Environment Day: India stands at make or break point of climate change

Climate change related impacts on India have aggravated in the recent years. Be it warming temperatures or increased intensity of cyclones, Indian subcontinent is susceptible to natural calamities. A huge role is also being played by human activities that destroy the ecology. On this World Environment Day, Business Standard looks at the state of environment in India, what progress has been made to mitigate climate change.

Land air surface temperature in India are constantly on the rise. 2020 was the eighth warmest year record and there have been 12 warmest years between last 15 years.

Extreme weathers lead to natural calamities. This has increased the occurrences of cyclones. Due to such calamities, displacement of population has also increased.

India is one of the top 5 countries around the world where the exposure of the population to PM2.5 pollutant in the air has increased. This has also significantly increased the deaths owing to air pollution.

In terms of mega plans for mitigating climate change imapct, Indian government has taken up large scale deployment of clean energy projects. However, even that is short of the target set by the Centre.