Explained | What is the Mumbai Climate Action Plan?

With a dedicated climate action plan, the BMC aims to make Mumbai a climate-resilient city.

The story so far: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray launched the Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP) at an event in the state capital on Sunday. The plan is essentially designed to reduce emissions and meet the climate goals outlined in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 °C.

With the MCAP, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) aims to help Mumbai become a climate-resilient city. The plan has been drafted by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) with support from World Resources Institute (WRI) India.

Other organisations that partnered with the Government of Maharashtra in the initiative are the C40 Cities Network, Climate Voices Maharashtra, and Waatavaran. Mumbai had joined the C40 Cities Network in 2020.

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is an association of 97 cities from around the world, aimed at fighting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus mitigating climate risks. The group represents one-twelfth of the world population and a quarter of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The goal of the C40’s initiative is to reduce the emissions of its member cities to half within a decade. Membership to the group comes from performance-based requirements.

Five Indian cities are currently a part of the C40 network. These are Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.

Sustainable waste management: The MCAP aims to decentralise municipal waste management by implementing actions such as segregation at source, organic waste composting, and so on. It lays emphasis on the 4R approach: reduce, reuse, recover, recycle, and also calls for treatment of wastewater.