below poverty line families. This has contributed to cleaner air and resulted in a drastic reduction of respiratory disease and untimely deaths as per recent medical reports,” he said while highlighting India’s climate policy initiatives and green recovery through a structured approach, planned investments to tackle climate change such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, and low-carbon transport being foremost priorities and central to the development agenda,” he added.
Suvendhu J. Sinha, Adviser (Infrastructure connectivity & Electric Mobility), Niti Aayog, said Sustainability highlighted change in mindset, preferences, lifestyle, values and ethics through awareness and investments, where lending agencies should relook the priority portfolio of their lending and streamline the due diligence process for lending to the green sector.
“Ensuing a sustained flow of fund to the lending institutions cannot be achieved only through government initiatives, but the private sector must participate in a big way where — through the evaluation, monitoring and development system — sustainability can be made a prime focus with the output-outcome framework being aligned to it,” he said.
“The era of big dams is over because of environmental concerns, and existing dams and reservoirs need capacity enhancement to store more water,” said Bharat Lal, Addl. Secy and Mission Director, NJJM, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
Holistic management of water resources under the Ministry of Jal Shakti ensuring demand, supply, quality issues etc being handled at one place, had ensured provision of tap water supply in rural areas increasing from 17% in 2019 to 43% at present and 90K to 1lakh households per day getting tap water connections, he said.
