Context

• 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.

What is LiFE?

• Importance of individual efforts: Mission LiFE makes environmental protection and conservation a participative process and recognizes 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.
• Chaning utilization attitude: The idea promotes an environmentally conscious lifestyle that focuses on ‘mindful and deliberate utilization’ instead of ‘mindless and wasteful consumption’.
• Creating social networks: The LIFE Movement aims to utilize the power of collective action and nudge individuals across the world to undertake simple climate-friendly actions in their daily lives. The LIFE movement, additionally, also seeks to leverage the strength of social networks to influence social norms surrounding climate.
• Creating Pro-planet people: The Mission plans to create and nurture a global network of individuals, namely ‘Pro-Planet People’ (P3), who will have a shared commitment to adopt and promote environmentally friendly lifestyles.
• Seeks to behavioral change and individual actions: Through the P3 community, the Mission seeks to create an ecosystem that will reinforce and enable environmentally friendly behaviors to be self-sustainable. LIFE recognizes that small individual actions can tip the balance in the planet’s favour.

Do you know pro-planet initiatives worldwide?

• Denmark:  Denmark promotes the use of bicycles by limiting parking within the city Centre and providing exclusive bike lanes.
• Japan: Japan has its unique “walk-to-school” mandate, which has been in practice since the early 1950s.

Why is the need for such movement?

• Wrong perception about conservation: Environment protection, 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 organizations can do something to protect the Earth and environment.

How mission LiFE will be helpful?

• Mindless consumption of resources: 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.
• Declining natural resources and beauty: 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.
• Unsustainable consumption pattern: 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.
• Attitude change through mission LiFE: 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.
• Small efforts big Impact: Mission LiFE is a philosophy which shows how this can be made possible. It shows the power of small efforts to make big impacts. It believes in the individual’s capacity to change the world. It is the mantra to reverse historical and cultural wrongs wrecked upon the environment. Mission LiFE is the call to action for citizens and governments to save the planet.

What are India’s efforts for LiFE?

• Environment friendly culture: In India, the cultural ethos of limiting needs and treating the environment and its resources with reverence has produced very visible results. India constitutes 17 per cent of the world’s population, but our contribution to global carbon emissions is only four per cent.
• Less carbon footprint per head: 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.
• Multiple global initiatives: 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.
• Focus on collective actions of world community: 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.
• Mindful utilization of resources: India offering knowledge from its religious and cultural ethos to the world, Mission LiFE aims to pull the world away from a “mindless and destructive” consumerist approach towards a “mindful and deliberate utilization” of resources. It is also, at the same time, an effort to prevent India from heading that way.
• Shift towards sustainable policies: India is already working towards building a circular economy and moving towards a stage where all our energy requirements are met through the use of renewables. Our policies are all aligned towards ensuring sustainable development, where nature is not disregarded for development but where the most marginalized are not left to their destiny by denying them development.

Conclusion

• Actions against climate change is not just a fervent hope but an emergent necessity. Through mission LiFE India is trying to portray climate crisis from individual perspective. Mission LiFE has a potential to transform climate change movement into the mass movement.

Mains Question

How Mission LiFE will help in conservation of Environment? Critically analyze the India’s efforts to make LiFE a successful mission?

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