By Saniya Lopes
On World Environment Day this year, a familiar scene played out across India. Television crews trailed politicians as they lined up along a freshly swept highway, ceremonial spades in hand. With cameras rolling, they bent down, planted saplings, patted the soil, and posed for a photograph that would appear in the next day’s newspapers. The event was hailed as a “green drive,” a symbol of environmental stewardship.
But the celebration was short-lived. The photo-op had served its purpose. The cameras had moved on. And the environmental crisis remained untouched.
This pattern repeats itself across the country. Climate action in India is often choreographed for public consumption: celebrity-led beach clean-ups in Mumbai that collect tonnes of plastic only for fresh waste to wash ashore the next morning; corporate “green challenges” that trend on social media but do little to address systemic plastic pollution; and annual tree-planting drives that count saplings, not survival rates. These spectacles make for striking headlines and social media moments, but they rarely move the needle on the problems that make India one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world such as polluted air, overflowing landfills, encroached wetlands, and shrinking groundwater reserves.
If India is to make real progress, the climate action must be reframed. It cannot remain a political win or a branding exercise. It must be recognised as a developmental necessity, as fundamental to the country’s future as roads, schools, and healthcare, delivering clean air, safe water, and resilient cities for all.
The Politics of Symbolism
Symbolism thrives because it is quick, visual, and politically rewarding. A minister with a sapling or a film star holding a cloth bag is an easy, photogenic way to show commitment to the environment. The message is simple and hopeful, the optics electorally useful.
The result has been a proliferation of high-visibility campaigns.
Take the government’s “Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam” (One Tree in Mother’s Name) campaign, which celebrated the planting of over 1 billion saplings in 2024. The numbers were impressive. The survival rates? Often less than 20 percent because few plans were made for watering, soil quality, or local stewardship.
Or, the “Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar” (Clean and Safe Ocean) campaign in September 2024, which mobilised thousands to collect 60 tonnes of plastic from India’s beaches. The achievement was undeniable. But untreated sewage and industrial effluents continued flowing into the same waters the next day, undoing much of the effort.
Corporations and celebrities have also jumped on the bandwagon. Coca-Cola runs glossy recycling campaigns even as it remains one of India’s largest plastic polluters. Bollywood actors ask fans to “say no to straws” while issues like waste sorting, emissions enforcement, and renewable energy policy remain buried in bureaucratic silence.
Symbolic acts are not entirely meaningless — they can raise awareness, particularly among urban youth who may otherwise be disengaged. But when spectacle overshadows substance, climate action becomes performative. It is measured in hashtags and photo shares rather than cleaner air, restored rivers, or safer cities.
The Cost of Symbolism: Neglecting Real Solutions
India’s fixation with highly visible climate action comes at a cost, one that is easy to overlook but deeply consequential. Every media-friendly campaign risks diverting public attention and government resources from the slower, less glamorous work that real reform demands.
Take the waste crisis. Delhi and Mumbai’s towering landfills continue to smoulder for days, blanketing neighborhoods with toxic fumes. Open burning remains common, especially in poorer areas, while informal waste pickers, who form the backbone of the recycling economy, work without basic safety gears such as gloves, masks, or any form of protection like health insurance. A one-day cleanup drive may briefly clear a beach or a market street, but once the cameras leave, the trash returns. Without waste segregation, recycling plants, and accountable municipal systems, nothing really changes.
The same pattern is visible in air pollution. Delhi continues to be one of the most polluted capitals on earth despite years of headline-grabbing interventions. The Indian megacity’s pollution level in 2023 was high enough to shave off 8.2 years of the lifespan of a person breathing its polluted air over the long term. Short-term bans on stubble burning or fireworks make for good copy, but the weak enforcement of industrial emissions and India’s ongoing reliance on coal keep the smog firmly in place.
India’s water crisis, too, remains a cautionary tale. Decades of ambitious river-cleanup campaigns have failed to stop untreated sewage from pouring into the Yamuna every day. In Chennai, catastrophic floods strike like clockwork during the monsoon. The problem is not a lack of awareness, but the steady destruction of wetlands, blocked stormwater drains, and unchecked construction that leaves cities unable to cope with heavy rain.
None of these challenges can be solved with tree-planting ceremonies or weekend cleanups alone. They demand long-term investment, citywide planning, and coordination across multiple agencies. They require consistency and technical expertise that extend beyond election cycles. They are unglamorous, painstaking, and politically inconvenient which may be why they so often fall by the wayside.
Beyond Optics: What Real Climate Action Look
If India is to build a liveable and resilient future, climate action must shift from performance to governance. Depoliticizing climate action does not mean stripping away politics entirely; it means treating climate resilience like healthcare or public transport, an essential service that must function reliably, no matter who holds office.
There are already promising examples across the country, though they rarely make the front pages. Ahmedabad’s pioneering Heat Action Plan, born in the aftermath of a deadly 2010 heatwave, set up early warning systems, public cooling centres, and medical protocols for heatstroke. The results have been dramatic: a significant reduction in heat-related deaths. Inspired by this model, cities like Varanasi and Churu launched their own plans in 2025, proving that data-driven, city-led interventions can save lives without fanfare.
Chennai offers another case study. The slow, methodical restoration of Kadapakkam Lake turned what was once a garbage dump into a functioning flood buffer, protecting neighbourhoods from inundation while replenishing groundwater. It is not glamorous work, but it is life-changing for residents.
Perhaps the most striking example is India’s renewable energy transition. Over the past decade, solar and wind capacity have expanded rapidly, not because of social media campaigns but because of consistent policy support, financing mechanisms, and private-sector participation. As of March 2025, India’s total installed renewable energy capacity, including solar, wind, bio power, and small hydro power, reached 220.09 GW, accounting for 46.3% of the country’s total installed capacity. India’s renewable energy sector reached a significant milestone by creating approximately 1.02 million jobs in 2023, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) 2024 Annual Review. The result: cheaper electricity, reduced emissions, and thousands of new jobs.
These interventions have one thing in common: they are designed to work, not to be photographed. They deliver tangible outcomes, cleaner air, safer streets, lower power bills — benefits that cut across class, region, and political affiliation.
Trading Optics for Outcomes
Sapling ceremonies and beach cleanups can spark awareness, but they cannot substitute for the labour of governance: building sewage treatment plants, enforcing emission standards, protecting wetlands, and scaling up renewable infrastructure.
India’s climate future depends on whether it can shift the conversation from optics to outcomes, from performance to policy. The urgency cannot be overstated. Each year brings new records of hottest days, heaviest rains, deadliest floods. The question is not whether India should depoliticize climate action, but whether it can do so in time.
Because climate resilience is not a photo opportunity, it is the difference between a city that drowns every monsoon and one that survives it, between air that chokes and air that sustains, between symbolic green and real green.
Reader Question:
How long can we afford to confuse awareness with action, optics with outcomes, before the climate crisis makes the choice for us?