Centre announced its 2024-25 budget touching upon climate change issues such as resilience and adaptation. While the FM acknowledged flash floods, cloudbursts and landslides in Bihar, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim, and promised assistance to these regions, details on what this assistance would look like were missing.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will develop a taxonomy for climate finance to increase availability of capital for climate action (finance for adaptation and mitigation projects). This taxonomy has been in the works for a long time, but progress has been slow. Sitharaman said the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which was launched to install rooftop solar plants to enable 10 million households to get free electricity up to 300 units per month has generated a “remarkable response” with more than 12.8 million registrations and 1.4 million applications. Missing from her speech, however, was any acknowledgement of the glitches and errors on the government’s national registration portal that has led to a significant loss of business for vendors.
The budget proposed “required fiscal support” for a joint venture between NTPC & BHEL to set up a full-scale 800 MW commercial thermal plant using Advanced Ultra Supercritical (AUSC) technology indigenously. The budget speech mentioned forming a pathway for “hard to abate” industries to shift from energy efficiency targets to “emission targets”. The minister said appropriate regulations for transition of these industries from the current ‘Perform, Achieve and Trade’ (PAT) mode to ‘Indian Carbon Market’ mode will be put in place. However, the finance ministry’s 2023-2024 Economic Survey Report, which is released a day before the country’s annual budget, said India’s export of carbon credits through the voluntary carbon market (VCM) will actually make emission reduction expensive and lead to double accounting
Finance panel rejected request to include extreme heat on natural disasters’ list
The government told Parliament it has no plan to classify heatwaves as a notified disaster which will make it eligible for financial assistance under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 even as the country experienced unprecedented heatwaves this year, which have killed hundreds of people.
The government said the 15th Finance Commission considered the issue of including more calamities in the existing notified list of calamities, but declined to include heatwaves on the notified disaster list. Centre said : “The Commission, in para 8.143 of its report, had observed that the list of notified disasters eligible for funding from State Disaster Mitigation Fund and National Disaster Mitigation Fund covers the needs of the state to a large extent and thus did not find much merit in the request to expand its scope,”
Presently the notified list of disasters eligible for National Disaster Response Fund/State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) assistance includes 12 disasters: Cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst, pest attack and frost and cold wave.
Supreme Court: States have a right to tax mining activities
India’s top court has said states have the power to tax mining activities and collecting “royalties” from mining leaseholders is entirely separate from, and does not interfere with, the power to impose taxes, Indian Express reports.
According to DTE, this has effectively brought the debate on the issue of taxing minerals between the Centre and the states to an end. The bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, also established that the royalty paid for mining by the lessee to the lessor (state) is not to be classified as ‘tax’. Earlier, the Centre held that it had the legislative authority to tax mineral rights under Entry 54 of List 1 of the Constitution.
However, the Supreme Court clarified that since the power to tax mineral rights is enumerated in Entry 50 of List 2, Parliament cannot use its legislative powers to impose taxes on mining in the respective states, DTE reported.
The crucial State of Forest report delayed by over a year
The State of Forest report by the Forest Survey of India is delayed by over a year now, HT reported adding that the last such report, which is supposed to be released biennially, came out in 2021. The State of the Forest reports are required to give accurate details of “unclassed” or “deemed” forests in each district as per the state expert committee reports, something which has not been done, HT report stated.
The newspaper said there is speculation that the report will have to factor in certain provisions under the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act of 2023 although Forest Survey of India officials maintain that this isn’t the case and that the collection of information took time. Citing a senior official of Forest Survey of India, without naming him, the newspaper stated that the government wants to give information about forest cover in all newly formed districts but “getting boundaries of these districts took some time. The report will be released soon. The report doesn’t need to factor the new provisions because the mandate is different,”
The newspaper wrote that the FC Amendment Act or the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam 2023 which was passed last year exempts unrecorded deemed forests, paving way for their diversion for infrastructure and other projects. The report pointed out that last year, 11 retired government officials, including some from the forest and environment departments and two environmental activists challenged the new amendment in the Supreme Court. The apex court gave an interim order on February 19 upholding the order of the 1996 Godavarman judgment which defined forests as per the dictionary meaning of the word irrespective of ownership.
Rampant sand mining in Karbi Anglong area, Supreme Court alerted
Assam’s rives Deithor and Rangsali are being dug up for sand mining and stone quarrying with heavy machinery in violation of Supreme Court’s orders, a complaint sent to the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee has flagged, HT reported adding that the two rivers play a vital role in maintaining the ecosystem of the region adjoining the rivers: Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve and Kaziranga – Karbi Anglong Elephant Reserve.
The newspaper published the letter the environmentalist Mukrang Engleng wrote to CEC: “The impact of sand mining through machinery in the Deithor and Rangsali rivers has led to habitat destruction, erosion of river banks, alteration of river flow patterns, and disruption of aquatic ecosystems. It has also resulted in loss of biodiversity, the fish populations have also declined drastically, and degradation of water quality has also increased drastically posing health risk to both human and animal lives. Furthermore, sand mining has exacerbated flooding, as it alters the natural sediment balance of the river. Socially and economically, it has affected communities that rely on rivers for livelihoods, such as fishing and agriculture”.
India to lose 0.05% of GDP to CBAM, should impose ‘historical polluter tax’ on EU: Report
The European Union’s carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will impose an additional 25% tax on carbon-intensive goods exported from India to the EU, states a new report by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The report recommended a counter-tax on rich countries historically responsible for climate change.
CBAM is the block’s proposed tax on energy-intensive products, such as iron, steel, cement, fertilizers and aluminium imported from countries like India and China. This added tax would represent 0.05% of India’s GDP, according to the report titled “The Global South’s response to a changing trade regime in the era of climate change”. These findings are based on data from the past three years (2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24). The tax is imposed for the carbon emissions generated during the production of these goods. The EU says CBAM creates a level playing field for domestically manufactured goods, which must adhere to stricter environmental standards, and helps reduce emissions from imports.
COP29 chief’s letter to member nations says new climate finance goal will be top priority for Baku deal
Countries should enhance their climate plans to make them 1.5°C compliant and put in place finances to achieve those plans, Mukhtar Babayev, president of the United Nations COP29, has said. in the first letter sent to all 198 member countries of the UN Climate Convention, Babayev said: “The COP29 Presidency’s top negotiating priority is agreeing a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG) adequate to the urgency and scale of the problem, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country parties. Our efforts should include the full scope and potential of the resources that need to be made available.”
The COP29 climate talks will take place in Azerbaijan from November 11-22, in a year of elections.
Chhattisgarh villages oppose public hearing on mines planned in area under 99% forest cover
Gram panchayats of six villages in Chhattisgarh have opposed a public hearing notice to allow the environmental clearance for the Kente Extension Opencast Coal Mine of 9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) in a lease area of 1,760 hectares (ha). The panchayats say the data is outdated and does not address environmental concerns. As per official records 99% of the area is under forest cover. HT reported that the draft environment impact assessment (EIA) report of the project was published in March 2021 while data collected was from a study period during October to December 2019. The panchayats say the data is over three years old and may not reflect the current circumstances on ground, they have said.
HT quoted Shripal Porte, Basen sarpanch, saying: “We have objected to the public hearing for multiple reasons. The most important is that this is a very old and dense forest. It’s not a small area with trees. These trees are thousands of years old. They give us food, water and medicine. We do not want them to be cleared.”
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