Union Environment Minister,  Prakash Javadekar today launched a people’s campaign #SelfiewithSapling urging all to join and plant a sapling and post the selfie with the sapling on social media.  Javadekar stressed that ‘Jan Bhagidari’ is integral towards tackling the environmental issues and environmental protection has to be a people’s movement.

Union Minister informed that on World Environment Day he along with renowned cricketer Kapil Dev and Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff will plant the sapling in the premises of Paryavaran Bhawan in New Delhi

World Environment Day 2019 urges governments, industries, communities and individuals to come together to explore renewable energy, green technologies and improve air quality in cities and regions across the world. The celebration of this day provides us with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises and communities in preserving and enhancing the environment. World Environment Day is the biggest annual event for positive environmental action and takes place every 5 June.

World Environment Day 2019 will be hosted bywww.worldenvironmentday.global/China with a theme of “Air Pollution”. Air pollution is the biggest environmental health risk of our time. Airborne pollutants are responsible for about one-third of deaths from stroke, chronic respiratory disease, and lung cancer, as well as one-quarter of deaths from a heart attack. Air pollution is also fundamentally altering our climate, with profound impacts on the health of the planet.

Some Air Pollution Facts

• 92 per cent of people worldwide does not breathe clean air.
• Air pollution costs the global economy $5 trillion every year in welfare costs
• Ground-level ozone pollution is expected to reduce staple crop yields by 26 per cent by 2030.

India has formulated and launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). This is a long term time-bound national level strategy and tackles the increasing pollution problem across the country. The objective of NCAP is a comprehensive plan for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution besides augmenting the air quality monitoring network. The tentative national level target is a reduction of PM2.5 and PM10 concentration by 20% – 30% by 2024. The focus of this year WED would be on the identified 102 Non-attainment cities.