West Bengal has improved two places in 2021 compared to 2020 in overall sustainable development goal (SDG) score; but did badly compared to national benchmark when it comes to key environmental indicators like climate action and sustainable cities & communities.
Incidentally, an UN report on climate change, that was released yesterday, pointed out that lack of climate action and vulnerability of cities to erratic climatic trends would be major points of concern in near future.
The sustainability report shows that India has slipped three places – 117 th to 120 th – within 192 countries despite improving its overall score to 66 in 2021, from 60 in 2020.
The SDGs are benchmarks for achieving long-term development in 17 key areas being brought on by the United Nations in 2015 with a target of reaching these goals by 2030; but Covid pandemic is all set to push back the goalpost.
The report – State of India’s Environment 2022 – has been released by union environment, forest and climate change minister BhupenderYadav alongside environmentalist SunitaNarain on Tuesday at the side-lines of Anil Agarwal Dialogue being organised by Delhi based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
| Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Score | |||||||
| SDG No. | Parameters | India | West Bengal | SDG No. | Parameters | India | West Bengal |
| 1 | No Poverty | 60 | 59 | 10 | Reduced inequalities | 67 | 71 |
| 2 | Zero hunger | 47 | 46 | 11 | Sustainable cities & communities | 79 | 45 |
| 3 | Good health | 74 | 76 | 12 | Consumption & Production | 74 | 79 |
| 4 | Quality education | 57 | 54 | 13 | Climate action | 54 | 39 |
| 5 | Gender equality | 48 | 41 | 14 | Life below water | Inadequate data | Inadequate data |
| 6 | Clean water & sanitation | 83 | 81 | 15 | Life on land | 66 | 53 |
| 7 | Affordable & clean energy | 92 | 98 | 16 | Partnerships for the Goals | Inadequate data | Inadequate data |
| 8 | Economic Growth | 61 | 57 | 17 | Peace, justice & institutions | 74 | 81 |
| 9 | Industry, innovation & infrastructure | 55 | 53 | 17 | Overall | 66 | 62 |
“We have built infrastructure for a long time in this country – now we are focusing on redistributing the resources of the state to the poor”, said Yadav obliquely responding to the nation’s slide in sustainability count.
SunitaNarain, director general of CSE, said that “both Covid-19 and climate change are the result of our dystopian relationship with nature … call this the revenge of nature”.
Narain pointed out that not too satisfactory scores on SDG should remind both the union and state governments to understand whether they have been treading on the right path or not; and if not, then to undertake course correction.
The report shows West Bengal, overall occupies 11 th position within 28 states in 2021 with a score of 62; while the year before it achieved 13 th position with 60 being the gross score.
West Bengal did poorly in key environmental areas like climate action – scoring 39 against a national average of 54 – and sustainable cities and communities; where not only it scored 45 against a country average of 79 but also has slid down from a score of 76 in 2019.
The state has also not done well on the parameter ‘life on land’ , which entails keeping forest and other natural ecosystems, scoring 53 against national average of 66 after faltering from 88 in earlier two years; and gender equality, where it scored 41 while the national average was 48.
Overall, within 15 parameters considered – not enough data was available to assess SDG 14 and 17- West Bengal was found to be behind national averages in 11 agendas.
“None of the state governments including West Bengal take these SDG scores seriously” stated Nilanjan Ghosh, a developmental economist and director of the Kolkata centre of think tank Observer Research Foundation.
Ghosh pointed out that the state generally remains almost completely disconnected with issues like climate action and city sustainability, the natural capital, which explains the poor scores in those parameters; while setting up of several physical infrastructures like roads etc in states like West Bengal with significant border area impacts the parameter like ‘life on land’.