Climate change is here, but are we talking enough about it? More importantly, are our lawmakers? “Climate change: the missing discourse in the Indian Parliament,” a study over a 20-year period from 1999 to 2019, found the answer, and it is not good news.
The study, by Seema Mundoli, Zubin Jacob, Ranjini Murali and Harini Nagendra Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and The Snow Leopard Trust, Seattle, USA, was published in Environmental Research – Climate. It looked at Parliamentary questions (PQs) as a “crucial oversight tool” available to parliamentarians in all democracies.
“In a well-functioning democracy, parliamentary oversight can play an important role in climate change policy, ensuring that climate concerns are represented in national agendas. India is the largest democracy in the world and one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change,” says the study.
