What is the state of the environment in India? | Explained

The story so far:

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on February 25, 2026 released the ‘State of India’s Environment 2026’, a report the Delhi-based research and advocacy non-profit has been bringing out since 1982. The report gives a bird’s-eye view of the environmental challenges the country faces, ranging from floods, extreme weather events, changes in tiger behaviour, to air pollution, among others. The report also gives a global perspective of climate change and connects it to the Indian context.

At the release of the report, Sunita Narain, Director General, CSE, said, “The climate crisis is reaching a point of no return. If we take the average of the past three years, the world will exceed 1.5 °C for the first time: this is a signal that we will be breaching the safety guardrail.”

Extreme weather events increasing?

As per the report, 2025 witnessed the highest increase in frequency and impact of extreme weather events in India, including heatwaves, cold waves, and heavy rain, flood, in the last four years.

Data from January 1 to November 30, shows that such events were recorded on 99% of the days in 2025, resulting in 4,419 reported deaths and affecting at least 17. 41 million hectares of crop area. This marks a sharp rise from 2024, when extreme weather events occurred on 88% of days, causing 3393 deaths and impacting 3.61 million ha of crop area. In 2023, about 89% of days experienced such events, with 3208 deaths and 2.09 million ha of crop damage.

Himachal Pradesh was the worst hit by extreme weather events (267 days), followed by Kerala (173 days), and Madhya Pradesh (162 days).

“Taken together, these trends signal a widening ecological backlash and underscore the urgency of meaningful climate action. Without decisive efforts to cut risks and emissions, the disasters we face today risk becoming the norm tomorrow. Yet development cannot grind to a halt-climate change is not a justification for paralysis. Instead, it must drive smarter planning and more resilient, equitable choices for the future,” the report noted.

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Are floods becoming more intense?

The report talks about how a warming climate will substantially increase the possibility of widespread floods. It also states that India’s approach should move from post-disaster relief work to pre-disaster resilience.

“Climate change is not a distant possibility; it is already shaping our rivers, our cities, and our lives. Future resilience will depend on how quickly we can integrate climate science into everyday planning – from how we design culverts to how we allocate land along rivers,” the report notes.

The report also emphasizes the need for nature-based solutions such as restoring wetlands, reconnecting rivers to their floodplains, groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting, and restoration and construction of lakes.

Are tigers’ behaviour changing?

The report notes that there is an increase in tigers killing humans. At least 43 people have been killed near tiger reserves during the period January-June 2025, and in four of these attacks, tigers ate at least parts of their prey. In 2024, in the same period, 44 people were killed by tiger attacks.

Tigers rarely turn into compulsive human-eaters, but tiger attacks and consumption of humans increase when the wild cats grow old or suffer from injuries and are unable to hunt for food, or when their natural prey base disappears. The report states that according to experts and wildlife observers, one of the reasons why tigers seem to be increasingly targeting humans is due to proximity of humans to tiger territory.

CSE notes that tiger population is on the rise, and also the number of people that live areas near forests. In 20 states with tiger populations, about 40% of the tigers’ territory is shared by 60 million people. Tiger populations inside reserve areas are at a saturation point, and as a result, the big cats are venturing outside protected areas, the report states.

The overcrowding, habitat loss and human activities near tiger habitats are the reasons behind behavioural changes in tigers, the report said quoting experts.

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Are we measuring air pollution properly?

As per CSE’s analysis, only 15% of India’s population – about 200 million people – live within 10 km of a continuous air quality monitor. The remaining 85%, more than 1.2 billion people, breathe outside any measurable range.

The report said that air quality monitoring remains concentrated in a limited set of large cities, primarily state capitals and metropolitan regions. “Entire districts, industrial belts and fast-growing peri-urban belts remain outside the monitoring grid. The result is a fragmented picture: a few zones with dense, overlapping data coverage and vast regions that appear blank,” it said.

The report says that this absence is not just a gap in information, but it is an example of structural inequality in India’s environmental governance. Hundreds of smaller towns, many of which experience comparable or even higher levels of air pollution due to local industrial and transport activities, have no real-time data at all, as per the report.

Published – March 08, 2026 05:40 am IST