India Slides Into an Environmental Abyss

'Caught up in the maelstrom of divisive politics, India is silently but surely sliding into an environmental abyss under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's watch. The latest EPI ( Environmental Performance Index) report released on the sidelines of the WEF conclave at Davos puts us at third from the bottom- at 177 out of 180 countries, a decline of 36 places since 2016 ( when we were at 141). We do even worse in the index of air quality, at 178 out of 180. The country is turning toxic in just about every indicator- its waters, air, pollution, health- but of particular concern is what the governments- centre and states- are doing do its green cover and forests.

According to a new study by the WRI ( World Resources Institute) the country lost 1.6 million hectares of tree cover, and 16 million trees, between 2001 and 2018, of which 9.4 million trees were felled in just the last four years. In terms of climate change implications the effect of this large scale deforestation is disastrous: since each mature tree can absorb 22kg of carbon dioxide in a year, in four years we have added almost 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to our air ( which could otherwise have been sequestered by these 9.4 million trees)...'

[Continue reading on The Citizen.]