NEW DELHI: While India ensured that healthy and sustainable way of living becomes part of Paris climate talks last year, the government is now all geared up to propagate sustainable way of living based on traditions in the country.
Taking forward the task, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has constituted an inter-ministerial sub-committee under joint secretary, climate change division to prepare a strategy for implementing of India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) -- voluntary measures New Delhi intends to take to tackle climate change and these have been submitted to UN.
The 11-member committee will look into measures needed to be taken to further propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation. They are expected to complete their work in a period of three months.
At Paris, India pushed for including sustainable living part of the final Paris agreement. The ministry has also come out with a booklet on lifestyle changes people need to make in their lives like cycling, taking stairs, eating together, practicing yoga and walking to nearby places among others in their lives to cut emissions.
The committee will also work on technology and capacity building related to INDC like to build capacities, creating domestic framework and international architecture for quick diffusion of cutting edge climate technology in Indian and for joint collaborative R&D for such future technologies.
In it INDCs submitted to UN, India committed to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 level and to achieve about 40 percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil flue based energy resources by 2030.
The Terms of Reference (ToR) of the committee also include suggesting the technology related policies and measures needed to help industry benchmark or upgrade technology for achieving the goals of INDCs.
The other members of the committee include representatives from Department of Science and Technology and Biotechnology, Ministry of Power, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Coal, Ministry of earth Sciences and The Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC).
Also part of the committee is members from the industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) or ASSOCHAM. All the members of the committee are expected to be not below the rank of Joint Secretary.