Covid may push down India’ s carbon count by 8%

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown across India this year's carbon emissions are predicted to fall by around eight per cent, a senior official of the environment ministry has said.

During a virtual session organized by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday 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, said the pandemic has given an opportunity to jump start 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 also insisted on the importance of bio-diversity. "We need to realize that our life and livelihood revolves around nature and the environment," he said.

"Due to the COVID-19 lockdown across India, carbon emissions are predicted to fall by around eight per cent in 2020," Bajpayee said.

He pointed out that "nature" is an essential source of many medicines and industries like construction, agriculture, food and beverages are highly dependent on it.

"Such industries require direct extractions of resources from the forest or rely on ecosystem services such as healthy soil, clean water, and a stable climate. Due to many reasons we are losing species and many have gone extinct, that has disrupted the ecosystem," he said.