EIA 2020
From a post by LJ
the Draft EIA Notification 2020 dilutes environmental protections and safeguards in the existing law on environment impact assessment and relaxes procedure for grant of environmental clearances for many polluting sectors, projects and activities. By legalising post facto clearances, it is bound to result in large scale violations and practically take away the prior environmental clearance requirement. The proposed law is bound to only worsen the state of India's environment, at a time when our country's indicators are already among the worst worldwide and we are at the receiving end of the climate crisis.
A historic number of approx 2 million objections were received by the ministry to the draft EIA Notification 2020 released last year only in English during the peak of the pandemic. Inspite of the overwhelming public opposition to the proposed law, the Centre is proceeding with the same draft which will have disastrous circumstances.
http://environmentclearance.nic.in/writereaddata/Draft_EIA_2020.pdf
Objections to the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment Notification 2020 by PUCL Maharashtra | August 11, 2020
The Draft EIA 2020 is guilty of centralising control while over-delegating administrative function, thereby curbing the independence of the process and encouraging corrupt practices. The proposed legislation is undemocratic, an attack on local governance through grass-root participation and defies the principle of federalism that is part of the basic structure of the Constitution. By removing the requirement for public consultation for a large number of projects and introducing anti-people changes to the public consultation process, the Draft EIA 2020 has revealed its discomfort with public participation in decision making, which is a must in environmental governance and considered to be a key to achieving sustainable development. The Draft EIA 2020 is violative of the international principles of environmental law and violates important treaties and conventions to which India is signatory including the Rio Declaration, United Nations Framework on Climate Change, Paris Agreement etc. and is hence, also telling of India’s commitment (or lack of it) to the achievement of SDGs.
PUCL Maharashtra accordingly calls upon the MoEFCC to unconditionally withdraw the Draft EIA 2020 and suspend the process of introducing new law on the subject until the Covid-19 pandemic is successfully averted and people of the country are in a position to effectively participate.
PUCL Maharashtra suggests that instead a fair and participatory process be initiated to put in place a robust and strong environmental regime and in particular law to provide for environmental impact assessment, in consultation with the local communities, experts, defenders and all concerned stakeholders; taking into account their learnings, experiences and suggestions.
Stop the backdoor implementation of Draft EIA 2020: Civil society organisations 22 June,2021 Gaurav Sarkar https://www.mid-day.com/mumbai/mumbai-news/article/stop-the-backdoor-implementation-of-draft-eia-2020-civil-society-organisations-23179313
Coming down heavily on the Union Environment Ministry for introducing more than 30 amending notes diluting the provisions of the EIA notification, since the draft EIA 2020 was publicly rejected, over 100 civil society organisations and individuals have written to Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, asking him to accept and acknowledge the CSIR-NEERI report. https://www.manthan-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Way-Forward-CSIR-NEERI-Final.pdf
http://shripadmanthan.blogspot.com/2020/07/draft-eia-2020-notification-what-next.html
UN Rapporteurs raise concerns over India’s draft EIA 2020 - india news - Hindustan Times - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/un-rapporteurs-raise-concerns-over-india-s-draft-eia-2020/story-J3zaRshwpPoQHPBNTXAYEJ.html
Now public: Communication from the UN Special Procedures to the Government of India regarding the draft notification “Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2020”, issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=25513
The world's worst plastic. https://actions.sumofus.org/a/coal-to-plastic From the world's worst coal. the era of coal-fired power is over. But coal barons are planning to turn their unburnable coal into the dirtiest plastic on earth... Adani Enterprises has submitted plans to build a $4bn plant to convert coal dug from its bitterly opposed mine in Australia and turn it into toxic PVC plastic in India.
The world already has a plastics problem. And a climate crisis. Adani’s idea combines the two -- coal based plastics create triple the greenhouse emissions of conventional plastic.. One oil executive described coal-to-plastics plants as “massive CO₂ machines that make chemicals as a sidestream.”
Adani blasted over ‘toxic’ $4bn plan to use Australian coal to make plastic in India https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/17/adani-blasted-over-toxic-4bn-plan-to-use-australian-coal-to-make-plastic-in-india The company is seeking environmental clearances to build the massive “coal-to-PVC” plant that will take up almost 3 sq km in Mundra, Gujarat..Adani enterprises said the coal will go through several stages of processing, creating calcium carbide and then acetylene, which is further processed to eventually produce PVC.
Environmental campaign group SumOfUs has launched a petition to pressure Adani’s financial backers to withdraw from the group over the coal-to-plastics project.
The group claimed the coal-to-plastics process was emissions intensive, and described the plans as toxic.
1720 citizens from different parts of the country who have endorsed the letter.
Subject: Objections to the Draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020
and demand for its withdrawal
We, concerned citizens of India strongly oppose the draft EIA 2020 and seek its immediate
withdrawal. The fact that this draft legislation is being introduced and public objections invited at a
time when the country is grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic and a restrictive lockdown, completely
defeats the democratic process of public participation in making this policy which will affect one and
all.