As 2025 ended, India’s environmental crisis was not a story of progress — it was a battle between people’s power and corporate-serving policy backsliding. In city after city, from the choking smog of Delhi-NCR to the sacred trees of Nashik’s Tapovan, ordinary citizens took to the streets because governments refused to curb pollution or protect ecosystems. Thousands rallied against persistent air pollution that keeps the capital in hazardous levels — a crisis pushed year after year by lax enforcement and industrial emissions. Simultaneously, people mobilised to save forests and wildlife habitats from encroaching development. Yet, at the same time that citizens demanded climate justice, the state pushed ahead with policies that both claimed to reduce emissions and simultaneously relaxed protections for forests and critical landscapes, benefiting business interests over ecological survival. India cannot afford this double standard: while frontline communities endure worsening heatwaves, storms and floods intensified by human-made climate change, the government continues to cater to corporate expediency instead of environmental justice.
Source link: https://thewire.in/environment/from-street-protests-to-policy-shifts-indias-environmental-year-in-review
2025 Environmental Reckoning: Citizens Rise, Government Falters, Climate Sufferers Pay
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