As the world prepares to observe Environment Day on June 5, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has sounded a sobering alarm: India is facing a mounting crisis on multiple environmental and development fronts.
The Delhi-based think tank’s annual State of India’s Environment in Figures 2025 report, released in the capital offered a stark data-led portrait of a nation grappling with extreme weather, declining public health, stalled infrastructure and deepening economic strain.
While Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Goa top the charts in individual categories, the broader picture is bleak. No state emerges as a consistent performer across all domains and even top-ranked states struggle with fundamental issues such as pollution, waste management and access to health care.
“Numbers usually give us the truth and what we are unveiling on the eve of this year’s World Environment Day based on data that the government itself has generated and which is available publicly, clearly indicates that this is not the time for complacency, nor for chest-thumping,” said Sunita Narain, CSE’s director general, at the launch.
Andhra Pradesh led in environmental management, thanks to its forest and biodiversity conservation efforts. Yet it fared poorly in sewage treatment and river pollution control. Sikkim’s organic farming and sustainable land-use practices helped it top the agriculture rankings, but it lagged in farmer welfare.
Goa is the best in public health and infrastructure, with the country’s highest rate of medically certified deaths. Still, it faced a shortage of hospital beds and low female labour force participation.
Sunita added: “Take just one indicator. India’s most populous states – Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh – that are together home to 49 per cent of the country’s population, rank low on the themes that our analysis has focused on. This means large segments of the country’s population remain vulnerable and exposed to multiple threats.”
Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, said none of the states are emerging as complete winners, says Mahapatra. 2024 was the warmest year on record for India; it was also the period in which 25 states recorded their monthly highest 24-hour rainfall in the last 123 years.
Rajit Sengupta, associate editor of the magazine and one of the authors of the study report, said: “Extreme weather events occurred on 88 per cent of the days in 2024, marking a sharp rise in both frequency and impact since 2022. Natural disasters induced by extreme weather and other reasons emerged as the primary drivers of internal displacement.”
India recorded 5.4 million internal displacements across at least 27 states and UTs in 2024, with Assam alone accounting for nearly half of them. This was the largest internal displacement in volume due to weather and geophysical disasters since 2013. In terms of disaster types, floods accounted for 64 per cent of the displacement.
The country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions had declined in 2020 for the first time since 2011, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, India accounted for 7.8 per cent of global GHG emissions — the highest level since 1970.
In 1980, the country’s contribution had stood at just 3.3 per cent: its share has since risen by roughly 1 percentage point each decade. Sengupta points out that this growth has accelerated in recent years: between 2020 and 2023 alone, India’s share increased by 0.84 percentage points.
All signs point to a future that will continue to be severely taxed by changing climate. The first quarter of 2025 stands out as one of the wettest starts to a year in recent memory.
Compared to the same period in the past three years (2022–24), India witnessed an alarming spike in heavy rains, floods and landslides, reported on 80 out of 90 days. The toll has been significant: 122 lives lost — the second-highest after 2023 — and 24,807 ha of cropped area affected.
Despite comprising 36 per cent of the installed capacity, new renewable sources (solar, wind, bio-power and small hydro) currently generate only 14 percent of our total electricity – Sengupta says that this points to severe under-utilisation of capacity.
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu lead in adapting new renewable sources, which account for over 20 per cent of the power generation in these states. The analysis report notes that population growth, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have led to a steady decline in the share of agricultural land in India.