Topic: Impact of Urbanization
Country: India
Delegate Name: Ryan Mersol-Barg
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All India position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Greeting esteemed delegates, India looks forward to working with all of you to move forward in creating solutions for our future. Urbanization is one of the great environmental struggles of the past century. How do we maintain a stable environment when more and more people keep on moving into urban areas? One area that India and other rapidly urbanizing nations continue to struggle with is construction of adequate infrastructure, in the form of streets and roadways, mass transportation, sewage, water, electrical supply, telecommunications, as well as schools, hospitals, safety, and administrative centers to deal with the growing mass of humanity.
Yet problems of urbanization have been manifested in severe ways. Air pollution in cities has caused an epidemic of respiratory issues in the most densely populated places in the world, like Beijing where it is common to see people walking with face-masks on. Water pollution in Jakarta has rendered the rivers more akin to sewers than habitable streams. India is no stranger to this issue. Over 409,000,000 people live in Indian cities and large towns, and the struggles of an urban environment populate these cities as well. As seen in many other urban areas across the globe, transportation and industry pollute our air and solid waste disseminate through our streets and water. These impacts of urbanization come in a variety of forms, and as such our solutions must account for this.
First, smog plagues millions of people across globe, and one of the leading causes to this is transportation pollution. India alone has over 50,000,000 vehicles, the vast majority of which are in urban areas. To help diminish the impact that this has had on our environment, we have mandated vehicle standards to combat carbon emissions. Although the specifics of these mandates are dependent on the nation, it is integral to the health of our cities that we find a way to promote this as more and more nations urbanize. Open burning of refuse, from cooking, from heating, and from industrial processes contribute to this problem.
Second, solid waste management is a critical issue for the urban poor. This can be solved by improved urban planning and management. Implementation of this has gone well across much of India. We have created a “polluters” tax for garbage picked up off the street rather than from property, and this can be an example for other countries struggling with this to follow. However, India must stress that the dynamics of a nation’s urban areas can make implementation of solutions difficult and specific to their situation. To accommodate this, we must make sure we maintain all nation’s control over their urban areas, and not impose without fully understanding the situation.
We expect allies in this effort from all nations because India is working with an open mind.
