India’s performance on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 targets for environment has varied. India is home to two of the world’s 25 internationally recognized global biodiversity hotspots and is one of only 17 mega-diverse countries. The overall area under biodiversity protection and forest cover has increased but its forest-growing stocks are declining.

Although India has still relatively low levels of pollution per capita or per dollar of GDP given its population, it is likely to soon become one of the planet’s largest polluters, with the rapid urbanization that is expected over the next few decades.

In the post-2015 period, India will not only need to accelerate achievement on its MDG targets, but also focus on the environment and the negative impact of climate change that threatens to wipe off developmental gains. It needs to pursue an environment friendly growth process to serve its own domestic compulsions and strengthen global climate change mitigation measures.