Institutionalizing Environmental Protection: An Indian Perspective

Background/Objectives: To expose the issues that subsist as a part of the implementation of environmental protection norms embedded in instruments like the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. To add, this study seeks to make suggestions on steps that may be taken to ensure that the process of environmental protection becomes more structured so as to protect the interest of all stakeholders involved.

Methods/Statistical analysis: The study involves the collection of the secondary data available from the Websites of Government of India and the reports obtained from the websites of United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO). This data has further been analyzed and is being verified with respect to the adaptability of India with the Sustainable Development Agenda and how pollution stands as a major barrier in its achievement.

Findings: There are 2 fold findings that can be recorded from the abovementioned analysis:
1. India has a very high level of air pollution and the statistics indicate that the air pollution has adversely and negatively affected the mortality rate of India.
2. Indian policies, as well as global policies have no mechanisms to institutionalize the process of climate protection at the level of each stakeholder.

Improvements/Applications: The creation of a pre-legislative consultation mechanism is the need of the hour today. To curb pollution within the country, there is a vast requirement of developing innovative ideas to ensure that air pollution is controlled at the level of an institution, community and individual. Such ideas can only be put forward with the help of an innovative pre-legislative consultation mechanism in place. There is also a need to address the problems faced by the global stakeholders. The same can be done through the means of creating a global consultation process that is institutionalized as well when it comes to drafting global policy drafting.