Habits For A Greener Economy

SUSTAINABILITY has moved beyond being a trend to a policy imperative. Historically unviable consumption levels and energy usage patterns have effected ecological fragility and even ecological collapse in parts of the world.

There is a looming threat that approximately three billion people will experience chronic water scarcity globally. The global GDP may suffer a loss of 18 per cent by 2050 ifnecessary action is not taken against the changing environment. The international society has an emergent consciousness that appreciates the need to discover alternate pathways for development, and urgently so.

The greening of economic growth ensures that it is lasting and does not hamper our future abilities to meet resource needs. A healthy natural ecosystem also yields better returns from all the economic activity it hosts and higher well-being for the peopleit shelters. India’s size, geopolitical influence, and heterogenous natural endowments entail the country’s major share of responsibility in the fulfilment of global sustainable development goals. The cost of environmental degradation isseldom borne by the perpetrators but rather by the poor, the local communities, and those who are socially and economically vulnerable. Climate-change-induced crises like global warming are expected to impact India and its marginalised significantly. Recently, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced a special climate resilience fund identifying heat as an impending ecological challenge for the informal workers in the country.