27th COP of United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change at the seaside resort city of Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt during 6th – 20th November 2022. The main gain, it appears, is the decision to establish and operationalize a ‘loss and damage fund’ which most vulnerable countries have been demanding for decades now
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PIL raises grave concerns on prevailing weaknesses in Biodiversity Act that is contributing to biodiversity loss and associated traditional rights
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The unanimous conclusion of legal scholars, environmental and social justice activists, researchers, etc. is that all of the proposed Bills must be withdrawn immediately.
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Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change is proposing to amend all environmental laws of India, by a process that is widely considered as undemocratic and intransparent. ESG in collaboration with NLSIU organised a National Consultation on these proposals. Access the report of this consultation.
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The concretising didn’t stop with roads; like a cancer it spread across to pavements, as paved regions into parks, and even into urban forests like Turahalli where, thankfully, public resistance stopped it. But the phenomenon is so widespread now, that it shows up in satellite imageries, and when it rains, the city floods in no time as there is simply no open ground for water to percolate. And in summer ‘heat islands’ result, desiccating what little greenery is left.
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The city needs granular administrative and planning responses to help identify the poor who are forced to live in flood prone areas out of sheer necessity. They cannot be evicted and thrown to the streets.
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Good research-based approaches to skill building are the need of the hour in order to identify the right approaches in building a broad spectrum of jobs. Anticipating Skill Needs for Green Jobs is a study that offers practical guidance on building employment opportunities and developing short term job oriented skill courses. From the experiences of the pandemic it has been learned that it is certainly more beneficial for society overall to provide a range of skill training – from farm-based activities to non-farm skills – and speaking to the needs of the region, even at the very local levels. It is such an approach of care that will help youth in making wise choices to secure their futures, in ensuring economic security of their households and to look to the future with dignity and confidence.
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The IT Capital of India which was well on the path of becoming the second Silicon Valley of the world couldn’t wait for carefully and inclusively planned Bengaluru.
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It is the 25th year of Environment Support Group (ESG), as India turns 75! It has been a remarkable journey
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The @CompCoRe_STS project organised the first (semi-)in person meeting at @HarvardSTS . Leo Saldanha and Bhargavi Rao of ESG are part of this network and writing the India paper as part of a 50 country study on how COVID was managed, an international research effort led by Prof. Sheila Jananoff of Harvard Kennedy School and Prof. Stephen Hiltgartner of Cornell University.
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To assess the implications of the proposed changes, and also to propose a pathway for progressive reforms of India’s environmental laws, Environment Support Group in collaboration with the Institute of Public Policy at National Law School of India University is organising a half day consultation on 18th July 2022 (Monday) from 2 pm – 6 pm. We invite you to this consultation and sincerely hope you will be able to participate despite this short notice
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The 1st webinar as part of the ESG Imaginaries To Make Cities Work was on the theme Waste And Governance and held on 7th July 2022 (5-7 pm). Kirthee Shah, Founder President of INHAF set the tone by explaining the background to the series. The webinar was anchored by Leo F. Saldanha, Coordinator and Trustee of ESG, and Bhargavi S. Rao, Trustee and Senior Fellow at ESG, who also provided an introduction to ESG’s diverse efforts on governance of waste management, and its implications to governance overall. Respondents were Prof. Amita Bhide, Dean, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Rizwana Hasan of Bangladesh Environmental Law Alliance; Maitreyi Krishnan of Manthan Law and Shibu Nair of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
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For over two decades, ESG has focussed on emerging urban environmental and socio-economic challenges and worked with multiple communities, government agencies, academia, media, etc. in attending to these issues and conflicts.
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The Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy and Columbia University’s Earth Institute issued the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) report recently. It is projected as a “data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world” and uses “40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories” to rank “180 countries on climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality”. India has been ranked at the bottom of this list, scoring merely 18.9 points of a possible 100.
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At Environment Support Group(ESG), every day is Environment Day. And it has been the case for us ever since the organisation was founded, 25 years ago. Yes, it is the 25th year of this initiative and we hope we are doing our bit to be grateful for the incredible opportunity of being a part of this living planet.
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Karbi and Adivasi farmers belonging to Mikir Bamuni Grant village in Nagaon district of Assam reported that about 93 acres of the land they were cultivating was taken over forcibly during 2020 by Azure Power Forty Private Limited, a subsidiary of international power corporation Azure Power Global Ltd. The farmers reported that their land was taken for establishing a 15 MW solar power plant by the company. In the process, ripened paddy crop raised on over 200 bighas of land was razed to the ground on 8th October, 2020 by the company. Villagers report that the local police and district authorities backed this forced dislocation of the farmers and forcible takeover of their lands.
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Alternative sources of energy like solar is the way ahead but going forward in this realm requires a need to understand that mega power plants spanning thousands of acres, commissioned by converting habitable lands may not be the right way to do it. Solar plants can coexist with farming, animal rearing and other rural livelihoods. It just needs more dialogue and local people’s participation to suit the local landscapes.
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22nd April 2022 will be the 52nd year since the observation of Earth Day. A day that marked the birth of the modern environment movement across the West. Earth Day in the 1990s became a global call for action drawing attention of the world to the developing environmental crisis as a fallout of the Rio Summit 1992. Now we are enduring climate change impacts. The IPCC report 2022 warns if global carbon emissions are not reduced substantially, heat and humidity will surpass human tolerance and this can seriously impact human health and the economy.
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Environment Support Group has been involved in initiating resilient and sustainable structural reforms in waste management through field, policy and legal interventions for over two decades now. Our work, primarily based out of Bangalore metropolitan area (14 million) and Karnataka State, is in coordination with similar efforts nationwide. We work closely with trade unions advancing labour, occupational and health rights of those handling waste, and we also work with vulnerable communities suffering serious contamination due to waste disposal, to ensure their Rights to Health, Clean Environment, Life and Livelihoods is upheld.
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In the final hours of the 2021-22 Financial Year, we invite you to support ESG’s critical efforts advancing environmental justice.
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A key strategy promoted to tackle climate change, especially from the North, is to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground and shift to renewables. Which, as Thea Riofrancos argues in Foreign Policy, is fraught with serious inconsistencies even if this involves shifting the mining of minerals critical to the renewable energy transition to the Global North. ”Global north onshoring does not repair the forms of environmental harm disproportionally meted out in the global south”, he argues. Besides, this would create new problems which primarily affect oppressed populations within affluent countries.
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In December 2021, ESG organised an experiential learning certificate course “Environmental Justice: Visiting Different Social and Ecological Landscapes and Areas of Environmental Contestations in Karnataka, India” for 28 students from O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat.
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The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 appears poised to be the next victim of the continuing onslaught on environmental protections by the Union Government. The Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2021 endangers several common but declining species of wildlife by allowing them to be classified as “vermin” and thus be opened up to being hunted. Several species that were previously protected under the Schedules of the Act have been removed in the amendments without any justification.
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We invite you to join this campaign to save Loktak Wetland Region for posterity by signing the Statement initiated by Ngaamee Lup, Indigenous Perspectives and Environment Support Group.
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