The National Green Tribunal on Monday sought response from the Centre, States and Union Territories about the measures they have been adopting to check climate change and how the governments have implemented the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar issued notices to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Ministry of Power, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and several States.
The Bench was hearing a petition filed by advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, who has been raising various environmental concerns before the NGT. Mr. Bansal sought directions to place on record the relevant materials and documents relating to steps taken by the Centre and States to implement the NAPCC.
The plea said, “As a part of the international commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions in India, the then Prime Minister on June 30, 2008, had released the NAPCC and said it reflects the importance the government attaches to mobilising the national energies to meet the challenges of climate change.”
In August 2009, the Central Government had directed all States and Union Territories to formulate individual state action plan on climate change guided by and consistent with the structure and strategies of the NAPCC, but nothing has been done in this direction, it said.
“The idea behind the individual State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) was that individual States and Union Territories must lay out sector-specific as well as cross sector time-bound priority actions along with indicative budgetary requirements, supplemented with details of necessary institutional and policy infrastructure for operationalisation of actions,” it said. The plea claimed that despite the Central Government’s direction, Maharashtra has not drafted its SAPCC. It further claimed that while preparing the SAPCCs, no States offered a clear, consistent and well-argued set of recommendations with either a vision or an action plan.
“There is a conflict of interest between the Central Government and various States of the country and because of this an important plan like the NAPCC has failed to get implemented in its true letter and spirit,” the plea said.
On January 30, 2010, the Joint Secretary, MoEF, in a letter to the Executive Secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had informed that India will try to reduce the emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 in comparison to the 2005 level, it said.
