Plea on climate change: NGT notice to Centre, Delhi govt

With a scientist claiming that the national capital has no State Action Plan on Climate Change on the lines of NAPCC, today prompted the National Green Tribunal to seek response from the Centre and Delhi government on the issue.

National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) is a comprehensive action plan which outlines measures on climate change related adaptation and mitigation while simultaneously advancing development.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar issued notices to Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Delhi government seeking their reply by October 17.

The order came on a plea filed by scientist Mahendra Pandey seeking direction to draft, finalise and implement the State Action Plan on Climate Change on the lines and the spirit of the NAPCC.

It also sought directions to Arvind Kejriwal government to place on record relevant material and documents relating to steps taken by it in order to implement Action Plan on Climate Change.

Pandey, in his plea filed through advocate Gaurav Bansal, contended that the national capital was facing a number of environmental issues due to ill-effects of climate change.

The government of NCT of Delhi claims that it formulated a Climate Change Agenda for the national capital in 2009.

However, the Agenda expired in 2012 and since then Delhi has no Action Plan on Climate Change, the plea alleged.

The former scientist contended that Delhi generated around 800 million tonnes of garbage daily and the same was dumped as it is on three main landfill sites of national capital which have completed their life.

"By continuously dumping of large quantity of solid waste, the respondents are compromising with the air quality which ultimately is contributing to climate change...

"As per the report of IIT Kanpur, the petitioner has learnt that the domestic cooking, road dust, waste burning, diesel generators etc are releasing PM2.5, PM10 etc in the atmosphere and as such are major contributors to the climate change," the plea said.

Despite the July 23, 2015 directions of NGT to prepare their respective plan expeditiously, Delhi government has not prepared and approved the same till date, it said.

The NGT had last year directed all states and Union Territories to "expeditiously" prepare their action plans on climate change in according with the Centre's guidelines and get them approved by the Environment Ministry.