Mission LiFE: India’s action plan for the world to shun mindless consumerism

The human race is plundering Planet Earth at a pace that far outstrips its capacity and ability to support life. A recent study says that if the current rate of consumption were to continue, by 2050, humans would need two more planets, in addition to the Earth, to continue to exist. This means that we could be staring at major climatic crises in the years to come and our future generations may never get to experience the beauty of nature, the glaciers, the oceans, the snow and the rivers, that we have been fortunate to see and experience.

In view of this danger lurking around, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 20 unveiled the action plan for Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), an India-led global mass movement that will nudge individuals and communities for action to protect and preserve the environment. PM Modi had first given the mantra of LiFE to the world in 2021 at COP 26 in Glasgow. On October 20, 10 heads of states, including French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, Guyana President Irfan Ali, Argentina President Alberto Fernandez, Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina, Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, Georgia Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Estonia Prime Minister Kaja Kallas extended support to the India-led LiFE movement.

Environment protection, as rightly stated by PM Modi, has for far too long been perceived as a policy issue by the general masses. There has been a perception that only national governments and international organisations can do something to protect the Earth and environment. But Mission LiFE makes environmental protection and conservation a participative process and recognises the importance of each effort — no matter how small or big — to save the environment both at the level of the individual and at the level of the community.

What threatens our existence more than anything else is the pace at which we are producing and consuming. The consumption pattern of the world is mindless and pays scant regard to the environment. Mission LiFE tries to remind the world that the mindset of “use and throw” must immediately be replaced by “reduce, reuse and recycle” so that our scarce resources are not overexploited and the world doesn’t crumble under the weight of all the waste that it is generating by the second.

In India, the cultural ethos of limiting needs and treating the environment and its resources with reverence has produced very visible results. We constitute 17 per cent of the world’s population, but our contribution to global carbon emissions is only four per cent. Against the developed world’s carbon footprint of four tonnes per head, the carbon footprint of an average Indian counts to only 1.5 tonnes.

Despite not being part of the problem, with numerous global initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, the One Sun One World One Grid initiative, and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, India has taken the lead in presenting and building solutions for the world by bringing the global community together. The need to build these global alliances to fight climate change stems from the understanding that only collective action can save the world from the vagaries of climate change that are increasingly becoming a reality and are rising in ferocity.

Read More at https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mission-life-indias-action-plan-for-the-world-to-shun-mindless-consumerism-8234110/