It is heartening that the Karnataka government has identified 269 action points to significantly reduce Bengaluru’s carbon emission by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
The Bengaluru Climate Action Plan released by Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar proposes to mitigate the impact of climate change and address issues of heat waves, urban flooding, air pollution and other climate hazards.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had appointed the World Resources Institute (WRI) as the consultant to evolve the climate action plan for the city in August 2021.
WRI has prepared the paper in consultation with various stakeholders involved in civic affairs, electricity and water supply, transportation, disaster management and urban planning, among others.
The action points were evolved after analysing 30 years of climate data.
While Mumbai and Chennai have already launched their action plans, Bengaluru is a late starter, though it had hosted the first Air Quality Network seminar in 2017 as the co-lead. Bengaluru, along with Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad is a signatory to C40, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of different cities across the globe that are united to confront the climate change crisis.
Of the 269 action points, BBMP will be responsible for executing 143, which naturally gives rise to scepticism as the civic body has failed to provide even basic amenities to the residents of the capital city.
The various types of broad actions identified for the stakeholders to collectively implement in priority sectors are institutional mechanisms and capacity, infrastructure, process and standard operating procedures, platforms and data system, finance, inclusivity and equity, and governance/regulatory mechanisms.
The basis on which the agenda points were drawn up also needs to be questioned as civic bodies in Bengaluru continue to rely on the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) which was approved in 1994 and subsequently revised in 2015.
The draft CDP (2023) remains in suspended animation for various reasons.
Given the massive changes that the city has undergone in terms of population, density of vehicles and geographical area since 2015, the action plan could only have been evolved on the basis of extrapolating older data points and urban plans.
Most of Bengaluru’s environment-related problems like flooding, change in weather conditions or increasing heat are man-made and there is no evidence that the government is talking steps on the ground to address them.
Unless the government displays some seriousness and takes concrete steps like reviving lakes, greening the city, rainwater harvesting, recycling of water and strengthening public transport, the Climate Change Action Plan will remain only on paper. That should not be the case.