PM Narendra Modi asserts behavioural change must begin at every home to fight climate change
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that one of the most powerful ways to fight climate change is a behavioural change that must begin at every home.
Addressing the World Bank event ‘Making it Personal: How Behavioural Change Can Tackle Climate Change’ via video message, Mr Modi emphasised that small deeds can make a huge impact when billions of people do them together. He stressed that climate change cannot be fought from Conference tables alone but has to be fought from the dinner tables in every home.
In his address, Mr Modi also spoke about India’s efforts to address climate change under Mission LiFE and said it is about democratising the process. Elaborating on the mission, he also highlighted its prospects which include making local bodies environment-friendly, saving water and energy, reducing waste and e-waste, adopting healthy lifestyles, and promoting natural farming and millets.
The Prime Minister Modi illustrated his thinking with examples from India and said, in this matter of mass movements and behaviour transformation, the people of India have done a lot in the last few years. He gave examples of improved sex ratio, massive cleanliness drive, adoption of LED bulbs which helps in avoiding nearly 39 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions every year. Saving water by coverage of nearly seven hundred thousand hectares of farmland by micro-irrigation, he added.
The Prime Minister further called on global institutions to support countries in encouraging behavioural initiatives like Mission LiFE. He also highlighted that adequate financing methods need to be worked out to support such initiatives and urged the World Bank to increase its focus on climate finance. Mr Modi expressed confidence that initiatives like Mission LiFE would have a multiplier effect in the fight against climate change.
In a tweet, World Bank President David Malpass expressed his delight upon hearing about India’s LiFE initiative from the Prime Minister. He acknowledged that appropriate pricing policies and institutions when combined with the right incentives, have the potential to alter deeply ingrained habits and contribute towards environmental protection.