Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that India is moving ahead with a clear roadmap for environment protection and climate change. Speaking on the occasion of World Environment Day, on June 5, PM Modi said that the country is striving to maintain a balance between present requirements and future vision. He further added that the country has focused a lot on 'green and clean energy' in the past nine years, PTI reported.

The theme of this year's World Environment Day is “Beat Plastic Pollution”, an issue on which India has been working consistently for the last four-five years, according to the Prime Minister.

“In 2018 itself, India started working at two levels for getting rid of single-use plastic. On one hand, we banned single-use plastic and on the other hand, we made plastic waste processing mandatory,” PM Modi said.

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Under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, the Central government has announced two major initiatives to work towards the goal of a net zero carbon target in the fight against climate change.

The ‘Panchamrit’ promise at COP 26

In 2021, PM Modi addressed the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow and announced the 'Panchamrit' or the five-point agenda to fight climate change. At the summit, he also announced that India will become carbon neutral by 2070.

Here are the 'Panchamrit' promises announced by PM Modi at the climate summit:

India will increase its non-fossil fuel energy capacity to 500 GW by the year 2030.

By 2030, the country will meet 50 percent of its energy requirements through renewable energy.

India will cut its total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030.

The country will further reduce the carbon intensity of its economy to less than 45 percent by 2030.

India will reach the set target of net zero emissions by 2070.

At the COP26 summit, PM Modi also called for a global push to adopt sustainable lifestyles, which was further extended by the LiFE movement of the government in 2022.

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LiFE Initiative

In 2022, PM Modi launched the mission LiFE movement, Lifestyle for the Environment, which is an India-led global mass movement which aims to empower individual and collective action to protect and preserve the environment.

The LiFE movement aims to leverage the strength of social networks to create a global network of individuals called ‘Pro-Planet People’ (P3).

The Pro-Planet People adopt environment-friendly lifestyles and have a shared commitment to promote it across the globe.

Under the initiative, the ‘Meri LiFE’ mobile application was launched with the objective to encourage Indians and other global citizens to take collective and individual action against climate change for the protection of the environment.

The app also aimed to empower the youth and encourage their participation in tackling climate change.

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav, on June 4, congratulated the government on the success of the LiFE initiative and the app.

He stated that the application has recorded 1.90 crore participants, and 87 lakh events, achieving a major milestone in creating awareness about environmental protection.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)