SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL (SDG)

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs September 8, 2021 GS, GS3 Leave a comment 387 Views

India’s progress in regard to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 is fair enough but not satisfactory.
SDG12 aims at ensuring responsible consumption and production patterns everywhere in the world.
Sustainable consumption and production refers to “the use of services and related products, which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations”.

Important points:

Halving global food waste per capita and ensuring the efficient and sustainable use of natural resources by 2030.
Fighting pollution, reducing the overall waste generation, and improving the management of chemicals and toxic wastes.
Supporting companies’ transition to green infrastructures and practices.
Making sure everyone everywhere is fully informed of ways to live in harmony with nature and eventually adopts thoughtful habits.

India’s Status:

It measures the amount of resource consumption resulting from our lifestyles.
The average lifestyle material footprint of India according to 2015 statistics is around 8,400 kilogram per capita per year, which when compared to sustainable material footprint of 8,000 kg per capita per year is quite acceptable.
According to the UNEP 2021 report, about 50 kg of food is wasted per person per year in India.
It seems rather impossible to achieve the goal to halve food waste, with only nine years left, without significantly increasing investment.
Food wastage reduction can have a significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions, hunger, pollution and money-saving during recessions.
The population of China and India together constitutes 36% of the global population but generates only 27% of the global municipal waste.
Whereas, the United States constitutes only 4% of the global population and produces 12% of the waste.
Plastic policy index of India is well below the national requirement, according to 2018 statistics, but this gap is much lower compared to China.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India generates close to 26,000 tonnes of plastic a day and over 10,000 tonnes a day of plastic waste remains uncollected.
India’s per capita plastic consumption of less than 11 kg, is nearly a tenth of the United States of America (109 kg).
The domestic recycling rate of India was about 30% in 2019 and is expected to improve in the near future.
India can achieve self-sufficiency in the next 10 years if National Recycling Policy is implemented properly and scrap care techniques are shifted in the recycling industries.
In the year 2020, the government spent nearly 0.2% of its GDP on fossil fuels which is slightly higher than in 2019.
In 2019, there was a hike in fossil fuel subsidies which was seven times higher than alternative energy subsidies.
Renewable energy subsidies rose significantly in 2017 compared to 2014 and total quantified energy subsidies fell by a huge amount.
But after 2017 there has been a slight upward trend in the total energy subsidy.
While the increase in renewable energy subsidy is worth appreciating, there is a need for shifting more resources to this area and reducing fossil fuel usage.