World News | Green Cover Rises to Quarter of India's Geographical Area

New Delhi [India], December 22 (ANI/WAM): India's forest and tree cover have together scaled an impressive 25.17 per cent of the total geographical area of the country, equivalent to 827,357 sq km. Of this, 21.76 per cent consists of forest cover and the remaining 3.41 per cent is tree cover.

Releasing the latest biennial "India State of Forest Report," the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, said this represents an increase of 1,445 sq km in the total forest and tree cover since the last such report two years ago.

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This increase in green cover has helped India's carbon stock to reach 30.43 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in climate resilience efforts, according to the report.

"Putting this in the context of the status on achievement of targets under Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) related to carbon sequestration, India has already reached 2.29 billion tonnes of additional carbon sink as against the target of 2.5 billion tonnes by 2030," the report pointed out.

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NDCs are national climate action plans by each country under the Paris Climate Agreement to help meet the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 celsius.

"In the present assessment, the total carbon stock in India's forest is 7,285.5 million tonnes. This is an increase of 81.5 million tonnes in the carbon stock since the last assessment," according to the latest India State of Forest Report. (ANI/WAM)

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