Bengaluru-based NGO comes up with a climate action plan for the city

Environment Support Group, a Bengaluru-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has come up with a climate action plan for the city titled “Make Bengaluru Climate Friendly: A Blueprint for Integrated, Participatory and Inclusive Urban Governance”.

A scene near Ashoka Pillar, in Jayanagar in Bengaluru.

Environment Support Group, a Bengaluru-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), has come up with a climate action plan for the city titled “Make Bengaluru Climate Friendly: A Blueprint for Integrated, Participatory and Inclusive Urban Governance”. The action plan recommends ways in which Bengaluru could “take steps necessary to achieve the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement [2015]” and comes in the wake of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) decision to “support the implementation of the Paris Agreement”.

The detailed report is a voluntary initiative which resulted from a series of seminars bringing “together multiple ideas, imaginaries, expectations and goals to construct a common plan for our common future: secure Bengaluru through a period when climate change impacts will be harsh”. The report encourages urban governance to be aware and sensitive to social inequities and inspire climate action plans that respond to public health concerns, make governance inclusive and accessible to everyone, securing biodiversity-rich commons and accessibility to such commons, advance food and water equity and security for all through sustainable ways, re-envision waste management and make ecological knowledge part of educational initiatives.

Other key proposals include the development of climate resilient and inclusive infrastructure for Bengaluru and designing less resource-intensive environment, promoting the use of inclusive and climate-friendly mobility and reforming energy production and consumption. The report concludes by stressing that “all such measures need to be accountable and transparent at all levels. This would require governmental authorities and agencies setting high standards of transparency and accountability by constantly sharing information with the public of its own accord…. Over time it is possible to imagine everyone is involved with due responsibility in tackling climate change, as there is NO PLANET B.”

The plan can be accessed at: https://esgindia.org/new/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/BangaloreClimateActionReportEnglish.pdf.