From Street Protests to Policy Shifts: India's Environmental Year in Review

India cannot afford to slow down environment action, because it continues to face the worst impacts of climate change-induced extreme weather. The country experienced extreme weather events on 99% of the days in the first nine months this year, including heat and cold waves, lightning and storms, heavy rains, floods and landslides. During 1995-2020, a total of 1,058 climatic disaster events (floods, cyclones, droughts, cold waves and heat waves) were reported.

The world is on track to overshoot the upper ceiling of global warming of 1.5°C very likely in the next decade. In fact, full implementation of climate pledges known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) will take the world to a warming of 2.3-2.5°C, while those based on current policies to 2.8°C.

Delhi’s pollution crisis

With all its geographical diversity, India’s environmental concerns are also varied. The coasts are increasingly prone to cyclones, the plains are seeing erratic rainfall and severe heatwaves, while the hills are seeing landslides and subsidence.

In New Delhi and adjoining regions, air pollution has been the biggest concern for many years now, as IndiaSpend has reported over the last decade. This year saw the air quality index in the national capital region in triple digits for weeks or months on end, even as winter is only halfway done.

The people of Delhi-NCR came on to the streets in November to protest the consistently poor air quality in the region. Some of them were also detained. Protesters demanded stringent measures to control the air pollution. Later the same month, another protest descended into chaos and protestors were arrested for unruly behaviour.

Earlier this month, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) gave directions to curb air pollution in Delhi-NCR through measures such as night patrolling to make sure there is no biomass burning, vacuuming road dust, etc. On December 19, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav directed authorities to “take necessary steps to ensure visible improvement” in the air quality within one week.

IndiaSpend wrote to the government of Delhi, the environment ministry, the Central Pollution Control Board, and CAQM with queries on what steps are they taking to address the air pollution. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

Great Nicobar Island

Concerns around the infrastructure projects planned on the island of Great Nicobar continued into 2025. In October, a group of scientists, environmentalists and others—including those who have worked in the islands for several years—wrote to Yadav raising questions about the project and calling it ‘an essentially commercial project being labelled as a strategic one’.

The letter argues that the project will cause irreversible damage to the island’s old-growth tropical rainforests—the country’s last remaining—by diverting approximately 15% of Great Nicobar Island’s total forest area and felling nearly a million rainforest trees. Beyond this, the signatories highlight the grave threat to GNI's marine and coastal environment, specifically the translocation of over 20,000 coral colonies and the loss of critical nesting grounds for the endangered giant leatherback turtle. Furthermore, the experts warn that the project’s placement in a high-risk seismic zone—which underwent massive subsidence during the 2004 tsunami—poses a permanent danger to both the infrastructure and the delicate, interdependent island ecosystem.

This month, the Andaman and Nicobar Administration has notified the Great Nicobar Island Development Area, paving the way for preparation of a master plan for Great Nicobar and the infrastructure projects planned therein.

IndiaSpend wrote to Andaman and Nicobar Administration and Union environment ministry with queries on the concerns raised in the letter. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

Forest in Hyderabad

Students, activists, politicians protested the state government’s bid to clear 400-acres of forest in Kancha Gachibowli from March this year. The Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TGIIC) had been given the go-ahead to develop and auction this biodiverse land parcel. The police had resorted to lathicharge and detained protestors, many of whom were students of the University of Hyderabad. After visuals of the protests became national news, the Supreme Court of India took suo motu cognisance of the matter and directed the state government to halt the tree felling.

IndiaSpend wrote to TGIIC and the Telangana government with queries on what steps are being taken to monitor compliance with the court order and ensure environmental protection to the biodiverse area. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

Tree felling in Nashik

Residents of Maharashtra’s Nashik came on to the streets to protest the felling of around 1,700 trees for a residence for seers ‘Sadhugram’ for the upcoming Kumbh Mela. After the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) put up a notice in November expressing its intent, a Chipko andolan-like protest was organised and people also showed up at the public hearing in large numbers to record their objections. The Sadhugram is supposed to stretch over about 300 acres for which the NMC had decided to cut 1,700 trees in the Tapovan area near Godavari river. But an activist approached the National Green Tribunal and on December 12, the NGT stayed the tree felling until January 15.

IndiaSpend wrote to the NMC and Maharashtra Forest department with queries on what environmental assessments, public consultations were conducted before it was decided to fell trees for the Sadhugram project, and whether it is planning to scrap the plan altogether since the NGT order. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

The policy circle

The year also saw some policies that were welcomed and some that were criticised for their environmental impact.

On August 29, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change notified the Environment Audit Rules 2025 which will, for the first time, allow registered environment auditors to conduct audits of projects, activities or processes as per various environmental laws. They will check pollution control measures undertaken by industries, check emissions and effluents of these industries, evaluate their pollution control measures, check their self-compliance measures, conduct audits and submit reports.

“Drawing upon international best practices, these rules have been conceptualized to address the existing gaps in environmental compliance monitoring,” the ministry said in a press release. “This scheme aims to bridge the manpower and infrastructure deficits faced by regulatory authorities, thereby strengthening the effective implementation of environmental compliance mechanisms.” A designated agency will identify and oversee auditors and the ministry’s steering committee will oversee the entire programme.

“While this may sound good on paper, third-party auditors in any industry, let’s say road work, have a poor track record,” said a retired Central Pollution Control Board official who did not wish to be named. “The [Environment Audit Designate Agency] will have to do random checks, enforce strict penalties and take action if the independent auditors are allowing pollution control norms to be flouted. It should not become an opportunity for industry collusion and corruption.”

Emission targets

In April, the government notified a draft Greenhouse Gases Emissions Intensity Target Rules, 2025 to progress towards India’s climate targets and promote technology in traditionally high-emission industries. Industries will either have to meet their emissions targets or purchase carbon credits to make up for the excess emissions, with a penalty for non-compliance. Some of the targeted sectors are aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali, pulp and paper. The draft rules were notified in October, making it mandatory for 282 high-emission industrial units spread across the country to reduce their emissions.

“Emissions trading has proven to be an extremely successful instrument in many jurisdictions around the world. India has shown its commitment to mitigating climate change by adopting this instrument,” Vaibhav Chaturvedi, senior fellow at Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), said. “However, as previous experience shows, setting emission intensity reduction targets aligned with national climate goals is critical. In the next steps, the government should build on these by formally aligning the next set of targets with India's 2030 and (to be unveiled) 2035 NDC targets.”

Forest clearance

In 2025, the Union government notified the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Amendment Rules, 2025, which make significant amendments to the Forest Conservation Rules, 2023. While clarifying what ‘stage I’ and ‘stage II’ approvals to projects applying for forest diversion etc. mean, the amendment also introduced a ‘working permission’ to linear projects—such as roads, pipelines, railways etc.—after in-principle or stage-I approval to mobilise resources or to commence preliminary works. It also inserted a new provision wherein projects related to defence, strategic and national importance, exceptional cases related to public interest or emergent nature, can be submitted for permission offline.

Retired Indian Forest Service officer and environment activist Prakriti Srivastava said, “Giving permission for diversion of forest land for defence projects etc. was relatively simple earlier also but now that has been made completely offline, which means it will not come to anybody’s notice. Any project in the name of security, defence can be submitted offline and processed without public scrutiny,” she said.

“Also, despite a Supreme Court order, they have allowed that wherever forests are diverted for critical mineral mining, it is enough to undertake triple compensatory afforestation on degraded forest land. This is contempt of court because the SC has clearly said India’s forests cannot be reduced any more and yet, when compensatory afforestation is allowed on degraded forest land, that means we are not adding any more forests. In fact, there is a net-net reduction in land under forest cover. We had moved a contempt petition in SC about this,” said Srivastava.

IndiaSpend wrote to the Union environment and forest ministry with specific queries on each of these policies and concerns around the same. This story will be updated when we receive a response.

(Ayman Khan, intern with IndiaSpend, contributed to this report)

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