Air pollution from the transport sector is one of the major challenges plaguing cities worldwide. Pollution from the sector is generally assumed to be from tailpipe emissions from vehicles. However, emerging evidence shows that non-exhaust emissions (NEEs) from vehicles also produce a significant quantity of tiny and toxic particulate pollutants. These pollutants can deteriorate the air quality and cause adverse health impacts.

India has initiated several schemes to promote ecosystem restoration. These include restoring 26 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030, conserving 157 wetlands, and restoring around 2,228 waterbodies. These conservation spaces have been identified using geospatial tools, which are emerging as the best bet for informed decision-making.

This year’s World Environment Day urges us to heal our ecosystems — geographic areas where organisms live in conjunction with the surrounding environment, interacting as a system (like marine-ecosystem, forests, grasslands, and wetlands)­ — through a pledge to “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore.” It also kicks off the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030).

In a Covid world, organisations are turning to videos for strengthening their communication, and reaching a larger audience through impressive social media presence. Videos — with a powerful ability to connect with the audience — are much sought after for meaningful audience engagement when people can’t meet face-to-face. They also enable reflection and dialogue, and have a long-lasting impact on the audience.

The theme of the International Day for Biological Diversity 2021 is “We’re part of the solution”. This carries forward the momentum generated last year with the theme “Our solutions are in nature”. Nature-based solutions, comprising blue infrastructure such as wetlands, floodplains, rivers, canals, ponds, and water treatment facilities and green infrastructure such as forests, trees, lawns, parks, and fields have gained attention in recent years.

While information technology may not be the solution to all the problems ailing the world today, the pandemic has proven that it sure is the adhesive that glues things from falling apart.

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With the Government of India’s (GOI’s) renewed focus on sustainable development and improving the quality of air in the recent budget, cities in India have started integrating electric buses (e-buses) into their fleets. Around 1,000 e-buses are in service at the moment, and nearly 6,500 e-buses are expected to be deployed across the country by 2022. The high purchase cost of batteries, though, is proving to be a major deterrent to the large-scale adoption of e-buses.

While environmentalists were busy applauding the decline in carbon emissions in the wake of pandemic-induced lockdown in most parts of the world, the Mauna Loa Observatory in the US posted a peak of 417 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 for several days in early 2021. The only time carbon levels exceeded 400 parts per million before this was during the Pliocene era—four million years ago when the average surface temperature was warmer and sea levels were 33-82 feet higher than now—long before man’s entry on the scene.