Editorial

Just days after strong winds uprooted trees across the country, some blaming it on climate change, Sri Lanka joined the rest of the world in marking the 53rd World Environment Day last Thursday (June 5) with a national event in Kegalle under the theme ‘Let it Sprout’.

The fresh initiatives included declaring a sanctuary, issuing gazette notifications for four new protected areas, converting three schools into eco-friendly models, evaluating green railway stations and certifying the 2025 World Environment Day National Programme as ‘carbon neutral’.

In recent times, Sri Lanka has faced flash floods, extreme winds, forest fires and rising cases of mosquito-borne viral infections such as dengue and chikungunya. The President rightly referred to the rape of forests by politicians and their cronies of yesteryear. He also said, “No child should grow up in a land where butterflies don’t return.” He might have added: no child should grow up in a land where mosquitoes remember to return.

Heat stress, though less visible, is becoming a long-term public health concern. When wildfires broke out in Ella earlier this year, the Conservator General of Forests admitted officials were caught off guard by the dry weather conditions that prevailed. Climate change is shifting rainfall patterns and wind patterns, with increasing heat affecting ecosystems across the board in innumerable ways. Disruptions are already affecting agriculture, salt production and public health.

The World Bank in 2024 estimated Sri Lanka loses as much as Rs. 50 billion (USD 313 million) annually to natural disasters: Rs. 32 billion to floods, Rs. 11 billion to cyclones and high winds, Rs. 5.2 billion to drought and Rs. 1.8 billion to landslides—equivalent to 0.4% of GDP or 2.1% of all government spending.

But Sri Lanka’s foreign policy on climate is confusing now because the minister seems uncertain about its scope, as seen in the proposed Mining MoUs under discussion with India that seem to have a life of their own outside the ambit of the Foreign Ministry. They seem even outside the remit of the Environment Ministry under which the subject directly comes by happily outsourcing it to the Industries Ministry.

Meanwhile, progress on climate investment has stalled, and updates to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) remain delayed. Stakeholder meetings fall short of global standards for inclusivity, especially on youth, gender and community participation. A longstanding goal to source 70 per cent of the country’s energy from renewables by 2030—once within reach—is now a goal too far as the country pivots back to coal and scales down solar power. As the Bonn Climate Conference begins next week, marking the halfway point to COP30—the Conference of the Parties, the United Nations Climate Change Conference—Sri Lanka faces a critical test of its climate credibility.

Come November, COP30 in Brazil offers a key opportunity to forge partnerships with economically developed nations seeking to make a diplomatic impact. These industrialised nations of the Global North are under pressure from countries in the Global South, such as Sri Lanka, for their responsibility in the loss and damage to biodiversity and ecosystems of the world.

While the not-so-new government’s environmental initiatives, including the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ campaign, are well-meaning, they seem clearly inadequate in the face of an increasing global environmental crisis in which Sri Lanka is a frontline state. What Sri Lanka gains from these multilateral discussions will depend on the strength of the government’s current positioning. Right now, there is little leverage. Global support, including finance and aid, increasingly hinges on transparency, consistency and preparedness at these high-end negotiations in the world’s capitals. Sri Lanka must not be a mere spectator at the table.

 RTIC: Concerns over Govt.’s stance

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka, which has a permanent seat on the Right to Information Commission (RTIC), has raised urgent concerns over the independent commission being unable to carry out its mandate under Sri Lanka’s globally hailed Right to Information (RTI) Act.

In a statement issued this week, the Bar has pointed to the delay of over three months in the appointment of a remaining member to the RTIC along with the failure of the President to appoint the Chairman of the RTIC upon the previous Chair resigning on March 4, 2025. This has had grave implications for the continued protection of the right to public information of the ordinary citizens of this country. Similar concerns have been raised across the mainstream media for weeks and by the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), chaired by former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who called upon the government to protect the principles of RTI, which has become a powerful tool to expose fraud from the highest state office downwards.

What is amiss is not only the inexplicable delay on the part of the President in appointing the chairman of the commission but also a failure to ensure the financial independence of the body. Though the RTI Act is clear on the RTIC maintaining a separate fund to which monies voted by Parliament must be deposited, this has become a dead letter. Despite the RTIC being allocated an independent line item in the National Budget during the first year of operation with the funds being chanelled through the Presidential Secretariat, its financial allocation was brought under the Media Ministry in 2018.

Effectively, the Act was overridden by a government gazette. This has allowed officials to delay, seemingly block staffing needs of the RTIC—another violation of the RTI Act. That is not a happy state of affairs. The Media Ministry is the nodal agency tasked by the Act to train information officers for public authorities. The RTIC is the appeals body before which the ministry itself is noticed to appear when citizens file appeals. A strict line should be maintained between the two to ensure the proper working of the RTI body, which the Supreme Court has said is vested with a ‘quasi-constitutional status’.

Sri Lankan citizens have benefitted enormously from this law in the recent years, with the RTI Commission being internationally cited in its efforts to change a state culture that reeks of corruption in every corner and conceals information. But all those plaudits will be for nothing if the nuts and bolts of the RTI Commission are not fixed properly and if officials—and a government claiming to be a ‘people’s government’—fail to embrace not only the letter of the RTI Act but also the spirit of such a progressive law.