India Will Ban Single Use Plastic & Will Restore 26 Million Hectares of Degraded Land by 2030: Prime Minister

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, yesterday inaugurated the High-Level Segment Meeting of the 14th Conference of Parties (COP14) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), at Expo Mart, Greater Noida.

Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister reaffirmed India’s commitment to addressing all the three main concerns of the Rio Conventions.

“Going forward, India would be happy to propose initiatives for greater South-South cooperation in addressing issues of climate change, biodiversity and land degradation”, said the Prime Minister.

During his address, the Prime Minister announced “India would raise its ambition of the total area that would be restored from its land degradation status, from twenty-one million hectares to twenty-six million hectares between now and 2030”.

This will be focused on restoring land productivity and ecosystem services of 26 million hectares of most degraded and vulnerable land, with emphasis on the degraded agricultural, forest and other wastelands by adopting a landscape restoration approach.

The Prime Minister also advocated on the need to eradicate the menace of single use plastic, he stated “My Government has announced that India will put an end to single use plastic in the coming years.  I believe the time has come for even the world to say good-bye to single use plastic”.

This is a PIB News-Feed; edited by Clean Future Team