Env min official spoke about fall in global CO2 emissions: Govt clarifies

One of the ministry's senior official had spoken about the predicted fall in global carbon dioxide emission due to the COVID-19 situation

The environment ministry on Friday said that in a virtual session organised by the PHD Chamber, one of its senior official had spoken about the predicted fall in global carbon dioxide emission due to the COVID-19 situation.

During the virtual session organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry earlier this week on 'Paradigm Shift in Business Sustainability - Strategies to Meet the Challenges in the post COVID-19 scenario', Sujit Kumar Bajpayee, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, was quoted by the PHD Chamber as saying that due to the lockdown, carbon dioxide emissions are predicted to fall down by eight per cent".

The ministry, while clarifying, said that the official was not just talking about India's carbon dioxide emission.

"Certain media reports have misquoted a ministry official about falling of India's carbon emissions for 2020. It is clarified that the statement was in the context of predicted fall in global carbon dioxide emission, not the country's emission, which was reported a couple of months ago based on the Global Energy Review 2020 report of International Energy Agency," it clarified.

In the session, Bajpayee had also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has given an opportunity to jump-start the economies.

"The pandemic has given a lot of challenges but it has given the opportunity to jump-start the economies, rebuild societies through recovery plans and focus on climate change and environment conservation," he said.

Talking about the importance of environment and conservation of natural resources, he said bio-diversity is the foundation of life on earth and gives a connection to human lives and "allows us to grow while catering to our basic, cultural and spiritual needs. We need to realise that our life and livelihood revolves around nature and the environment".

Bajpayee mentioned that nature is an essential source of many medicines and industries like construction, agriculture, food and beverages are highly dependent on it.