NEW DELHI: Four months after launching the Green Credit Programme, the Union government on Tuesday notified the methodology for calculating green credits for tree plantation activity. According to the new rules issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, each “grown” tree will equate to one Green Credit.
The government promotes Green Credits as an innovative market-based mechanism aimed at incentivising voluntary environmental actions across various sectors.
The government had launched the Green Credit programme in October 2023 to encourage individuals, organisations, and industries to undertake diverse environment-positive actions to reduce carbon emissions, improve in air and water quality, and increase biodiversity. The move was part of India’s ambition to achieve net zero emission by 2070 as per Paris Agreement.
In the Green Credit Rules 2024 published by the ministry, it asks the state forest departments to identify degraded land parcels (including open forests, scrub lands, wastelands and catchment areas) under their administrative control, which can be made available for tree plantation.
The rule further states that the state forest departments will provide green credit certificates to applicants, after evaluation and verification after completion of the tree plantation activity. The certificate will be a symbol of environmental, social and governance leadership indicators.
However, experts see the rules as damaging to forest ecology as it can be easily manipulated in favour of business conglomerates or interested parties to suit their interests. Experts see the rule as unscientific and as disastrous for the forest ecology.
“The term degraded forest is of critical importance. However, there is no rule or law that describes a degraded forest,” said Debadityo Sinha, an expert on environmental laws. “In that scenario any and every forest can be a degraded forest,” Sinha further said.