Terra.do - Solve #climatechange

Mahua Acharya is Asia Director for Climate Policy Initiative. She is responsible for leading CPI in Delhi and Jakarta, while also supporting high-level strategic planning and further build-up of the organization. She has extensive experience in green finance, renewables, and carbon markets. Mahua holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale University. She is a guest lecturer at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad & frequently contributes to the Mint.

In this podcast, Mahua delves into the world of climate finance, including tools used, the biggest opportunities for Indian entrepreneurs and what the future holds for #climateaction in India. 

Notes –

01:21 – What is climate finance all about 

07:19 – Challenges facing climate finance in India

09:40 – Tools of climate finance 

13:40 – CPI’s role in climate finance

15:44 – Green bonds

18:18 – Renewable infrastructure

25:43 – The Lab at CPI and related projects 

28:17 – Biggest opportunities for Indian entrepreneurs

30:32 – Future of climate action in India

Gokul Halan, a hydrogeologist by training, is part of the team handling the Water Resources Programme of Keystone Foundation. He manages water-related projects in the Nilgiris. With a keen interest in community development, Gokul who belongs to the Badaga community is always looking for an opportunity to apply traditional wisdom to develop solutions to modern-day issues of water management.

In this podcast, Gokul talks to us about water security issues in the Nilgiris, how indigenous tribal communities are truly dependent on water resources, and how it can take literally 14 years to establish a forest on degraded land! 

Notes –

00:58 – Gokul’s work at the Keystone Foundation 

01:55 – The role of GIS 

06:56 – Socio-economic impact of climate change in the Nilgiris

10:34 – Importance of water conservation for the indigenous communities

16:35 – Payment for Ecosystem services

20:47 – The three pillars of Keystone Foundation

29:56 – GoI’s Water policy

35:06 – Inevitability of climate change 

Rohan Chakravarty is a cartoonist, illustrator, wildlife buff and creator of Green Humour, a series of comic strips about nature. He believes that there is always a funny side to the serious things in life. Green Humour is India's first comic strip to be syndicated internationally and runs periodically in newspapers and magazines. Rohan has won awards by the UNDP, Sanctuary Asia, WWF International and the Royal Bank of Scotland for his work. He has authored three books- The Great Indian Nature Trail, Bird Business and Making Friends with Snakes. 

In this podcast, Rohan tells us how he got started on his cartooning journey, the profound impact his work has been having and the future of cartooning in climate change. 

Notes –

01:27 – Rohan’s career arc and segue into Green Humour 

04:59 – Breaking down complex pieces of information into visuals

06:15 – Direct impact of work on readers

10:15 – Social media and interactions

14:22 – Personalisation of content

16:35 – Future of cartooning and climate change

Vositha Wijenayake is an international lawyer specialising in public international law, with a focus on international environmental law & UN human rights law. Vositha presently works as the Executive Director of SLYCAN Trust and is also a member of the national expert committee on climate change of Sri Lanka. Having worked since 2009 on bridging youth and environmental activism, she has focused on engaging youth as a key stakeholder in climate change processes through capacity building and awareness creation. She has over a decade of experience in working on climate change, at both the national and international level.

In this podcast, Vositha gives us a background in what drives Sri Lanka’s climate policy, how the media narrative is shaping up and whether Sri Lanka needs climate activism. 

Notes –

01:42 – Vositha’s interest in environment and climate change 

04:17 – SYCAN Trust and their challenges 

08:36 – Sri Lankan government and their climate change policies

13:56 – Media narrative in Sri Lanka regarding climate change

17:35 – Informed climate activism 

27:21 – The way forward in Sri Lanka 

Harish Hande is a celebrated social entrepreneur who started SELCO, a solar lighting company in 1995. Along the way, he reinvented consumer finance for the poorest of the poor and the fundamental concept of building for the bottom of the pyramid. His empathy for his customers and humility in light of their knowledge is telling, and reflects in the meritocratic organization that SELCO is today. 

In this podcast, Harish comes out swinging against the hierarchical, resume obsessed and out of touch development sector. Let’s put it this way, a lot of thumping on the table involved in this episode. It’s a privilege to have Ramon Magsaysay awardee Harish Hande on Terra.do’s podcast on climate change in developing countries.

Notes –

01:06 – The origin of SELCO and Harish’s early interest in solar energy

06:39 – SELCO Foundation and its future 

13:39 – Asset building to get out of poverty

20:08 – SELCO’s strategies for asset building 

25:26 – Pay As You Go solar - is it good? 

34:34 – Politics, policy and our desire to preserve power structures 

42:02 – Advice on how to get into social entrepreneurship 

Arati has always wanted to tell stories. She realised that writing and storytelling was her passion. A childhood listening to family arguments about the benefits of dams ensured that her focus lies on freshwater issues. Her heart lies in slow journalism - following a story over seasons and years becomes important in shaping the narrative. The National Geographic grant awarded to her opened a lot of doors in terms of reaching out to people. 

Whilst long-form journalism is important, social media is extremely important for outreach. Climate change and the environment is a nuanced and scientific topic. There are so many tools available to storytellers like photography & video to showcase the story's significance. Her goal is to combine different kinds of media to reach as many people as possible. 

Slow journalism is important - for eg - floods are a symptom of the problem. A quick social media post doesn't give us context. Arati’s form of journalism tries to delve deeper. Patterns are changing across the planet. Climate change is so much more than the ice caps melting or even trees flowering earlier. Getting to the crux of what is important with diverse voices speaking up is essential in the climate change narrative. 

India has varied ecosystems. Planting of trees in grasslands is something that disturbs the ecosystem. A desert is not a ‘wasteland’ - adding solar panels can potentially destroy livelihoods on grazing lands. The climate change narrative in India needs to change drastically. 

#RiversAreNotPipes is pan India. Water cannot be just put into canals and fed across the plains. For eg: Arati calls the Indira Gandhi Canal a large pipe - the Himalayan waters are being fed into Jaisalmer. The desert was never meant for that kind of agriculture. We need to understand the function of a river. It behoves us to know how our land works. 

Slow walking with Paul Salopek was a fun yet challenging experience. Paul is a National Geographic Fellow & spending time with him was an enriching experience. Walking 700 km through a landscape forges a bond. Going to places that weren’t even on Google Maps was a fabulous adventure; seeing the country through Paul’s lens and even just absorbing the landscape gave Arati perspective.

The Peepli Project was all about communities and ecosystems negotiating with each other within the frame of a large topic. There were natural intersections of issues. For example, freshwater intersected with women’s issues or health. The idea behind the Peepli Project was to follow a story to try to effect change. There are very few outlets that funded this kind of work and the project eventually ran out of funding, unfortunately. This kind of long-form journalism is imperative in Arati’s opinion. 

What is maybe right for the West may not be right for India. Growing paddy in Punjab is an example of this. The Indian audience needs to keep asking questions. Listening to scientists is extremely important. It's necessary to sift the propaganda from the truth. We should always try to maintain a scientific temper. Arati’s last piece of advice is not to lose our connection with the earth. 

Fifteen years ago, Ankit Singhvi took a detour to the energy sector. In 2005, he narrowed his focus further towards renewable energy & the clean tech space. His company Mozev was the first company in the country to run commercial electric buses. The core proposition of Mozev is to make EV profitable for customers across the whole chain from start to finish. The name Mozev implies mobility across electric vehicles and Z is the Z factor. 

Why are there no EVs in India? Unlike the rest of the world, India has a value-oriented economy. At the consumer level, people look for value. Charging infrastructure is a bottleneck. Fleets are early adopters. Buses seemed to be the viable solution, having a unique form factor as they provide point to point connectivity. Routes can be electrified. This is not possible for other form factors. As we know, 100% of the market is fleets and if we start focusing on utilization, then we can work on making it profitable for customers. 

Developments in Mozev- When Mozev started, there was no government policy in place. 25 electric buses were deployed along our first route i.e the Manali-Rohtang route. The demand since then has been quite strong and now intercity buses have started. As utilization has been maximum, profits have soared. We have now started the first Mumbai - Pune route- electric buses. By the end of 2020, he hopes that their buses will be running across major intercity routes in India.

The electrification of freight = 10x the opportunity. There is now a broader trend of electrification of economies. Freight is by definition designed to carry weight and there can be a focus on long haul applications.

Government policy - Globally there is a strong trend towards electrification of transport. Concerning service road transport, governments have been driving adoption through strong subsidies. China is the world leader on both the demand and operational side. European countries like Norway use subsidies as criteria for adoption. India is doing it a whole lot differently. They started the National Mission For Electric Mobility Transmission launched in 2012-13 where their goal was to get seven million electric vehicles by 2020 in India. The focus was on two to three-wheelers and cars with no attention being paid to buses or trucks. 

The Ministry of Heavy Industries came out with FAME (Faster Adoption of EVs) in 2014. Learnings there were that subsidies weren’t generous enough to generate demand. At the market level, the government is a small operator in vehicles and traction was quite less. Ankit started the Electric Mobility Alliance which is a pan India NGO - all stakeholders like utilities, customers are involved. The focus was to reorient policy from vehicle level spend to look at lifetime spend and not just subsidies. He reckons that significant progress has happened in the last couple of years.

Ankit estimates that by 2025, 100% of bus sales will become electric!! The technology and infrastructure involved will become better. As a whole, consumer experience is better in electric buses and it's a solution which is both reliable and profitable.

Right from the onset of her career in journalism, Dharini has always had an interest in environmental issues. Communication & policy advocacy is intertwined within Climate Action Network or CAN. For several multinational fora like the IPCC meetings, CAN is the officially accredited environmental group where it functions as the public’s eyes and ears during these closed-door meetings. 

Part of CAN’s role has been to flag governments who don’t participate wholeheartedly in climate negotiations. The trick is to approach them using different strategies – through media, lobbying with negotiators by always pushing for stronger action. 

South Asia is very vulnerable to climate change. Agriculture is still the primary means of income for many. There has been a focus on providing insurance to farmers where there have been droughts, increasing failure of crops & food price volatility. As and when agriculture fails, there are ripple effects like distress migration & poverty. Women, unfortunately, bear the brunt of this failure. There is enormous pressure on farmers to adapt to climate change.

'Climate activist' is a complicated word. Much before these words became part of the mainstream discourse, there were environmental defenders from areas like South America and Africa who have been the front line defenders of nature. Local communities are on the front line of climate activism in Dharini's opinion. 

Youth strikers like Greta Thunberg and school groups are organizing climate strikes using social media and it translates into feet on the ground. Dharini does feel that the real battle is ending fossil fuel production. Dismantling fossil fuel companies is extremely key in our fight against the climate crisis.

Social media allows people to tell their own stories without anyone mediating. People are telling their stories, using their language, in their way. This allows everyone to become a climate communicator which is the need of the hour. 

We had an exciting and hugely engaging podcast with Shailesh Vikram Singh, co-founder of Massive Mobility.

Shailesh is passionate about making an impact. He believes that sustainability & venture capital thinking go together. He thinks that the current sustainable/climate tech space is analogous to how the e-commerce industry was in 2006. The trajectory in India is going to be different from how this space has evolved in the US and China.

His company Massive is one of the first funds entering the climate change sector in India. For entrepreneurs to grow, building an ecosystem is necessary. His network, the Go Massive Earth Network is an excellent means to access resources like labs and scientists. 

Massive measures itself only by returns, since the impact is evident in just the space itself they've chosen. More controversially, he concludes that getting entrepreneurs to focus on "double bottom lines" just confuses them. Impact investing kills the supply of capital and innovation ends up in a chokehold. 

Shailesh sees a lot of potential in the mobility and waste management sector. The right opportunities exist and it's up to companies to harness them. His unconventional perspective on the role of policy is that "globally, innovation has always preceded policy, not the other way round".  Let's take the example of the Delhi elections. Air pollution is still not considered an electoral issue. The government simply doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with it. 

The classic mistake that he believes companies make is that they become activist in their approach; whilst a measured business-minded strategy is needed.