The Wire
At COP26, Prime Minister Modi also announced four other commitments, with deadlines as close as 2030.
On the second day of the crucial COP26 summit in Glasgow, India made a big promise – Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country would set the target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.
Prime Minister Modi also announced four other commitments, with deadlines as close as 2030.
What do these commitments mean and will it actually be possible to achieve this target?
Today on ‘The Wire Explains’, we break down India’s pronouncements at COP26 so far.
How do India’s pledges sit with the dramatic changes being made in environmental laws within the country? A former environment minister sheds light.
In one of the most ambitious targets by a developing country to combat climate change, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at the COP26 Summit that India will achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070.
He also said that non-fossil energy capacity will be racked up to 500 GW by 2030, that 50% of the country’s energy requirements will be met by renewable sources and that India will strive towards a one-billion-tonne reduction in its total projected emissions from now until 2030.
What does India’s announcement of five COP pledges mean and how do they sit with the dramatic changes being made in environmental laws within the country?
Mitali Mukherjee speaks with Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh on the targets that Prime Minister Modi has committed to before the world and whether they look achievable.
This has been happening for the past two months and is violating many environmental laws.
In the forest belt of North Kashmir’s Sopore area, solid and biomedical waste is being dumped illegally by the local authorities. This has been happening for the past two months and is violating many environmental laws. The forests are rich in biodiversity and host a number of migratory birds in winter. The dumping is not only affecting biodiversity but also the locals living nearby are also suffering, many are complaining of health issues.
“We were short of a dumping site, we’ve to select one, so we decided to put it there. Already, we’d stopped dumping at three sites, because of the local protest”, said additional deputy commissioner Sopore, Parvaiz Sajad Ganie.
“We cannot keep the dump in our houses anymore, we’re going to dump it there, if we get a direction from the court or other agencies we will stop it, ” he added further.
Deputy commissioner (Baramulla), Bhupinder Kumar, was unavailable for a comment.
Indeed, our judges shouldn’t surrender their constitutional duty of striking down illegal, arbitrary and environmentally unsound decisions only to stave off their economic implications.
In the last few weeks, while the Supreme Court has been facing criticism for its handling of the migrants issue, two eminent lawyers – one a former attorney general and the other a former solicitor general – came out strongly against the Supreme Court for a completely different reason: they blamed the court for the current economic slowdown.
In a recent lecture, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said that “in its zeal to uphold the environment, its zeal to correct government orders and inactions, the Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to the economy of the nation.” He cited the example of cancellation of coal mines across the country: “Lakhs and crores of foreign investments, lakhs and crores of equipment, infrastructure and lakhs of jobs were thrown overboard when the court set aside and cancelled all the allocation of coal blocks and coal mines, because the government did not follow the law correctly.”
In an interview to Indira Jaisingh a few months back, Harish Salve expressed similar sentiments, saying the Supreme Court “cancelled coal mines by one stroke of the pen, without examining the merits of every case. Much genuine foreign investment in the coal industry went flat. A few million people are without jobs in India.”
Following this line of thinking, in a recent article, Salve pointed out that the “coal allocation judgment and the Goa mining judgment have generously contributed to bringing down the GDP”. He continued: “Whether it be privatisation or nuclear power generation, creation of new highways, new ports or new airports – the court is asked to step in and prevent the elected executive from implementing its policies.”
Also read: How Malleable Laws, Pliant Panels Helped OIL Secure Clearance to Drill in Biodiverse Area
Given these statements have come from individuals who have occupied the highest legal offices in India, it is important to present the ‘other side’ of the picture and deal with their principal contentions.
‘Millions of people without jobs’
Salve and Rohatgi emphasise job losses due to the apex court’s orders. First, both of them are general statements – ‘millions’ and ‘lakhs’ of jobs. No actual number is given. There is no doubt that jobs have been lost due to restrictions imposed. But then should the courts be silent spectators when companies mined in violation of laws? The state of Goa captured only 0.3% of the mineral depletion – Rs 161 crore of the Rs 48,199 crore, mostly as royalty. The Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that all mining from November 2007 was illegal in Goa.
Also read: Choice of Either/Ore In Karnataka’s Ballari, ‘Everyone’s Hands Are Dirty’
With respect to iron ore mining in Karnataka: the Lokayukta report concluded that mining activities were undertaken in violation of the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act 1957, Forest Conservation Act 1980, Environmental (Protection) Act 1986, Foreign Exchange Management Act 2006 and the Panchayati Raj Act. And like Goa, while mining companies earned Rs 4,000-Rs 5,000 per tonne of iron ore, the state received Rs 16 as royalty.
Even illegal activities provide employment; this is one reason why it’s not wise to examine the issue only through the lens of jobs. The Supreme Court in 1996 prohibited the export of timber from the Northeastern and Andaman and Nicobar island in the case of T.N Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India and Others, where incidentally Salve was the amicus curiae, to protect these biodiversity hotspots. In the process, countless people were left with no incomes. India’s conservation community is indebted to Salve for his passionate argument in favour of the Western Ghats that led to the complete stoppage of iron-ore mining by the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company, Ltd.
Also read: The Many Absurdities of the Supreme Court Judgment on Goa’s New Airport
To control air pollution, small industries in Delhi were shut, rendering countless people jobless. Here also Salve is the amicus, forcefully arguing the need for the Supreme Court to pass orders to control pollution. Despite having statutory bodies to deal with environmental problems, it is due to Salve’s initiative that two court appointed ‘super-structures’ – the Central Empowered Committee and the Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority – have been functioning for nearly two decades, and reporting only to the Supreme Court.
Parliament has even enacted a law based on one of the apex court’s directions: the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016. Salve as amicus curiae, was instrumental in introducing the concept of ‘net present value’ and compensatory afforestation funds in forest governance – through the Supreme Court, not through elected representatives.
However, both Salve and Rohatgi now focus on jobs instead of health, deforestation and the loss of livelihoods due to mining. Areas where coal has been mined – Korba, Raigarh, Singrauli, North Karanpura, Talcher, Chandrapur, etc. – are today toxic hotspots and have some of the lowest levels of human development.
Loss of foreign investment in coal
Both Salve and Rohatgi have said the loss of foreign investment in coal is due to the Supreme Court’s order. This statement reflects confusion about the global scenario with regard to coal, coal-financing and climate change. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, announced in January 2020 that it was divesting coal as part of steps to reduce global emissions and climate risk in its portfolio. According to the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, since 2013, over 100 significant financial institutions have divested thermal coal, including 40% of the top-40 international banks and 20 major insurers. Banks that have restricted funding to coal include Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, HSBC, ING, RBS, Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank.
In October 2018, the World Bank decided to cease its plans to fund a 500-MW coal-fired power plant in Kosovo because wind and solar power were cheaper. As of 2019, 20 important insurers with more than $6 trillion in assets and representing 20% of the world’s insurance assets have adopted coal divestment policies. The noted investor Jeremy Grantham even said thermal coal is “dead meat”, and pointed out the failures of oil and coal companies to deal with the “inevitable reality that these forms of energy will be phased out”.
Also read | Dehing Patkai: Land Claimed by NBWL as ‘Unbroken’ Has Already Been Mined or Cleared, Reveals RTI
It’s clear that investments in coal have declined remarkably over the years, so it’s wrong to think that the decline in foreign investment in coal or economic slowdown is because of PILs in the Supreme Court. It’s only a coincidence that the court delivered the coal deallocation judgment in 2014 – around the time investments in coal began to dwindle. So with or without the Supreme Court’s judgment, there is just little money available for coal to expand, together with stiff competition from solar- and wind-energy generation.
Rule of law, not rule of policy
India needs to think beyond the primitive way of digging the earth to become ‘developed’. The standard of living in the West world didn’t improve because it invested in resource extraction. Instead, it invested in knowledge building, innovation and human wellbeing, and exported the dirty work to countries in the global south, including India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
By diluting environmental and labour laws and weakening courts to facilitate this foreign investment, we indirectly help clean the air, supply water and provide a higher standard of living for many western countries. It’s wrong to assume foreign mining and power companies come to India only because they wish to make money. They come to invest in India because such dirty, polluting activities are not permissible in their countries of origin.
In this situation, the judiciary has an important role: to ensure India doesn’t become a dumping ground for obsolete and polluting technology. Our judges shouldn’t surrender their constitutional duty of striking down illegal, arbitrary and wrong decisions only to stave off their economic implications. Courts are not expected to give primacy to government policy over constitutional and statutory provisions. If this were so, we would be able to create a society that prioritises ‘rule of policy’ over ‘rule of law’ – a sad state indeed for the world’s largest democracy.
In The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of an Empire (2019), William Dalrymple observes that one of the first Indian words to enter the English language was ‘loot’. It had never been used outside North India but became a common term across Great Britain in the late 18th century. The British looted India for nearly two centuries, of its natural resources. Today, the state-sponsored corporate plunder of India’s natural resources, and the resultant impoverishment of its people, is not ‘loot’. It’s being called ‘sustainable development’.
Ritwick Dutta is an environmental lawyer.
While campaigning for the elections, the chief minister elect of Andhra Pradesh had promised that he would introduce a law to check illegal sand mining if he came to power.
Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the chief minister elect of Andhra Pradesh, swept the elections with promises of a corruption-free and environmentally-friendly government.
This was in stark contrast to his predecessor, former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, who during the last few months of his tenure saw the National Green Tribunal slap a Rs 100 crore fine for the unchecked and brazen sand mining taking place in the vicinity of his residence in Undavalli, Guntur district, on the floodplains of the Krishna river.
While campaigning for the elections, Reddy had promised that he would introduce a law to check illegal sand mining if he came to power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi being presented a memento by YSR Congress president and Andhra Pradesh CM-designate Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, in New Delhi on May 26, 2019. Credit: PTI
This is a task he must undertake the earliest if he wants to save the rivers, in contrast to Naidu who was known to flout environmental laws with impunity. Nothing signifies such a state of affairs than Naidu’s frequent flip-flops on the entire issue of sand mining.
Naidu’s ability to overlook the nefarious activities of the sand mafia in his state has affected the stability and flow of the main rivers in the state – the Krishna, the Godavari, the Tungabhadra and the Penna. The acute water shortage being faced in the state, made worse by the prevailing heat wave conditions, could have been somewhat mitigated if the public had easy recourse to water.
Also read: Vast Amounts of Illegally Mined Atomic Mineral Found in Tamil Nadu
When Naidu came to power in 2014, one of his government’s first directives was to provide a Rs 5 lakh loan from banks to women self-help groups (SHG) in villages who would overlook the excavation and sale of sand mine. The SHGs were called Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) and were set up to provide ‘Pedarikam Pai Gelupu’ (victory over poverty).
Some months later, in a sudden move, Naidu changed the policy and introduced a tendering system for the sale of sand. This saw several farmers and villagers file litigation cases against it in the Hyderabad high Court. Advocate Sravan Lay filed a case in 2015 in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) demanding that the revenue earned from the tendering process should be used by the state government to create a green fund that would be used to conserve the rivers.
The legal heat saw the Naidu government do another flip flop and he declared his government would sell sand free of cost to consumers. This was in March 2016. Once again, this was showcased as a policy to assist the poor in the construction of houses, as they did not have access to sand and were required to go through special people known to have close links with the party in power.
As was to be expected, this new policy began to be grossly exploited by the sand mafia, who began cornering the sand and selling it at exorbitant rates.
Water activist Satyanarayana Bolisetty said that despite the government claiming they were giving sand ‘free’ of cost, each truck of sand was being sold at black market rates that varied between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000. While the state suffered a loss of Rs 700 crore, individual politicians and contractors were known to have made a killing.
“Removal of large quantities of sand saw the velocity of rivers rise and this also resulted in their capacity to store water resulting in plunging ground water levels,” said Bolisetty.
Also read: How India’s Largest Beach Sand Mineral Exporter Got to Where He Is
“A strong nexus developed between contractors, bureaucrats and politicians in the sale of sand and we were witness to a ridiculous situation where large companies like L&T, Shapoorji Pallonji and NAC were being allowed to get sand practically free of cost,” said Sravan Lay.
An open letter written to the NGT and the ministry of environment and forests by waterman Rajendra Singh, farmer and social worker from Amaravati region Anumolu Gandhi, Prof Vikram Soni and Bolisetty Satyanarayana had highlighted how sand mining was being carried out illegally near Naidu’s residence and also important government offices in Amravati.
Their letter emphasised how 2,500 truckloads of sand were being transported from the river every day as also how mechanical sand mining was being carried out without permission.
Also read: For Thane’s Sand Miners, a Life Mired in Dirty Water, Illness, Illegality
Reddy admitted to being shocked at these developments and is reported to have informed his party workers that he is determined to stop illegal sand mining.
In one of his election speeches, Satyanarayana said, Reddy said he would not hesitate to destroy the extravagant Rs 40 crore chief minister bungalow built on the Krishna flood plain as it controverted the existing law that says flood plains are sacrosanct and must be left in their pristine state.
Whether he takes such extreme measure is yet to be seen, but activists believe he must act fast against illegal sand mining. And soon.
Rashme Sehgal is an author and a freelance journalist based in Delhi.
The tribunal has left it to the erring authorities to deal with the illegalities.
New Delhi: In a precedent-setting order, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) gave the go-ahead to the redevelopment of the ITPO complex at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. The nod came despite the fact that the project had taken off without statutory clearances under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
The project had not secured these two statutory clearances even on the date of the judgement by the principle bench of the tribunal lead by its chairperson Adarsh Kumar Goel on October 24.
The order sets a precedent with the NGT refusing to initiate any penal action when a project developer is found to have carried out work without statutory clearances, instead handing the onus back to the erring authorities.
A project requires an environmental clearance under the environment protection Act, and consents at different stages under the air and water pollution laws. The petitioners in the case had contended that the environmental clearance had been given without application of mind by the Union environment ministry, based on deficient impact studies, and that the project had not secured the mandatory consent orders under the air and water pollution laws before beginning different stages of work. The latter two consents are meant to ensure the project does not pollute the air and water beyond permissible levels.
Also read: East Kidwai Nagar Should Serve as a Warning, Not Model, for Delhi’s Redevelopment
The NGT concluded that the environmental clearance was in line with regulations, but it also assessed that the petitioners were right – the consents under the air and water pollution laws had not been secured by the project developers even as they continued construction.
But it refused to order any penal action against these violations and the lack of two clearances. It concluded, “In our considered opinion, violations of the (laws)… are governed by the provisions contained in the statutes that stipulates the consequences therefor and it is for the regulatory authority to take appropriate actions.”
The air pollution Act provides for jail term not less than 1.5 years and up to six years, along with fines for various infringements including failure to secure the statutory consent. Similarly, the water pollution Act too provides for both jail term and fines for infringement of the law.
Even though more than half the construction on the project has been completed without the statutory orders, the NGT said people could go to court over these violations only once the authorities decide retrospectively on the consent under air and water pollution laws.
The law itself does not provide for the retrospective grant of these consents.
Also read: India Revives Massive Yamuna Dam Project Despite Environmental Concerns
The redevelopment of Pragati Maidan in the heart of Delhi, within a kilometre of the apex court and the NGT, commenced in April 2017 with the demolition of existing structure. The court noted that the project proponent had applied for one of these clearances only in 2017. For another clearance, records show the project developers applied for it only in September 2018, that too after the NGT authorities asked for the status of all clearances. Initially, the government said the clearances were in order, only to come back to the tribunal in October 2018 to admit that the project had carried on without the clearance so far. But the NGT has again left it to the authorities to decide what to do with these violations.
The decision of the NGT marks a substantial step away from its earlier interpretations of the air and water pollution Acts and its own powers. In August 2018 itself, the same bench of the NGT had passed a judgement involving the violation of the air and water pollution laws. It involved industries running in violation of these laws and polluting the river water by dumping hazardous material in the districts of Uttar Pradesh. The court had pushed for the filing of police cases. In that case, the tribunal had recounted that the laws provided for strict penalties and jail terms, and ordered that criminal prosecution of erring industries be carried out.
By arrangement with Business Standard.
