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Last week hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets of the Uttar Pradesh state in India to plant 50 million trees in 24 hours, in an attempt to beat the world record.
Although six of the top 10 cities with the world’s worst air quality are in India, the country of 1.25 billion people is moving forward with climate change reduction efforts.
Not only do they have the world’s first 100 percent solar powered airport, and the world’s largest solar power station, but solar power has recently become cheaper than coal in India.
So increasing air quality with this 50-million-tree project is ambitious, but only a small part of India’s goals when it comes to fighting climate change.
“The world has realised that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of global climate change,” the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, told volunteers in the city of Kannaui, which is 250 kilometres (155 miles) southwest of the state capital, Lucknow.
“Uttar Pradesh has made a beginning in this regard,” he added.
The current Guinness World Record for the most trees planted in one day goes to Pakistan, with 847,275 trees planted back in 2013. Although the Guinness World Record auditors have not yet finished checking the numbers from India’s latest effort, it is likely that the record will be broken thanks to the 800,000 volunteers that took part.
“The biggest contribution of this tree planting project is, apart from the tokenism, that it focuses on the major issues,” said Anit Mukherjee, policy fellow with the Centre for Global Development. “It addresses many of the big issues for India: Pollution, deforestation, and land use.”