Concerns over the severe impact of rising sea levels and high temperatures on coastal cities like Mumbai have led the BMC (BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation) to launch its first-ever Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP) with technical advocacy from the World Resources Institutes (WRI) India and the C40 Cities network.
This move was undertaken amid an assessment, greenhouse gas and natural green cover inventory in the last six months, following the newly published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II report.
The MCAP is a policy document for espousing an evidence-based planning approach and activating resources for working on strategic projects. It has a complete mitigation goal of reaching net-zero by 2050.
The plan’s temporary and long-term objectives comprise a 30% decrease in emissions by 2030, a 44% reduction by the end of 2040, tumbling down to net-zero by 2050 compared to the base year emissions (2019).
For 2019, the base year emissions were estimated to be 23.42 million tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide emissions) or 1.8 tons CO2e per person.
The BMC will also be focusing on accomplishing net-zero ahead of the Government of India deadline, which is till 2070.
Attaining an equilibrium between the quantity of generated gas house emissions and the amount removed from the atmosphere is denoted as net-zero.
This announcement is in line with the statement made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the COP26 (Conference of the Parties) at Glasgow last year, setting a goal for the country to be emission-free by 2070.
Minister of Environment & Tourism, Aaditya Thackeray said that several recent extreme weather calamities in Maharashtra, like untimely rains, urban floods and Cyclone Tauktae, have witnessed the importance of executing localized mitigation and resilience techniques.
The objective is to encourage people for taking action on climate change at the local level. In a city like Mumbai, climate resilience will require keeping an ideal balance between development aspirations and environmental preservation.
Source Credit - https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/mumbai-sets-an-ambitious-goal-to-achieve-net-zero-by-2050