NEW DELHI: India’s environment ministry is preparing to promote urban forests to tackle climate change as part of the NDA government’s 100-day strategy, said a senior environment ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
NEW DELHI: India’s environment ministry is preparing to promote urban forests to tackle climate change as part of the NDA government’s 100-day strategy, said a senior environment ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The move comes as much of India experienced scorching heat this summer before the monsoon hit, with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting that 2024 will be the hottest year on earth’s record.
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The move comes as much of India experienced scorching heat this summer before the monsoon hit, with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting that 2024 will be the hottest year on earth’s record.
Under the Nagar Van Yojana (NVY) scheme launched in 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) plans to promote biodiversity in cities to abate pollution, clean air, reduce noise and harvest water, the official added.
He further noted that biodiversity can help with issues such as an increase in mosquitoes due to a lack of green space and the influx of monkeys into urban areas, adding that water conservation and crop production are also concerns that can be resolved through urban forests.
“If you look at south Delhi in particular, the groundwater level is declining fast and a lot of vegetation is needed to restore greenery,” the official said.
“In agriculture, there is a problem of pollination in fringe rural and suburban areas. If there are not enough pollinators such as bees, wasps and small mammals to grow crops, including horticultural crops like eggplant and okra, crop production will be low. Around 25 per cent of crop production is lost due to lack of enough pollinators,” he added.
Questions sent to the MoEFCC spokesperson and secretary general remained unanswered at the time of going to press.
What is NVY?
Launched in 2020, NVY aims to create nagarbans (urban forests) by engaging local communities, NGOs, educational institutions, local bodies etc. The plan envisages creating 1,000 such forests in cities with municipal corporations, city councils or urban local bodies to transform Indian cities into clean, green, healthy and sustainable neighbourhoods.
Under NVY, 385 projects were sanctioned between FY21 and FY24 and Rs 2,400 crore was disbursed to states, then environment minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha in August last year.
Last month, concerned over the recent heatwaves in the national capital, the Commission for Air Quality Management of NCR and Adjacent Regions (CAQM) raised its tree planting target for 2024-25 by 20 per cent to 45 million trees.
The new target comes after CAQM, a statutory body set up in 2021 to manage air quality, planted 36 million trees in FY24. CAQM has been planting trees in vacant lots across NCR, especially on median road verges, roadsides and footpaths.
not enough?
But environmentalists say urban forestry alone is not the solution to increasing heat stress.
Chandra Bhushan, founder and CEO, International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST), said in addition to urban forestry, governments should prepare detailed heating and cooling action plans for cities to save lives and provide sustainable cooling during heatwaves, with temperatures reaching 50°C at some stations this year.
“Greenhouse gas emissions have pushed temperatures past the 1.5°C limit and all countries, including India, have to start reducing their greenhouse gas emissions if they want to control temperatures, but city-level interventions will not do that,” the former deputy director of the Centre for Science and Environment added. “To control temperatures, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide need to be reduced across the country.”
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