India 7th most environmentally hazardous country: study

India has been ranked as seventh most environmentally hazardous country in the world by a new ranking released recently.

Updated on: Jan 10, 2011, 21:37:41 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India has been ranked as seventh most environmentally hazardous country in the world by a new ranking released recently.

The study is based on evaluation of “absolute” environment impact of 179 countries, whose data was available and has been done by researchers in Harvard, Princeton, Adelaide University and University of Singapore.

Brazil was found to be worst on environmental indicators whereas Singapore was the best. United States was rated second worst and China was ranked third.

India got overall seventh rank primarily for high water pollution, destruction of wildlife habitats and rising carbon dioxide emissions.

The overuse of fertilizers because of high subsidy of urea has earned India second place for environment impact due to fertilizer use. Quoting Wall Street Journal, the study said: “In an effort to boost food production, win farmer votes and encourage domestic fertilizer industry, he government has increased its subsidy of urea fertilizer over the years and now pays about half of the domestic industry’s cost of production.”

A country of over 1.2 billion people was ranked third for water pollution with increasing competition among various sectors, including agriculture, industry and domestic water supply, for its limited water resources. “The competition is leading to this precious resource to dry-up,” the study said.

As per Central Pollution Control Board’s data over 31 % of water resources are highly contaminated and large areas in major rivers such as Ganga and Yamuna are polluted.

Water pollution in India is also a cause for destruction of habitats of wildlife that live on waterways, the study said.

India was ranked eight for threat to its endangered species and marine environment. Its rising carbon dioxide emissions, which causes global warming, were also sighted as alarming for protecting environment. India is now world’s third biggest carbon dioxide emitter.

“There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide,” said Corey Bradhsaw, the lead author of the study.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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