‘Let’s make action plan to combat climate crisis’
MUMBAI: Maharashtra cabinet minister for environment and climate change, Aaditya Thackeray, has written letters to his counterparts in 26 states and one union territory — Delhi —seeking “coordination on a common action plan for climate change mitigation and adaption”. A copy of Thackeray’s letter, dated September 14, was obtained by Hindustan Times this week.
Although Thackeray’s letter does not delve into the specifics of how states are proposed to coordinate on the matter, the minister wrote that “it would be in the best interest of us all, nationally, to convene digital meets and share our work and ideate on a common agenda that we can assist each other on”.
According to officials in the minister’s office, the move is the first step in Maharashtra’s plans to host a convention of India’s environment ministers after the upcoming 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow in November, where Thackeray will present a draft version of the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP), which is being drafted pursuant to the BMC’s agreement with the C40 Cities climate leadership group in December 2020.
Speaking to HT about the same, Thackeray commented, “Regional leadership is key to climate action. As sub-national governments, we ought to come together and exchange our learnings to ensure that we are aligned nationally for an ambitious pathway for reducing our emissions.”
Under the aegis of the C40 group, Aaditya Thackeray will also be participating on Wednesday in a 45-minute closed-door meeting with his counterparts from Delhi (Gopal Rai), Karnataka (Anand Singh) and Tamil Nadu (Siva.V. Meyyanathan) where each minister will be presenting an overview of the climate action taken in their respective states. A spokesperson for Thackeray described the online gathering as an “exploratory meeting” that will be followed up with similar conferences with environment departments of other states.This development comes amid a major push from Maharashtra to align itself with movements and organisations working toward climate crisis action. Last week, the minister had announced that 43 Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) cities and urban clusters from Maharashtra will join the global Race to Zero campaign.
Cities joining this campaign have pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions in the 2040s or sooner.
Earlier this month, the state cabinet had also given a nod to setting up the country’s first state council on climate, which is expected to be formed in coming months, and will hold weekly meetings to set and review the implementation of climate change targets.
In addition to this, the Maharashtra government’s proposed electric vehicle policy 2021 and its move to bring 9,800 hectares of mangroves under protection of the Indian Forest Act (1972) have been publicly hailed by Thackeray as evidence of the state’s climate-forward agenda.