The Delhi government on Wednesday launched an aggressive initiative to combat the escalating climate crisis in Delhi, focusing on seven critical sectors including electricity, water, waste, green cover, transport, health, and agriculture.

At a round table conference chaired by Environment Minister Gopal Rai, over 40 departments, experts and officials convened to overhaul the existing climate policy of 2019, highlighting the urgent need for action as the city faces unprecedented heat waves and record rainfall.

According to the minister, a comprehensive policy will be crafted and sent to the central government for approval.

Rai has said that the way nature has been tampered with in the blind race of development all over the world, it has led to climate change in the whole world and now it has started having a direct impact on people’s lives.

This year, the people of Delhi had to face the heat waves, and apart from that, the monsoon rains broke the records of the last several years, he added.

The minister further said that similarly the government is also battling air pollution and is constantly working to reduce it.

He further said that policies are being made on climate change all over the world, so that the components of climate change can be identified and controlled, and similarly Government of India has also thought about this and worked on making a policy.

He further mentioned, “In Delhi too, a policy on climate change was formulated in 2019. But seeing the pace with which the climate is changing after 2019, the Delhi government started the process of revising the policy of climate change two years ago.”

“A core group was formed among different departments and stakeholders for this, under which several meetings were held. A steering committee was formed under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to finalise the proposal of the core group. That committee proposed a draft policy for climate change in Delhi,” he added.

The minister said, “Today, a round table environmental conference was organised with different departments, institutions and experts on that draft policy. About 40 different departments, institutions and experts participated in it.”

Rai shared that a proposal has come to identify the sources of climate change happening in different sectors and for a comprehensive policy, and the Delhi government is sending this to the central government, he added.

According to the minister, a detailed action plan of the policy will be prepared according to whatever suggestion the central government receives.

The revised Delhi State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) report consists of mitigation and adaptation measures with requisite implementation strategy including financing roadmap for Delhi up to 2030 for combating climate change, he added.