Continuously taking steps to promote use of eco-alternatives to single-use plastic items, India stands committed to ambitious climate action: Bhupender Yadav
NEW DELHI: Union environment minister
Bhupender Yadav
in an interview to TOIresponded to certain questions on critical environmental issues including plastic waste, India's stand on developing an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, implication of the
Supreme Court
's recent order of striking down retrospective environmental clearances and the country's plan to update its climate action pledges ahead of the 30th session of the UN climate change conference (COP30) in Brazil later this year.
Excerpts:
What are the steps being taken on policy fronts to deal with hazardous plastic waste? What more can be done beyond banning select single-use plastic (SUP) items, increasing the thickness of plastic carry bags, and notifying extended producer responsibility (EPR) to achieve the desired results on the ground?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that India is determined to reduce single-use plastic and micro-plastic pollution for sustainable development.
In order to address the plastic pollution caused by unmanaged and littered plastic waste, the government focuses on two key pillars: banning identified SUP items with low utility and high littering potential, and effective implementation of EPR on plastic packaging.
Ban has already been imposed on identified SUP items since July 1, 2022. The 'whole of government' and 'whole of society' approach adopted for implementation of the ban has led to development of innovative eco-alternatives to banned SUP items and development of new business models.
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The ministry is continuously taking steps to promote the use of eco-alternatives. State governments and local bodies have been asked to incentivise the manufacture of eco-alternatives. A compendium of manufacturers and sellers of eco-alternatives has been prepared for wider use by citizens. It is a comprehensive document providing detailed information on manufacturing capacities of eco-alternatives and their availability across the country.
Local bodies across the country are being encouraged to set up eco-alternatives stores.
The mandate for the use of recycled content in plastic packaging has come into force from April 1. This has played a transformative role in moving towards super clean recycling technologies in plastic packaging waste recycling. More than 130 lakh tonnes of plastic packaging waste have already been processed since 2022. The implementation of SUP ban coupled with extended producer responsibility on plastic packaging will lead to a reduction in pollution caused by littered and unmanaged plastic waste.
What is an obstacle before developing an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution? What is India's stand in this context?
India believes that the success of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) mandated to develop a legally binding international instrument on plastic pollution requires consensus-based decision-making with a spirit of mutual trust and cooperation for reaching an agreement on various provisions.
We believe that in order to reach agreement the instrument should focus on aspects related to plastic pollution only.
Aspects which are not directly related to plastic pollution should not be taken up.
We need to strike a critical balance between preventing plastic pollution without affecting the right to sustainable development of developing countries, keeping in view their respective national circumstances.
As developed countries have higher per capita generation of plastic waste and have historical responsibility, they need to provide financial and technical assistance by setting up a stand-alone multilateral fund which provides incremental cost for transition to developing countries for meeting compliance obligations.
What is India's plan on updating the country's climate action pledges (Nationally Determined Contribution) and its submission to the UN body?
At the outset, I would like to highlight that there are 195 countries, which are party to the Paris Agreement.
As per information, 171 countries have not submitted their successive NDCs. This is due to a combination of factors, including capacity constraints in developing countries, need for extensive modelling and studies, and careful consideration of the national circumstances and development needs.
A pragmatic approach and careful consideration of national circumstance and development priorities is essential for development of necessary policies to enable ambitious NDCs.
For this purpose, the government has initiated a series of studies.
The nature of goals under India's successive NDC will be based on outcomes and subsequent consultations thereon. However, it should be noted that the Paris Agreement casts an obligation on the developed nations to take lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets.
The need of the hour is ambitious climate action. For this purpose, the government stands committed and it has been initiating and implementing many schemes and programmes to scale up India's action on both the adaptation and mitigation across many sectors including water, agriculture, forest, energy and enterprise, sustainability mobility and housing, waste management, circular economy, and resource efficiency, etc.
What would be the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision of striking down retrospective environmental clearances, specifically the 2017 notification and the 2021 Office Memorandum (OM) that allowed post-facto clearances for projects that began without prior approval? What were the ministry's objectives behind the notification and OM?
The EIA Notification 1994 and 2006 provided that any new project or activity or expansion/modernization of any activity, covered in its schedule, shall not be undertaken unless it has been accorded prior environmental clearance.
However, in practice certain projects, which are otherwise eligible to get Environmental Clearance (EC) under the EIA notification, commenced their projects or activities without prior EC and thus did not get formal EC for their project.
A need was felt to bring such projects under the EC compliance mechanism. Initially, a Notification was issued in 2017 and later, in compliance with the directions of
NGT
in this regard, an OM was issued in 2021.
The Supreme Court had on May 16 directed that ECs granted as on date of the order, under the above mentioned notification and OM, shall not be affected. However, no further ECs can be granted under the provisions of the 2017 notification and 2021 OM.
India has decided to speed up pending and proposed projects (hydro-power, irrigation canals, and others) in the Indus River Basin in Jammu & Kashmir after keeping the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance following the Pahalgam terrorist attack. But many of these projects need environmental and other relevant green clearances. Will the ministry fast-track the clearance process to achieve the country's objective of completing the projects without further losing precious time?
The Modigovernment follows 'whole of the government approach' in addressing various issues. The ministry will ensure that all the green clearances/regulatory approvals for these strategic projects are granted expeditiously, while ensuring appropriate scientific rigour in the appraisal process.
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