Practice Test 27

Environmental conservation and the management of climate change have become central concerns of Indian public policy, reflecting growing scientific evidence of the severe impacts that unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation will impose on the country's water resources, agricultural productivity, coastal settlements, and human health, as well as the international obligations that India has undertaken through its participation in global climate agreements. India is a signatory to the Paris Agreement adopted at the United Nations Climate Conference in December 2015, under which countries committed to holding the increase in global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursuing efforts to limit the increase to one and a half degrees, with each country submitting Nationally Determined Contributions describing the actions they would take to reduce emissions and adapt to unavoidable climate change. India's Nationally Determined Contributions, updated and enhanced in 2022, include commitments to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by forty-five percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, to achieve about fifty percent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy sources by 2030, and to create an additional carbon sink of two and a half to three billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. The National Action Plan on Climate Change, adopted in 2008, identifies eight national missions covering solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, the green India mission, sustainable agriculture, and strategic knowledge for climate change, each of which is implemented by the relevant ministry with specific targets, milestones, and monitoring arrangements. India's Nationally Determined Contribution on forests is being implemented through the Green India Mission and the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority, which has access to tens of thousands of crore rupees accumulated from compensatory afforestation levies paid by project proponents who divert forest land for infrastructure and industrial projects. The International Solar Alliance, which India co-founded with France and which is headquartered in Gurugram, brings together over a hundred countries to promote solar energy deployment, particularly in the tropical and subtropical regions where solar irradiation is highest and the potential for cost-effective solar power generation is greatest. Plastic pollution, air quality deterioration, and industrial effluent discharge into rivers remain serious environmental challenges that require sustained regulatory action, technology adoption, and changes in consumer and producer behaviour. The Environment Protection Act and the National Green Tribunal provide the legal and institutional framework for environmental regulation and the adjudication of environmental disputes, with the Tribunal having issued numerous orders addressing air and water pollution, illegal mining, coastal zone violations, and wetland destruction.