 Cultural reasons

 Water (along with leaf, flower and fruit) is an important ingredient of Hindu worship.
Abhishekam is the ritual pouring of water over idols. Some Shaivite temples perform Sahasra
Ghatabhishekam (pouring of thousand pots of water, about 15000 L). However, the pollution
caused by Abhishekam is minimal. Hindus cremate their dead and immerse the ashes in the
waters of perennial rivers, the most preferred being the sacred waters of the Ganga. It has
been estimated that 15,000 tonnes/year of cremation ash is immersed in the Ganga. Apart
from these 140 to 250 tonnes of half burned corpses are dumped in the Ganges per year.
There are 500 million people living in the catchment area of the Ganga, and that number is
increasing. While there may be no objection from the public in regard to the cleansing of about
5.8 ×105 million liters of chemical wastes per year, the control of cremation ashes in the
Ganga is for more difficult to achieve because of the sentiment. It is urgently necessary that
pollution including cultural pollution of Ganges, is drastically reduced. The new Indian
government has ambitious plans to do this, with allocation of about US$ 700 million in the
current year's budget.

Political reasons

Greater demand for and governmental supply of environmental policies; better ability of population to
acquire information about environmental risks, organize politically, and express demands for
environmental protection

EU environmental regulation, control capacity of EU institutions, pressure by greener EU countries on

other member states

WFD includes provisions on monitoring and pollution control

Countries pay attention to what other countries do and behave in similar ways

Facilitates learning from other countries; increases reputational costs of being a laggard

Socio economic reasons

Demand for green policies and technical and financial capacity to implement such policies are higher
in rich countries

Positive: trade tends to foster income growth and thus creates positive income related effects on
monitoring; it also exposes countries to green demands by international trade partners. Negative:
concerns over economic competitiveness reduce investment in environmental policies

 Guest post: Understanding the water-energy-food nexus in a warming climate. Multiple Authors
| 07.8.19.
 Extreme weather. Climate change made Europe's 2019 record heatwave up to '100 times
more likely' ...
 Ice. Cold-war spy photos reveal 'doubling' of glacier ice loss in Himalayas. ...
 IPCC.
 Nature.
 Oceans.
 People.
 Temperature
 In 2018, CO2 emissions in the country rose 4.8% from the previous year, according to a new
report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

 India’s higher CO2 emissions have been spurred by an increasing consumption of fossil fuels.

 The country has set ambitious renewable energy targets for 2022, but is likely to
miss them. The vast majority of the energy that India consumes comes from fossil fuels.