Public Policy is emerging as a dominant career choice for future decision makers, not only because of the career progression this domain has to offer, but also because of the growing demand for public policy professionals across various sectors: non-profits, government, multilateral agencies, corporates, and others. An important domain in public policy pertains to the environment, especially since it is a burning topic in today's time and age.
In light of the above, the ISPP organized a webinar on – Public Policy for the Environment: New Wine in Old bottles? – conducted by Prof. Shreekant Gupta, Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics and Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore. The workshop was held on 27 April, 2019, and was attended by about 30 plus participants focussing on the past, present and future of environmental public policy.
Prof. Gupta, who is also the Vice-President of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics, and has served as the Director – National Institute of Urban Affairs, began the workshop with a synopsis of the environmental challenges India is facing, specifically covering water, air, soil, among others. In subsequent stages, he talked about the existing legislations/standards in India, market approach towards environmental problems, environmental economics, and other interesting facts and figures that served as foo-for-thought.
Concluding the workshop, Prof. Gupta mentioned: "Top-down regulatory approaches and judicial diktats have failed to reduce air and water pollution. It is time to consider market approaches such as pollution fees and emissions trading that are being used world over."