City gets its climate action plan
Recognising the urgency of the climate decade, Maharashtra Minister of Environment, Tourism and Protocol Aaditya Thackeray launched the first-ever climate action plan dedicated to the city of Mumbai on Friday. During the event, Thackeray also launched the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP) website to seek suggestions and inputs from experts and citizens.
The BMC is developing the climate action plan with technical support from the World Resources Institute (WRI) India, engaged as a knowledge partner.
Thackeray said any further delays would make Mumbai unsuitable to live in over the next decade. “Mainstreaming climate action while implementing Mumbai’s development plan can protect the city’s natural systems, increase resilience capacities of vulnerable groups, and enable resilient urban growth that ensures aggressive reductions to the city’s greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Mumbai’s plan
MCAP will focus on introducing sector-specific strategies for mitigation and adaptation that can lead to implementable climate projects that contribute to the city’s resilience. These six thematic action areas are sustainable waste management, urban greening and biodiversity, urban flooding and water resource management, building energy efficiency, air quality and sustainable mobility.
Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Chahal said, “I am a 1989 batch IAS officer. Between 1989 to 2020, when I took charge as the BMC commissioner, the city never witnessed a cyclone. However, in the past 15 months, the city faced three cyclones passing through its coastline. In the past, we have always blamed melting glaciers for climate change and neglected the issue, however, now the problem is at our doorstep.
If we fail to act now, we will find ourselves in a very dangerous situation. There is a need to re-think the ways development is
carried out in the current climate change scenario. Coordinated efforts for data monitoring and management will help us make quick and informed decisions, ensuring the safety of those most vulnerable in our city – Mumbai’s approach during the pandemic has been exactly this.” “BMC will not lag anymore when it comes to climate action. We will take active steps to contribute to the cause,” Chahal added. Mayor Pednekar said: “The consequences of global climatic changes are being faced in Mumbai and we must ensure that we need to protect our natural heritage. We need to consider tackling climate change factors in all our development policies henceforth.” Urban flooding, heat risk & extreme weather According to Dr Sanjeev Kumar, Mumbai city faces two major climate challenges – urban flooding and increasing heat. “Temperature trends over the past 50 years, (based on IMD) data) show a steady increase, with an uneven rise in night-time temperatures, and seasonally, faster warming of the winter months of November to February compared to the summer months,” he said.
Under MCAP, the data assessment has also identified areas and communities most vulnerable, given the increasing climate uncertainty.
Plans in the pipeline
Agencies such as BMC, MMRDA, BEST and others have, in the last year, already initiated work across several areas to deal with the climate crisis. Under the Maharashtra government’s climate campaign, ‘Majhi Vasundhara’, Mumbai was declared the runner-up in various efforts towards climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
To tackle the issue of urban flooding, the city is building underground storage tanks across Hindmata, Dadar, and Parel, similar to projects built in Tokyo that contain extremely heavy rain events with rainfall up to 300mm or continuous rain over four hours.
“There are also plans to deploy floating debris-trapping trash booms at nine critical places in the city - including the Dahisar, Oshiwara and Poisar rivers - as well as vital
nullahs in the city, to minimise the stress on the city's waterways. Additionally, the city’s first desalination plant, which would process 200 million litres of water per day, will be built near Manori, Malad (West). This will provide relief to Mumbai residents who endure water shortages of 10-15 per cent during the summers,” said Kumar. MMRDA’s Mithi river clean-up pilot initiative with an aim towards collecting and recycling maximum floating debris is the first of its kind in India. It will make use of a special machine developed by Finland’s RiverRecycle, which would collect floating plastic waste to clean the river and recycle it. A new Electric Vehicles (EV) Policy 2021 was recently released by Maharashtra. By 2025, the state hopes 10 per cent of all vehicles registered in the state will be electric vehicles (EVs). Mumbai’s first public EV charging station would be installed at the Kohinoor Square Building, BMC car park in Dadar, according to the policy. In addition, the policy anticipates the installation of 1,500 charging stations across the Mumbai region, with the city’s first public EV charging station located at the Kohinoor Square Building, BMC parking in Dadar. BEST recently decided to solely purchase or lease electric buses from now on. By the end of 2022, BEST expects 45 per cent of its fleet to be electric. To decrease air pollution, BEST has also planned to convert all 250 diesel buses it has to compressed natural gas (CNG). BMC is focusing on better road networks across the city to enable 15minute city clusters. Another major project will be the implementation of 5,000 rainwater harvesting pits across Mumbai, with several large projects located in the heart of the city to capture excess run-off of rainwater and maximum utilisation for non-potable purposes.