New Delhi: The Modi government will continue to strike a balance between development and environmental protection. This was said by Bhupendra Yadav after taking charge as Union Environment Minister on Tuesday. Yadav’s role as Environment Minister will be important as India has proposed to host the international climate talks (COP33) in 2028. If accepted, it will be the next major global conference to be held in India after the G20 summit last year.
Listing the major achievements of the Modi government, he said, “India has achieved the quantitative and qualitative targets set under the National Climate Plan to achieve its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)-Paris Agreement goals nine years ahead of schedule.” “Our achievements in emission reduction and renewable energy sector are the significant achievements of the Modi government in the last decade,” Yadav told reporters. The minister also expressed satisfaction over the progress of the Cheetah project.
“Both planting and protecting trees are important,” he said. He said India completed 50 years of Project Tiger and 30 years of Project Elephant last year. According to Yadav, India has implemented significant reforms in the environmental sector and launched several major initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, Coalition for Disaster Resilience and Infrastructure and the International Big Cat Alliance.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Gonda and first-time minister in the Modi government, Kirtivardhan Singh has been appointed Union Minister of State for Environment. Yadav, who took over as environment minister from Prakash Javadekar in the second term of the Modi government in July 2021, defended India’s dependence on coal at international climate talks in Glasgow and Dubai.
Earlier he was the Union Minister of Labor and Employment, a post now handed over to Mansukh Mandaviya. India’s climate-related actions under Yadav’s leadership in the environment ministry were ranked the fourth strongest in the annual performance index released by Germanwatch in 2023, one place better than last year.