Mumbai: Almost five years after the first Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP) was released, BMC has begun the process of upgrading it, with a greater focus on inter-departmental consultation, updated climate data and clearer targets for 2030 and 2040 as the city works towards its net-zero goal for 2050.A consultative meeting to kickstart the upgradation process was held at the BMC headquarters on Thursday.Civic officials said the exercise, expected to take about a year, will not involve preparing an entirely new report from scratch. “Instead, it will assess progress on the existing action plan, update the city’s greenhouse gas inventory and undertake a fresh hazard vulnerability assessment,” said an official, adding that the plan has to be upgraded every year as per the MCAP guidelines. “However, this does not mean that the entire exercise has to be repeated from scratch.”The upgraded plan is also expected to focus on the targets Mumbai needs to set for 2030 and 2040 to remain on track for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. While several of the mitigation and adaptation measures are unlikely to change drastically, officials said the process of arriving at these measures will be made more consultative and participatory.BMC’s first climate action plan was prepared during the pandemic, during which, officials said, it was difficult to hold multiple rounds of consultations with various civic departments. In particular, there were challenges in explaining the findings of the hazard vulnerability assessment and discussing the implications with individual departments. “This time, we are in a better position to conduct detailed consultations with different departments. The aim is to make the process more participatory rather than treating it as a report-writing exercise,” an official said.Officials said a major difference this time would be that much of the groundwork is already available.BMC has a baseline assessment and ground-level data from the earlier exercise, and the focus will now be on updating and using this information rather than starting the exercise afresh.“The ground report is ready. Therefore, unlike last time, this is unlikely to become largely a desk exercise involving only the writing of a report. We want the departments to be part of the process,” the official said.The exercise is also likely to factor in newer scientific assessments on the risks facing Mumbai, including a recent United Nations report on the rise in sea levels. The report identifies Mumbai as one of the major coastal cities facing significant risks from rising seas and warns that sea-level rise could intensify flooding, displacement and damage to infrastructure, particularly in low-lying urban centres. Mumbai has been placed alongside cities like Kolkata and Dhaka in the UN assessment of South Asian cities where the human consequences of rising seas could be particularly severe.With the city facing increasing risks from extreme rainfall, flooding, heat and sea-level rise, officials said the upgraded MCAP would seek to translate these assessments into department-specific actions and measurable targets, rather than merely documenting climate risks.BMC’s first MCAP, launched in 2022, had identified key sectors including sustainable waste management, urban greening and biodiversity, water resources, energy, mobility and air quality, with the broader objective of making Mumbai more resilient to climate change.
