Mission LiFE: Will India Adopt Climate-Friendly Lifestyle?

Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for the Environment) seeks responses from individuals and communities to protecting and preserving the environment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi explained LiFE as a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation, including through a mass movement.

The Indian government first proposed LiFE at COP26 in Glasgow. In October this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Prime Minister Narendra Modi jointly launched Mission LiFE, which also anchored in SDG 12, which focuses on Sustainable Consumption and Production — and aims to reduce over-consumption of materials and energy.

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14 November 2022, 16:11 GMT

In Egypt, LiFE has been included in India's updated climate action plan for 2030.

Experts told Sputnik that although the initiative sounds promising, it will be a challenge for Indians to maintain pace between growth prospects and the climate performance of a consumption-driven economy.

"The initiative, lifestyle and environment is a good initiative, but more stakeholders could be involved for the discussion and brainstorming about it," Dr. Anjal Prakash, one of the authors of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report titled "Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change," told Sputnik from Egypt.

Dr. Prakash also opined that the campaign should have been launched in a more intense manner: "there would not be much changed as the global north occupies a lot of carbon space compared to the Global South. Hence, naming and shaming is important. But this has to be a very organized strategy campaign."

Although many Western countries have supported Mission LiFE, it would be a challenge for India to see how countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), such as the US, the UK, and many European nations, will adapt the campaign, given that they have caused 80% of global warming since the onset of the industrial period.

Despite its high emission growth rate, India’s per capita carbon emissions are still one-eighth of the US', and one-third of the global average

Meanwhile, Dr. Prakash said that it would be interesting to see how India, also the world's second-biggest consumer of coal, will aim at Mission LiFE and handle its consumption, which will be spurred on by economic growth.

India, now the fifth-largest economy, has a projected growth of seven percent this year and will be the most populous country in the world by 2023.

According to experts, private consumption forms about 55% of India's GDP, the main factor in driving growth.

"We cannot fix the planet on which we live without fixing how we live. A dramatic change is needed in how individuals consume, how our economies produce, and how our policies and politics promote and deliver on society's collective goals," Arunabha Ghosh, CEO Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) said.

"Mission LiFE has the potential to become a transformative global and people's movement. As part of Mission LiFE, we must nudge behavior, enable markets, and redefine aspirations toward resource efficiency, circular economy, and environmental integrity. The past offers lessons in sustainability, but it is in the present that we shoulder a greater responsibility to chart a new path to the future," Ghosh added.