By Business India Editorial

Delhi’s government’s action plan to combat climate change will be focusing on seven major sectors which are the worst affected by extreme weather conditions in the national capital.

Officials said that the Delhi government has set Jan. 22, next year as the deadline to submit its new state action plan to the union environment ministry. The plan is in the initial stages at present while meetings with stakeholder departments are yet to begin in the second week of December. The plan will set targets to be achieved under various heads from 2022 to 2030, senior officials in the environment department said.

According to the officials, the state action plan for climate change (SAPCC) will focus on six to seven major sectors: energy/power, water resources, transport, forest and biodiversity, urban planning, health and agriculture.
 
“We have already held the first round of workshop to discuss the layout of the plan. We plan to hold meetings with at least 40 departments all over, which constitute the major stakeholders, including those from the state, central government and private entities such as power discoms, among others. There will be a series of discussions to devise a strategy and the action plan,” said a senior official.

It will start with departmental level consultations for data collection, followed by state and climate profile such as change in average temperatures and precipitation. “The next stage would be drawing out the institutional mechanism and financing. The draft SAPCC will then be shared with nodal officers for their comments. We will also hold a prioritisation workshop for proposed adoption and mitigation strategies, for instance, switching to electric vehicles, etc. Then we’ll be holding a final workshop on revised draft SAPCC with nodal officials,” the official said.

Officials added that the final plan will be approved by the state steering committee to be then submitted to the union ministry of environment and forests. “We plan to submit the final action plan to the MoEF by January 22, 2022,” the official said.

The Centre had in 2009 prepared the National Action Plan on Climate Change and asked states to prepare their own area-specific plans.