India has slipped on climate action, the State of Environment report released by the Centre for Science and Environment said on Thursday in its State of Environment report. Captured in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, the country has slipped between 2019 and 2020 because the performance of 28 states/UTs remains poor, it added.
The parameters covered under climate action include: Lives lost due to extreme weather events (per 100 million population); disaster preparedness score as per Disaster Resilience Index; share of renewable in total energy mix (including allocated shares); and life years lost due to disability caused by air pollution (per 100,000 population). The scores on these parameters are falling in India, CSE highlighted. India managed to meet its target of biomass energy of 10GW, CSE added.
But the overall target of achieving 175 GW of renewable energy generation capacity by 2022 remains unmet, it said. On Thursday, during an interview, union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said India has managed to achieve 150 GW renewable energy capacity.
“Data is about measurement and the better we measure, the better we will get at management -- this is what we know and this is why we put together this dataset each year. It helps us make sense of the changes we see in our world; it helps us understand what needs to be done” said Sunita Narain, director general, CSE in a statement while releasing the report.
“With eight years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, India’s preparedness remains far from satisfactory. India has identified 295 primary indicators, but it is monitoring only 115 of these. In essence, the country is not even monitoring progress on 61% of its indicators. For instance, there are 26 indicators identified under SDG 8, which deals with sustained and inclusive economic growth and productive employment. India monitors just nine of them,” the report said.
{{/usCountry}}“With eight years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, India’s preparedness remains far from satisfactory. India has identified 295 primary indicators, but it is monitoring only 115 of these. In essence, the country is not even monitoring progress on 61% of its indicators. For instance, there are 26 indicators identified under SDG 8, which deals with sustained and inclusive economic growth and productive employment. India monitors just nine of them,” the report said.
{{/usCountry}}The report also highlighted declines in other environmental parameters. For instance, it said that at least 74% of river monitoring stations in India have high levels of heavy toxic metals. And more than a third of India’s coastline, which is spread across 6,907 km, recorded erosion between 1990 and 2018 due to sea level rise and anthropogenic activities, it added.
Climate change is causing more internal displacements than conflicts , and India is the fourth worst hit behind China, Philippines, and Bangladesh, the report said.