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Former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Erik Solheim, on Tuesday, drew attention to the pressing need for equitable solutions to climate change, emphasising that India and other countries in the Global South have far lower per capita emissions than those in the Global North.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Rising Bharat Summit here, Solheim said no one should blame India or the Global South for climate change. “The emissions of the United States of America up to this point are 25 times Indian emissions per capita. So stop blaming the global south. By the way, American emissions are also eight times Chinese emissions per capita,” Solheim said while responding to a question on the global divide over climate policies.
Better Messaging: From Mumbai to Telangana
Addressing the theme of “Earth’s Dividend: Between Profit and Protection,” Solheim underlined the need to frame the message on environmental movement in a way that evokes love for nature and caters to a wider segment of the audience. “The message cannot be just for the young and trendy in Mumbai or Bengaluru. Must also be for the farmer in Uttar Pradesh or the coal worker in Jarkam or the housewife in Telangana. It must be for the people. And the message is sometimes also so incredibly boring. It doesn’t work. So we need a better messaging to the people,” he added.
Green transition
Responding to a question about whether petrodollars can meaningfully fund the green transition, former Mauritius President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim said, “There is a lot of conversation about oil and I think the last COP-28 held in Dubai they had a big problem getting the wording right in terms of phasing out oil. And unfortunately, if we call them down to brass tack it will be difficult to phase out oil immediately.”
“I think what we can obtain from the oil industry is precisely their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in terms of capitalising global funds to aid countries in adaptation. If the private sector can join and contribute to capitalizing the fund, help us reach this $1 trillion so that the Global South can adapt. Because, once again, I will say the Global North depends on the Global South, as we provide the branch on which we are all sitting for our survival. Thus, it’s crucial to fund the funds to aid adaptation because mitigation is already underway.”
‘Climate Talk Vs Climate Policy’
Answering a question if climate talk was translating into policy in action, Gurib-Fakim said, “I think we all acknowledge that climate change is a threat to the world, to our survival on this planet. And are we taking it seriously? If we are to look at the crisis, the covid crisis, I think it gives us an idea. It’s a harbinger of what’s to come in the future. And what we find, of course, is that the concept, rather the narrative is still shaped in the US and them. US, me, you, 85% of the global population leading global south and of course, the 15% of the global north. We still haven’t realised that we have one planet. There’s no planet B.”
Briing the focus on the loss and damage funds, she called for a differentiated approach that focuses on climate finance. “…So many years after Paris, we still haven’t come to the consensus of capitalising the $100 billion for helping adaptation. I’m not talking about mitigation, but I’m talking about adaptation. We have seen subsequently, incremental narratives of the Bridgetown initiative. We talk about the loss and damage funds, but still, they remain empty boxes,” she said ahead of COP-29 in Baku this year.
Climate Finance
Elaborating on the issue of climate finance, Solheim said, that “money is not the problem. That’s what people speak about at international conferences, but it’s not the problem. And the reason for that is very simple. The price of solar energy has fallen by 90% in one decade. The price of wind energy has fallen by 85% in one decade. So today, if you make the shift from fossil fuels into renewables, not only is good for the health, everyone knows, not only is good for Mother Earth, everyone knows it’s also very good for the economy. It’s cheaper. And that’s why the calculus of the past was a thing of the past.”
“In the 20th century, if you wanted to grow the economy, there was no other way than coal. That’s why Europe did it, America did it, China did it, and India started doing it. But today, you can grow the economy with renewables. And frankly, this is why Prime Minister Modi is now leading India in the right direction, because, mind you, he gets the big picture, right? Prime Minister Modi understands that climate change and environmental action are not a burden for India. It’s an enormous opportunity. It’s an opportunity for more jobs, getting people out of poverty, but yet doing it in a green way,” he added.
‘Tesla for the West, Ola for the rest’
Solheim recounted the best slogan he ever heard in India on renewables. “As you all know, they have a wonderful factory in Tamil Nadu, young Tamil ladies making electrical scooters. And the slogan is captivating. It says, Tesla for the West, Ola for the rest, meaning that Bharat can get any number of jobs from moving into the green economy.”
Answering a question of whether Indian culture is the best suited for climate action, Solheim said, the old Brits had a very unfavorable view of the Hindu dharma or the traditional Indian culture but in the 21st century that view is changing. “They saw it as a second-rate religion with any number. Millions of gods didn’t take it seriously at all, then switched to 2024 and Hindu dharma looks like the most modern of all religions. Why? Because look, in Christianity, while there is a strong drive to protect nature, in Christianity still the perspective is always that the human being is superior. Human beings are superior to nature.”
“While in Hindu Dharma, man is part of nature, man is in nature. And that now looks like such a modern perspective. And the old Indians venerated nature. They did it even to the extent of making God half animal, half human. I mean, Ganesh is half elephant half-human, Hanuman half monkey half-human. And can there be a stronger signal of the unity of man, humans and nature than making God half nature, half human? So what the Brits spoke so negatively about 100 years ago is now looking as the most modern of all global thought systems,” he added.
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