The Maharashtra government, in coordination with Tamil Nadu and Delhi governments, is working towards formulating a collective approach to tackle climate change and environmental hazards in the state. Recently, a meeting of their state environment ministers was chaired by Maharashtra environment minister Aaditya Thackeray. Gopal Rai (Delhi environment minister, Delhi) and Siva V Meyyanathan (Tamil Nadu environment minister) decided to take a collective approach towards the betterment of the environment. Thackeray suggested a council of ministers to tackle climate change problems.
Tanmay Takle, policy advisor, ministry of environment and climate change in Maharashtra, said, “Maharashtra recently formed a council for climatic change that will be led by the chief minister and deputy chief minister. The idea is to work with all the government agencies and state machineries jointly and have a proper legislative council that will fast track the decision-making process in many aspects.”
Takle said this meeting was the first step towards the future with a similar model that could be pitched to stakeholders of other states.
He said, “The idea was to exchange ideas and understand the issues. Each state is facing and tackling climate change in their own way, hence taking a joint initiative from where all of us can learn from each other and work together needs to be implemented.”
Another key aspect discussed was the electric vehicle policy. Each of these states has their own policies and recently 43 cities of Maharashtra signed up for the Global 'Race to Zero' campaign. Officials also stated that the three states have one C-40 city each and information related to the climatic conditions and environmental factors could be shared for better implementation of policies.
