CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 114 of 120

Correct — A, The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The Ministry describes itself as the nodal agency in the country for the United Nations Environment Programme, and in the same breath for the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and the follow-up of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The work is done through its International Cooperation Division, which is also the nodal division for the Global Environment Facility. That fits the Ministry's general character: it is the nodal agency in the Central Government for planning, promoting, coordinating and overseeing India's environmental and forestry policies and programmes, so international environmental cooperation naturally sits with it.

• (b)The Ministry of Science and Technology — Funds and directs scientific research through the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Environmental research passes through it, but the country's dealings with the environment programme of the United Nations do not.
• (c)The Ministry of Earth Sciences — Runs the India Meteorological Department, the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, the ocean and polar programmes and the seismology network. It is India's face to bodies such as the World Meteorological Organization — a real but different international role.
• (d)The Ministry of Home Affairs — Internal security, centre-State relations, disaster management and the census. Its disaster-management role brings it close to environmental subjects in practice, but it has no standing with the environment programme.

The United Nations Environment Programme was created after the Stockholm Conference of 1972 as the environmental voice of the United Nations system. Every member country designates a national focal point through which it deals with the Programme, and India's is the environment ministry. The Ministry also carries the country's brief on the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the Global Environment Facility and the Commission on Sustainable Development, and it handles environmental matters in ESCAP and SAARC.

The safe way through ministry-mapping questions is to ask which body would have to sign the paperwork. Dealing with an international environment programme means negotiating positions, transmitting reports and hosting missions on environment and forestry — the same work the environment ministry does domestically. A neighbouring fact that is often confused with this one is climate change: the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is also India's nodal ministry for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, while weather and climate science sit with the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The distinction is between negotiating on climate and measuring it.

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal agency in India for the United Nations Environment Programme.
• It is also nodal for the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and the follow-up of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
• Its International Cooperation Division is the nodal division for UNEP, SACEP and the Global Environment Facility.
• It is India's national focal point for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
• The Ministry is the Central Government's nodal agency for planning, promoting, coordinating and overseeing environmental and forestry programmes.

• Sending anything with 'earth' or 'environment' in it to the Ministry of Earth Sciences; that ministry handles the physical sciences of the earth system.
• Assuming international matters automatically belong to the Ministry of External Affairs; sectoral ministries hold the nodal brief for their own programmes.
• Confusing the environment programme with the climate convention; the same ministry is nodal for both, but they are different institutions.

As an organisation-to-nodal-ministry match, or as a statements item on India's role in a named international environmental body.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The United Nations Environment Programme was established following which one of the following conferences?

  • (a)The Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, 1972
  • (b)The Rio Earth Summit, 1992
  • (c)The Johannesburg Summit, 2002
  • (d)The Paris Climate Conference, 2015

  Answer(a) The Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, 1972 — the conference that put the environment on the United Nations agenda and led to the creation of the Programme.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which Union Ministry is India's national focal point for the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety?

  • (a)Ministry of Science and Technology
  • (b)Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
  • (c)Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
  • (d)Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare

  Answer(c) Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change — it frames and enforces the biosafety rules for living modified organisms.