Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray on Friday unveiled the Climate Action Plan for Mumbai, which is being developed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) with technical support from the World Resources Institute India.
The city joined the C40 Cities Network in December last year and the plan is expected to be ready by November to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
Mr. Thackeray said that 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.
The Minister said the main objective was to create a comprehensive strategy to tackle challenges of climate change by adopting inclusive and robust mitigation and adaptation strategies.
The plan will focus on six action tracks to introduce sector-specific strategies for mitigation and adaptation that can lead to implementable climate projects. These are sustainable waste management; urban greening and biodiversity; urban flooding and water resource management; building energy efficiency; air quality; and sustainable mobility.
BMC Commissioner I.S. Chahal said coordinated efforts for data monitoring and management will help in making quick and informed decisions and ensuring the safety of those most vulnerable in our city.
As part of gathering data to build the plan, a greenhouse gas inventory for Mumbai has been created using a global standard tool to identify emission reduction strategies for the years 2030 and 2050. For Mumbai to adapt to changing climatic scenarios, a vulnerability assessment using satellite imagery has been completed to identify critical risk factors.
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 300 mm or continuous rain over four hours.
There are also plans to deploy floating debris-trapping trash booms at nine critical places, including Dahisar, Oshiwara and Poisar rivers, and vital nullahs to minimise the stress on waterways.
The city’s first desalination plant, which would process 200 million litres of water per day, will be built near Manori in Malad (West). This month, the Mithi river clean-up pilot initiative was announced with an aim towards collecting and recycling maximum floating debris.
This project, the first of its kind in India, will make use of a special machine developed by Finland’s RiverRecycle, which would collect floating plastic waste to clean the river.
