By Naba Bhattacharjee
World Environment Day was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The day is one of the principal avenue through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness on environment and enhances global political attention and action. The approach is to provide human face to environmental issues by empowering people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development and develop a synergy among nations to foster awareness & political attention on environment.
World Environment Day 2019 theme is on “Air Pollution”. We can’t stop breathing, but we can do something about the quality of air that we breathe. The day shall be celebrated and observed with a slew of activities including specific pledge and promise for maintaining pollution free pristine environment. So are all these celebration & observance once a year, sufficient to educe any tangible result to breathe new life into our endangered environment? A definite no, if all such exercise is not backed by practical action on a sustained basis aimed at healing the ailing environment. All the pledge and promise for maintaining pollution free pristine environment is usually forgotten earlier than it took to read out. The realization has to be spontaneous and start as a grass root initiative, commencing at our individual homes.
The initiative of Meghalaya government to plant one million saplings/seedlings during WED this year, conceived and driven by the green & environment benign Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma, is definitely laudable. The baton of subsequent responsibility passes on to concerned department, mission and primarily all citizens to ensure survival and onward sustenance of each plant. This is one of the few tangible interventions towards genuine healing touch. Will it be too farfetched to delegate each citizen by name to adopt one plant for next three years?
The threat of climate change and global warming, fuelled by relentless commercialization and excessive consumption, has turned into a fighting ground for both policymakers and concerned citizens. The coming decade is set to determine not only a collective response to reducing carbon emissions, but the entire future direction for international development and the global justice movement. Our state, with rest of the world is on the threshold of a perceptible variation in climatic conditions. In fact people are actually experiencing the alteration which is slowly but surely gaining momentum. It has acquired the potential to culminate into serious ecological aftermath.
In order to undertake measures aimed at ameliorating the ongoing process of environment degradation, concept of green economy has to be adopted on priority to ensure a structured approach. Green Economy is basically aimed at attaining an economic environment that achieves low carbon emissions, resource efficiency and at the same time is socially inclusive. The UNEP-led programme, provides a comprehensive and practical working mechanism, through analysis and policy support for investing in green sectors and in greening environmental unfriendly sectors. The model also speaks of involvement and influence on individuals. Green finance, or investments that contribute towards a sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient economy, has been deduced by experts as a way to drive carbon reduction strategies and achieve sustainable development goals.
Simply put, green finance covers the financing of investments that generate environmental benefits as part of the broader strategy to achieve inclusive, resilient and sustainable development. One of the key insights from the G20’s work on green finance on 2016 was that governments need to be clearer about the policy signals they send to financiers about their plans for climate action and sustainable development.
The transition to a Green Economy requires long-term investment and sustained financing. Public budgets have traditionally been an important source of green infrastructure financing. In India neither the Union nor state annual budget provides for specific allocation against this important sector. But given the strains on public finances, large-scale private investment will be needed for the transition towards a green economy. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environment Social Responsibility(ESR) have a key role to play in strengthening state policy frameworks to catalyse and mobilise private finance and investment in support of green growth. It is necessary to better align and reform policies across the regulatory spectrum to overcome barriers to green investment, and to provide an enabling environment that can attract both domestic and international investment. Understanding that Agriculture and Tourism forms a strong basis of the economy of Meghalaya, it would be more fruitful to tap the prospect of implementing the Green Economy in these two sectors.