9-yr-old state girl moves NGT over climate change impact

New Delhi, March 29

A nine-year-old child has moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT), alleging inaction by the Centre to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change, prompting the green panel today to seek reply from the Environment Ministry.

A Bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, issued notices to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Central Pollution Control Board asking them to respond in two weeks.

The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by Uttarakhand resident Ridhima Pandey through her legal guardian seeking directions to all appraisal bodies to assess the climate-related issues while granting environmental clearance.

The plea, filed through advocates Rahul Choudhary and Meera Gopal, contended that India was one of the most vulnerable countries to adverse climate change impact and its citizens were already experiencing the impacts.

The petition said children were more vulnerable than adults to pollution from the burning of fossil fuels that caused global climate change and referred to issues like rise in the sea level, destruction of mangroves, melting of glaciers and snow packs and reduction in fresh-water supply.

“The 34th Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India titled ‘Performance Audit on Renewable Energy Sector in India Union Government, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’, it was reported that the Central Government had failed to meet its targets for scaling up the use of renewable energy sources under the National Action Plan on Climate Chang (NAPCC).

“The NAPCC envisages raising renewable energy sources to 8 per cent of the national energy mix for electricity by 2012-13 and 9 per cent by 2013-14. However, as per the CAG report, the national achievement for purchase of electricity from renewable energy sources in those 2 years was only 4.28 per cent and 4.51 per cent, respectively,” the plea said.

Alleging that there was a huge gap in implementation of the environmental legislation in the country, it said climate change had become a worldwide concern in the recent years caused by anthropogenic activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. —PTI