It may be hard to believe looking around you, but India, sitting right at the bottom of the Environmental Protection Index, has played a critical role in the shaping of international environmental treaties.

When Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said, “With full faith, I want to say that petrol will vanish from the country after five years. Your cars and scooters will either be on green hydrogen, ethanol flex-fuel, CNG or LNG," at a function in Maharashtra recently, he was not joking, but pointing to a fact that many thought was only possible in the realms of science fiction.

The latest directive from the Commission for Air Quality Management is a step in the right direction, but for it to be effective it cannot have double standards and give a free pass to thermal power plants

Rich countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan and much of western Europe, that account for just 12 percent of the global population today are responsible for 50 percent of all the planet-warming greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels and industry over the past 170 years

Nature-based solutions are a way of strengthening natural processes that aid water conservation. Manmade interventions can be used in conjunction with these natural processes to conserve water for use over time 

For a world riddled with plastic waste in all its nooks and crevices, the plastic pollution treaty cannot afford to be too late, too little, and too vague like the Paris Agreement is in arresting runaway Climate Change 

To unlock the full potential demand for hydrogen, India will have to invest in continuous innovation, by increasing R&D budgets, and support for demonstration projects to make sure key hydrogen technologies reach commercialisation as soon as possible

In what is being hailed as a ‘climate friendly budget’ the trick will be to accelerate the implementation projects while ensuring that further environmental destruction is halted by not wasting more money on ecologically-harmful projects such as the Ken-Betwa river-linking project

If fashion were a nation, its emissions would be higher than aviation and shipping combined.

India had suggested that it will address all fossil fuels in an equitable manner, but that would place most of the burden squarely on the US and rich countries.

To achieve climate justice we have to ensure that the voices, lived experience, & knowledge of minorities, and the indigenous are meaningfully heard by those in positions of power

At half time of COP 26, it is increasingly doubtful that the ‘last chance for climate’ summit will deliver on the UK COP presidency’s ambition

Even if India’s Net Zero goal is a decade behind China and two decades behind the United States, if the emission reduction target covers all greenhouse gases, it will be compatible with what scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic global warming

The contentious issue of funding loss and damage is no longer on the official negotiating agenda for COP 26, but that has not deterred the group of 45 nations, including civil society, from renewing their call for funding for loss and damage at the summit

If the science says ‘global net-zero by mid-century’, there is a strong moral case for developed countries adopting an earlier date based on their historical emissions, instead of expecting developing countries (such as India) to make deep carbon-cuts in the same time frame

Research has shown the most effective way to address Climate Change is to take investment dollars away from companies that harm our planet, and redirecting them to companies that actively promote adaptation and disaster risk reduction 

There’s still no clarity on what constitutes climate finance and how it should be distributed & spent.

An estimated 30,000 protesters, mostly children and young people, marched in Glasgow city centre on Friday, November 5, 2021, to call on world leaders and negotiators at the COP 26 climate summit to act faster on the climate crisis.

A key meeting will be held on July 15 to negotiate new rules to eliminate fisheries subsidies that result in overfishing.

What began as a response to an economic crisis has led to an unprecedented environmental crisis that is set to reverse what little gains we made over the last three decades 

Though its findings echo similar climate change assessment reports, the ‘Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region’ is the first-ever indigenous attempt to document and assess climate change in different parts of India

Banning single-use plastic will hurt a large part of existing investments in machinery and impact jobs in the plastics industry, but future costs of removing all single-use plastics accumulating in the environment will most certainly be higher than the costs of allowing this polluting industry to grow today.

The IPCC report gives the most comprehensive and detailed picture yet of how climate change is altering the natural world. Many of the changes observed in the climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years.

A country that has a tourism sector that both cares about the sustainability of the environment and nurtures its places of natural beauty is going to attract discerning international and local visitors who are willing to pay the extra dollar.

At a time when countries including the United States and China are increasing their climate change ambitions ahead of COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, sadly, there was no mention of ecosystem restoration, forest and wildlife protection, phaseout of coal, etc.

Padma Vibhushan Sunderlal Bahuguna began the Chipko Andolan with Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Gaura Devi in the 1970s. Twenty years later, he spearheaded the Anti-Tehri Dam movement.

Instead of coming to the UN with concrete plans to cut emissions to net-zero, rich countries and large emitters such as the US, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil skipped the New York summit, while others practically came empty-handed to the table.

Payeng of the Mising tribe of Northeast India, previously known as the Miris, the second largest ethnic group in Assam after the Bodos, was hired as a labourer for an afforestation project undertaken on 200 ha. of land on Aruna sapori by the Social Forestry Division of Golaghat district in 1979. The five-year project was abandoned in three years and while the rest of the workers packed up and disappeared into government files, Payeng, who had nowhere else to go, continued to plant more trees, while nurturing the existing vegetation, on his own.

The forested state of Chhattisgarh holds the key to the water security of much of Peninsular India. Managed well, it has the capacity to enhance India’s climate resilience, even as it boosts water security for millions. 

International geologists and glaciologists studying satellite imagery say the cause of the flooding disaster to be a landslide and not a glacial outburst.

The scale and intensity of this year’s unfolding disasters, be it the Australian bushfires or the Indonesian flooding, unequivocally reiterate that the link between the current extremes and anthropogenic climate change is scientifically undisputable.

India has to strictly regulate the disposal of toxic fly ash from coal-fired power plants to minimise environmental and health risks to local communities

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman must prioritise and scale up fiscal action to address the unfolding climate crisis and environmental emergency by bolstering allocations to the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC)

Budget announcements on climate change are nothing but a lip service and the proposed incremental measures fall short in their intent to transform India into a sustainable, low-carbon, high-growth economy is disappointing.

Two recent reports paint a deadly picture of corporate irresponsibility on the one hand and illegal waste trade on the other that has allowed illegal recycling facilities to thrive, facilities that are profiting by circumventing costs linked to licence and environmentally sound treatment process

It is important to note that China’s efforts to cut emissions so far have been more about pragmatism than climate leadership. Pollution and other environmental threats are increasingly seen as threats to the communist party’s standing

Ranganadi means red river. But Ranganadi ran black and turbid on Rongali Bihu, the Assamese New Year’s Day, in April 2019.

Stubble-burning is an unintended consequence of the technology developed for the Green Revolution. Some estimates say farmers in northern India burn about 23 million tonnes of paddy stubble every year

Using salvaged plastic waste in roads may be doing more harm than good.

India ranks in several climate change performance studies, but that’s owing to its ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency targets. It must recognise the role of nature-based solutions to adapt to climate change's adverse effects and foster climate resilience

Numbers can be gratifying… and misleading. Animal numbers might well be growing but the Kaziranga national park is not. In fact, rapid habitat defragmentation, disrupted corridors, deforestation in Karbi Anglong, and relentless poaching have combined to bring this World Heritage Site to its knees.

Once again, we are reminded of the inherent risks of nuclear power, which will always be vulnerable to the potentially deadly combination of human error, design failure and natural disaster. 

Early warnings passed on through community social media networks on the Bhutan-India border save lives when official channels take far too long.

From mosquitoes, to failed crops, to a bulging glacial lake, Lachen, a picture postcard village high up the Himalayas, is threatened in all sorts of ways.

The retreat of glaciers in Spiti valley due to climate change has reduced water availability in summers but farmers are adapting by planting apple orchards and growing crops new to the region

A revival of India’s traditional water harvesting practices will help ensure water and food security, while reducing the risks of climate disasters

Bhutanese officials scramble to restore irrigation channels after farmers thwarted by sealed border

The community tensions triggered by the tourism boom are palpable in nearly every park. Even when the impact of garbage and sewage on the habitat is clearly visible, there are few studies available on how this impacts the flora and fauna.

Three of India's eastern-most rivers, Siang, Dibang and Lohit, meet the mighty Brahmaputra river at a unique tri-junction near the borders of upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Located at this confluence, on an island about 12 km. from the tea town of Tinsukia, is the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere Reserve.

The experience of the Saralbhanga River, which flows from Bhutan to India, shows the power of involving local people in river management

Amid the hype about the Paris Agreement, here are some home truths about what it holds for the future.