Environment- Conservation, environmental pollution, and degradation
Recently Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change announced that his ministry will soon launch an initiative called School Nursery across the country in which school kids will plant a seed, nurture the sapling and on his/her annual result would take the plant to be a trophy.
About World Environment
The World Environment Day (WED) urges governments, industries, communities, and individuals to come together to explore renewable energy, green technologies and improve air quality in cities and regions across the world. The celebration of this day provides us with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion in preserving and enhancing the environment. World Environment Day is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action and takes place every year on 5th June.
World Environment Day 2019
- It is being hosted by China this year with a theme of “Air Pollution”. Air pollution is the biggest environmental health risks of our time. Airborne pollutants are responsible for about one-third of deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and lung cancer, as well as of deaths from heart attack.
- Air pollution is also fundamentally altering our climate, with profound impacts on the health of the planet. India hosted the last year’s World Environment Day emphasizing on prevention of ‘Plastic Pollution’.
- A platform for action World Environment Day is the United Nations day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment. Since it began in 1974, the event has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries.
- The people’s day Above all, World Environment Day is the “people’s day” for doing something to take care of the Earth. That “something” can be local, national or global. It can be a solo action or involve a crowd. Everyone is free to choose.
- The theme Each World Environment Day is organized around a theme that draws attention to a particularly pressing environmental concern.
Some facts regarding Air Pollution
- 92 percent of people worldwide do not breathe clean air.
- Air pollution costs the global economy $5 trillion every year in welfare costs
- Ground-level ozone pollution is expected to reduce staple crop yields by 26 percent by 2030.
India’s strategy to tackle Air Pollution
- To combat air pollution, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change has launched the National Clean Air programme (NCAP) which is a mid-term 5 Year Action Plan with targets of 20-30% reduction of PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentration in 102 cities.
- It has been decided that each SPCB will tie up with a leading academic institution in the State that would act as the technical partner at the State level for the programme.
- The objective of NCAP is a comprehensive plan for prevention, control, and abatement of air pollution besides augmenting the air quality monitoring network.
- The tentative national level target is the reduction of PM2.5 and PM10 concentration by 20% – 30% by 2024.
- The focus of this year’s WED is on the identified 102 Non-attainment cities across the country.
- IIT Kanpur has been appointed by MoEFCC as the nodal academic institution to coordinate with all other leading academic institutions in States. Tripartite MoU with an identified academic institution in the State with respective SPCB and MoEF&CC being the other two partners was also signed for 17 States during WED.
- The States for which the MoU was signed are AP, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, J&K, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, UP, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.
