Environment has been defined as the aggregate of all the external conditions and influences affecting the life and development of an organism. It comprises the whole range of external influences acting on an organism, including both the physical and biological forces of nature surrounding the human individual.
All living beings are part of a balanced and interacting ecosystem: they draw sustenance from the solid, liquid, and aerial resources on the earth. They undergo passage through the phases of reproduction, sustenance, and extinction. The ultimate source of energy for the entire ecosystem is solar energy.
The ecosystem consists of subsystems such as sea, forests, water reservoirs, plants, trees, insects, and animals in a forest — all interconnected in a network of devourer-devoured relationships. None of the elements in this network is useless or purposeless; each helps regulate the balance of the subsystem.
Bio-gas-chemical cycles are essential for reproduction in the physical environment. The process of reproduction remains balanced as long as natural cycles, their interrelations, and the hierarchy of the food chain are undisturbed.
Man’s desire for more joy and comfort has led to exploitation of nature’s free goods, reducing its natural capacities for self-stabilisation. Industrialising countries increase their global footprint — the pressure exerted on the earth’s resources.
The footprints of Europe and Japan are about 4.7 global hectares per person, and the USA’s is 9.7. India’s footprint currently stands at 0.8, while China’s has reached 1.6. Mankind’s overall global footprint, which was about 60 percent of the global biocapacity in the 1960s, has already reached 130 percent.
This overshoot is reflected in growing environmental problems centered on human activities causing pollution of the atmosphere, oceans, and land. These problems range from global issues like greenhouse warming and ozone depletion, to regional concerns such as acid rain and desertification, national issues like deforestation, and local challenges including soil erosion, contamination of freshwater, and urban pollution.
The relevance and priority of these concerns vary between developing and developed countries.
Climate change is a change in the statistical properties of the climate system when considered over long periods, regardless of cause. Short-term fluctuations like El Niño do not represent climate change. The most important cause is human activity, making it largely irreversible.
Key contributing factors include land use changes, ozone depletion, and deforestation.
Food security refers to the availability of food and access to it. A household is food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear starvation.
Inadequate food security arises from factors like soil degradation and erosion, declining productivity of inputs such as fertilisers and high-yield variety (HYV) seeds, and diversion of arable land to non-cultivation.
Water tables are falling in numerous countries — including India, China, and the USA — due to widespread over-pumping with powerful diesel and electric pumps. This overuse is expected to lead to water scarcity and reduced grain harvests.
Energy security links national security with the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to cheap energy is essential for modern economies.
Threats to energy security include manipulation of energy suppliers, competition over energy sources, attacks on supply infrastructure, accidents, natural disasters, and dependence on foreign oil supplies.
The protection of the environment is an essential part of development. Without adequate environmental protection, development is undermined in two primary ways:
Environment quality—such as water that is safe and plentiful and air that is healthy—is itself part of the improvement in welfare that development attempts to bring. If the benefits from rising incomes are offset by the costs imposed on health and quality of life by pollution, this cannot be called development.
Environmental damage can undermine future productivity. Soils that are degraded, aquifers that are depleted, and ecosystems that are destroyed in the name of raising incomes today jeopardise the prospects for earning income tomorrow.
In view of these considerations, economists have developed the concept of sustainable development. This term was popularised by the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, although it had been discussed earlier in the decade.
This Report by the UN-created World Commission on Environment and Development was significant as the first initiative involving social scientists. The Brundtland Report and other independent writers highlighted growth rates based on net national product, where "net" takes into account depreciation of natural resources.
The concept of sustainable development was also paraphrased for the first time in these writings. Today, there are numerous definitions of sustainable development — some estimate over 100.
Development is considered a vector of desirable social objectives — a list of attributes which society seeks to achieve or maximise. The elements of this vector might include:
Increases in real income per capita
Improvements in health and nutritional status
Educational achievement
Access to resources
A ‘fairer’ distribution of income
Increases in basic freedom
Sustainable development is then a situation in which the development vector D does not decrease over time.
The necessary condition for sustainable development is a non-negative change in the stock of natural resources and environmental quality. The sustainability condition can be briefly summarised as: “the environment should not be degraded further but improvements would be welcome.”
This condition cannot be applied rigidly on a project-by-project basis since it would reject nearly every project. Most productive projects use resources and thus deplete the natural base. Advocates of sustainable development apply this condition on an across-the-board basis to assess the net desirability of all current projects.
Two broad sets of policies are essential to tackle the underlying causes of environmental damage:
These policies seek to harness the positive links between development and the environment by correcting or preventing policy failures, improving access to resources and technology, and promoting equitable income growth. Key examples include:
Removing subsidies that encourage excessive use of fossil fuels, irrigation water, pesticides, and excessive logging.
Clarifying rights to manage and own land, forests, and fisheries.
According higher priority to provision of sanitation and clean water, education (especially for girls), family planning services, and agricultural extension, credit, and research.
Taking measures to empower, educate, and involve farmers, local communities, indigenous people, and women so they can make decisions and investments in their long-term interests.
Specific policies are required to induce or require resource users to consider the spillover effects their actions have on society. These behavior-changing policies generally fall into two categories:
Incentive-based policies that tax or charge polluters according to the damage caused.
Quantitative restriction policies that provide no such flexibility.
The choice among policy instruments depends on circumstances, but several lessons emerge from recent experience:
Trade-offs between income and environmental quality need careful assessment, accounting for long-term, uncertain, and irreversible impacts.
Balancing costs and benefits is especially critical for developing countries, where resources are scarce and basic needs remain unmet.
Standards and policies should be realistic and consistent with a country’s monitoring, enforcement capacity, and administrative traditions.
Blunt and self-enforcing policies may be more attractive in developing countries. Policies should work with market dynamics, preferring incentives over regulations where possible.
Governments must build constituencies for change — curbing vested interests, holding institutions accountable, and increasing willingness to pay the costs of environmental protection. Local participation in policy-making and investment yields high returns.
The costs of protecting and improving the environment are high in absolute terms but modest compared to their benefits and potential economic growth gains.
India is ranked a disappointing 101st out of 146 countries in the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) prepared in early 2005. The most sustainable country is Finland and the least sustainable is North Korea. The ESI is based on 21 indicators and 76 measurements, including natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, and policy efforts.
State-wise, the best performing state in India is Manipur, followed by Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura. These states sustain their stocks of natural resources, face less stress on their environmental systems, and exert lower impacts on environment and health. The lowest ranking states are Gujarat, Punjab, and Haryana, which have diminished natural resource stocks, especially in air and water quality, and score low on land use patterns.
The NEP 2006 is described as a statement of India’s commitment to contributing positively to international environmental efforts. It builds on earlier policies such as the National Forest Policy, 1988, National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment, 1992, National Agricultural Policy, 2000, National Population Policy, 2000, and National Water Policy, 2002.
The major features of the NEP 2006 include:
i)The dominant theme is to ensure that the livelihood of people dependent on forest products is secured from conservation rather than from degradation of resources.
iI)To achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall be an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation.
iii)Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) remains the principal methodology for appraisal and review of new projects.
iv)The assessment processes are being revised with significant devolution of powers to the State/Union Territory level.
v)The policy seeks to revisit the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notifications to make coastal environmental regulation more holistic, ensuring protection of coastal ecological systems, waters, and vulnerable coastal areas against natural events and potential sea level rise.
vi)Involvement of Panchayati Raj Institutions and urban local bodies is emphasized to enhance participation in environmental protection.