Tax the bad, reward the good!

Initiatives

Leather industry effluents are polluting the Ganga but only 20 percent of this waste discharge is treated.

The leather industry generates incomes for farmers, livestock owners and tanners and is a key export earner. Toxic effluents from the leather industry are not impossible to treat, but everyone forgot about it as they prayed in its waters.

Renewable energy buyers finally get their act together through Google-Facebook-Walmart alliance.

The producers of energy are a worried lot given all the revelations on fossil fuel and the environment. As renewable energy buyers come together they should be able to push for superior policies for renewable energy producers. This is the start of two worlds colliding in the energy sector – that of the 19th and 20th century versus that of the future.   

Plant a tree, over your dead body! 

Biodegradable plastic pods that hold bodies or their ashes provide food for trees planted on top. It is time for religious leaders to propagate innovative ideas, irrespective of what the texts say.

Government Actions

Bangalore fines its apartments for something few would do.

Bangalore is trying to get its sorting trash act together and has reportedly fined apartment societies. It is difficult for elected governments to impose fines on a mass scale, and sometimes creating examples helps the cause. Yet, is it fair to only fine a select few? 

The National Green Tribunal fines the AP government Rs 100 crores! Well done!

Illegal riverbed mining is theft of natural public resources and finally, governments are being bright to the book. Courts across the country need to use this case law for punishing local, state and central governments for not following their own laws. 

A ban, many tile makers, job loss, and an uncertain future - all come together in Gujarat.

A ban is the worst way of getting producers to shift to lower polluting alternatives. When it is done, it leads to job troubles, large losses, destruction of capital and reduction in revenues to do good. A far superior mechanism is to enforce companies to change their technologies.

Goa International Airport halted for not following the norms, and rightly so.

Governments, both at the central and state level are in a hurry to get the Goa airport through. However when the very basic norms of environmental assessment, and community engagement are not followed, courts typically have been lenient on government projects. Thankfully that is changing.

Researchers find Swachh Bharat’s intentions good but implemented via stone age methods.

Poor hygiene is an outcome of lack of access to water, sanitation and unchanged behavioural patterns. Under pressure from the higher-up forces to show results, lower level bureaucracy is resorting to methods from the dark ages. Such forced behavioural change may be getting results, but…

India must tax carbon fuels rather than what they produce as is the world.

Taxing fossil fuels creates a good incentive for energy suppliers and users to change their energy use patterns. Moreover, it generates revenues for governments to further incentivise the movement away from dirty fuels. Tax the ‘bad’ more than the ‘good’.

Reports this fortnight

Innovating for India's Energy Needs

State of Global Air: 2019

WMO: Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018

Other News

Biodegradable alternative to plastic packaging

Biodegradable flip-flops expected to take the market

Nobel Prize winner's solution to nuclear waste