CM joins C-40 Cities Summit at Copenhagen via video link
New Delhi: Despite many hurdles, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday participated in the C-40 Cities Summit at Copenhagen, Denmark via video conference. After the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) denied clearance to him for attending the summit on climate change, the organisers requested the Delhi CM to address the summit through a video call.
Kejriwal launched the Clean Air Cities Declaration along with the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen, Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau and Mayor of Portland Ted at the C-40 Summit. Delhi is one of the 38 cities of the 94 cities attending the Summit to have committed to cleaning its air in a time bound manner.
The Delhi CM said, "I am very happy to announce that New Delhi is joining 37 other cities from around the world in signing the C-40 Clear Air Cities Declaration. I am able to confidently sign this Declaration because of the support of 2 crore residents of Delhi, who are my strength. No plan to tackle climate change can be successful without the support and participation of the people."
"I want to share some good news from Delhi. For the past few years, Delhi has been struggling because of poor air quality. But as a consequence of the several steps we took, Delhi's pollution has reduced by 25% over the last 3 years," he added.
Kejriwal explained the various methods used by the state government in combatting air pollution, kejriwal said, "We used a road rationing policy, odd-even, to reduce vehicular pollution on an emergency basis. We introduced several restrictions on diesel vehicles, and shut down all coal based thermal power plants in Delhi. Delhi's industries were also incentivised through subsidies to switch over to cleaner fuels. We also created infrastructure to supply 24 hours uninterrupted power supply in the city, eliminating power cuts. This put half a million highly polluting diesel generators out of use. Large scale afforestation has been carried out over the years. Delhi also has the largest network of Air Quality Monitoring stations in any city in India, which helps us take important decisions."
He announced that the Delhi government will constitute a Special Task Force that will monitor Delhi's progress towards meeting the goals in the Declaration. He said, "I will chair a Clean Air Task Force that will consist of Ministers and officials from various departments. We will together monitor Delhi's progress in meeting our goals to make Delhi's air clean."
"We have outlined several actions across various sectors in our Clean Air Declaration. We will undertake a large scale expansion in public transport by doubling our city bus fleet, inducting at least 1000 fully electric buses, and encouraging the adoption of e- vehicles. The major source of Delhi's pollution is dust and we have taken measures like covering the construction sites and other," he added.
