“If India marshals its resources, if it convenes itself as the leader in climate change and shows the world what Indian talent and genius can do, which is evident in every sphere of endeavour all across the planet, then you have a bright future ahead.” – Satya Das
“Use the soldiers, the military engineers, the electronics and electrical engineers to actually build the hard infrastructure of climate change that will be needed for resilience.” – Satya Das
“A lot is happening on the government’s perception of the need for climate change, but we as citizens and members of the community have an important role to play.” – Dr Ramkumar Rudrabhatia
“We must conserve the three E’s – Energy, Ecology, and Environment. And we must eliminate the three C’s – Crude Oil, Consumerism and Corruption.” – Kapil Kaul
“A tax of no more than 50 or 60 cents per barrel of oil would raise more than $250 billion annually (for climate finance).” – Satya Das, referring to the Paris Agreement target of $100 Billion.
Summary
- Disarmament, Dignity, Development, Digitization, Decentralization and Decarbonization can help with climate control.
- We must conserve the three E’s – Energy, Ecology, the Environment, and eliminate the three C’s – Crude Oil, Consumerism and Corruption for climate control.
- A modest production tax of 50 or 60 cents per barrel of oil would raise more than $250 billion annually and would exceed the Paris Agreement target of $100 billion per year to fund inclusive climate resilience across the world.
- Controlled environment agriculture can be built in the most remote areas, growing fruit and vegetable crops using advanced aeroponic systems which are better than hydroponic because you use much less water and have a greater canopy yield.
- The government of India and the Industry is thinking on the right lines – green energy, blue energy, etc., but every citizen needs to pitch in for climate control.
- The pandemic has been an eye-opener when all economies shut down and we could see clear blue skies and very little pollution.
- The government, administration, and judiciary need to control the abuse of nature.
- Mining is depleting resources at an alarming rate with primitive Indian construction technology still using riverbed sand to construct the walls of every building.
- Digital tokenization of energy could lead to optimum production and usage from the ground level up.
- Drone technology could reduce pollution since it does not use crude oil and reduce delivery time for products.
- We need to rediscover our ancient roots where we were one with nature using clay cups for tea, jute bags for carrying things, and even banana leaves for plates.
In the light of this urgency and complexity, and the challenges we face, I recently invited esteemed guests who are knowledge leaders on the topic to speak about the issue – Head of the Centre of Excellence on human-centred digital economy and Digital Economist Satya Das; National President of Indo American Chamber of Commerce, ICC, Mr Kapil Kaul; and my co-host and panellist, Dr Ramkumar Rudrabhatia, who is President of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Chapter of ICC, and they gave us some deep insights into the topic.
Satya Das preferred the words ‘climate resilience’ instead of ‘climate control’. “At the Digital Economist, we have developed the six D’s approach to this,” he revealed. “The first three D’s are Disarmament, Dignity and Development. By Disarmament, we’re saying shift the resources away from new R&D on weapons and use the military for civil defence. Use the soldiers, the military engineers, the electronics and electrical engineers to actually build the hard infrastructure of climate change that will be needed for resilience. If India marshals its resources, if it convenes itself as the leader in climate change and shows the world what Indian talent and genius can do, which is evident in every sphere of endeavour all across the planet, then you have a bright future ahead.”
Dr Ramkumar Rudrabhatia, agreeing with Satya Das on the words climate resilience, added his perspective. “Let’s add another dimension to it – the perception of advanced countries to climate change and the perception of emerging countries like India, China and a few other countries,” he said. “There seems to be a gap in the very definition of this particular issue, which is confronting the world. When we are talking about pollution control, of course, all the five natural elements are getting contaminated. So where do we begin? It’s not just the policy that matters, but even at the micro-level, each one of us will have to really apply ourselves to that. It’s the first time the government of India thought it appropriate to look at a whole range of things like alternate energy, green energy, the Swachh Bharat campaign, and alternate means of fuel. I think a lot is happening on the government’s perception of the need for climate change, but we as citizens and members of the community have an important role to play.”
Climate control is also a passionate subject for Kapil Kaul, who added, “We have quantum computing power today to assist us… for addressing climate issues. We must conserve the three E’s – Energy, Ecology, the Environment. And we must eliminate the three C’s – Crude Oil, Consumerism and Corruption.”
Referring to Kapil Kaul’s comments on computing, Dr Satya took the opportunity to continue his point on the rest of the six D’s he mentioned earlier – Digitization, Decentralization and Decarbonization. “Digitalization is the application of emerging technology. Decentralisation means that everything has to be at the local level, at the panchayat level, at the BDO level. It can be a national policy, but it has to be enacted in a decentralised way. And then all of that lays the foundation for Decarbonization, which is what you bring up when you’re talking about vanishing crude oil. So between the three C’s that we must avoid, the six D’s are part of the solution and your three E’s are the outcome we all want to achieve.”
Talking about Decarbonisation, I asked Satya Das about his paper which spoke about a proposal for a global carbon levy on fossil resources. How exactly would India benefit from it? “Almost all carbon taxation is aimed at the consumer,” Dr Satya answered. “Why are you penalised for the reality of the world? You have massive oil producers selling recklessly. A modest production tax on them would in fact exceed the Paris Agreement target of $100 billion per year to fund inclusive climate resilience across the world. A tax of no more than 50 or 60 cents per barrel of oil would raise more than $250 billion annually. The extreme weather conditions globally (due to climate change) and in India are threatening agriculture. We can look at controlled environment agriculture, which may be fruit and vegetable crops – advanced aeroponic systems are better than hydroponic because you use much less water and have a greater canopy yield, and can be built in the most remote areas. You could actually have fresh vegetables growing in the Rajasthan desert if it’s done indoors. And how is it going to be powered? In the Rajasthan desert use photovoltaic energy, use alien energy, which is solar and wind. It’s about strong sustainability – it’s not just enough to strive for sustainability, it’s how can we maintain sustainability and maintain the momentum. And India, like it or not, with more than a fifth of the global population, is going to be the proving ground. Unlike China, India is well plugged into the international community. You have the English language, you have all the connections you need, you have the population and you have the problem. So it’s not just a matter of India benefitting, it’s a matter of India taking leadership.”
Kapil Kaul pointed out, “The world by and large, and India in particular, only works on shock therapy. The pandemic is actually one such classic case where for the first time in the history of civilization the world had actually come to a stop. And all the economic chains had just completely stopped. And what did we see? We saw blue skies. It took just about three weeks for foxes, deer, peacocks to come into urban areas without being invited. We must take action, but it seems the action has to be by shock. The government of India and Narendra Modi and the current dispensation, including industry, is thinking of green energy, blue energy, etc. We’ve just got to stop crude. That’s it. Once you stop crude, the whole cycle reverses.”
Agreeing with Mr Kapil, Dr Ramkumar spoke about preserving nature. “In India, let’s look at some of the areas in which a very tangible contribution can be made to preserve nature. One of them is that you have to control sand mining because construction technology in India is primitive and still uses river bed sand to construct the walls of every building. The government, administration and judiciary can control this kind of abuse of nature.”
Taking the conversation further, I commented that India is obviously predestined to be the major solar power producer and is in fact already exporting solar-generated electricity. Mukesh Ambani recently said that India could export $500 billion of clean energy. My question to the panel was – Which energy generation and storage technologies should our country focus on?
Satya Das answered, “We need reliable renewables. To make renewables reliable, you need storage systems that are mass scale and convenient. But in India, with the population distribution and the development distribution, you can have microgrids for a cluster of nearby villages – then you’re not relying on a national power grid. This is where digitalization comes in because you can make the value of that generated power into a token which enables them to trade that energy to feed it into the grid. Energy exports can’t be physical exports of electricity unless you build large grids. Are you seriously going to build a grid of Pakistan? So microgrids and energy trading is the way. As for storage systems, there are many different developments going on. I would say pick the three most promising technologies and go forward with those.”
Kapil Kaul recommended the use of drone technology. “I’m passionate about drone technology. I am talking to the US and others to partner in bringing in drone logistics. First pollution comes in when you’re building roads. You need concrete, you need cement or you need bitumen production that is polluting. The transport of that is polluting. The laying of that is polluting. The use of that is polluting. But highways are the arteries of an economy and they have to be used. You can supplant that with drones that carry one ton or two tons… it’s just a matter of time with R&D and computing power. Invest in drones which don’t use crude oil as it cuts down the speed of delivery, and while the average speed of a truck is 40 or 50 km/hour, the drone will travel at upto 100 km/hour.”
Waste is another area where a lot of negative effects would be rectified by changing behaviour. If we were to manage waste in a way that avoids landfill through separation and recycling while reducing consumption by reusing products, we could significantly reduce the impact of waste, I pointed out. Satya Das commented on this saying, “The whole zero waste economy will happen when people understand that you’re literally burying money in the ground when you’re putting waste into landfills. It’s like taking crores of rupees, digging a hole and throwing it in there and covering it up. We’re talking about something that can be used and reused. We used to use clay cups for tea, jute gunny bags for carrying things in the earlier days in India and even plates made from leaves, or banana leaves. We have to learn the old ways. In India, you have this whole profession in urban areas of people who actually sort through rubbish heaps and landfills to find recyclable materials. Formalise that, organise that and bring in the technologies like the ones that turn plastic into fuel that make biofuels out of other wastes, make biogas out of organic waste. It’s really a matter of India rediscovering the roots of sustainability.”
Kapil Kaul added, “Stop the kind of consumerism that we have, which is wasteful.” Giving tomato ketchup production as an example, he added, “The humble tomato needs so much water to grow, so much oxygen to grow, and then it is taken by people, logistically sent to a factory, converted into tomato ketchup, which is again polluting, using all kinds of energy, etc., and more water. Then you package it so you add new pollutants in packaging, and then it is shipped, again into a polluting mall where you get one free offer and you end up getting two or three kilos of different kinds of sauces. They line your home for a month and then suddenly it has become old so you dump it. You’re taking pure oxygen, fresh water, converting it into pollution and dumping it in the oceans right now. We’ve got to stop this consumption first. And we are using crude oil for that purpose in every way.”
All the stakeholders need to get involved to achieve real progress in confronting climate change, I commented. At the last Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, many of the statements and proposals coming from the corporate world were stronger than those from the public sector. That I think is an indication and a signal that corporate citizenship is taking responsibility for the climate regardless of government regulations, but large multinationals are like big ships that need a lot of time to change course, while smaller companies and especially startups can act like speed boats and pivot swiftly.
When I asked the panel about their views on the role of large and small enterprises in effecting these changes, Dr Satya Das said, “The corporate community has now come to see climate change as an economic opportunity in building resilience and is going through an energy transition. There’s actually significant money to be made. Lots of central banks are divesting from fossil fuels and will no longer fund them. In the next decade alone $50 trillion of wealth can be generated through energy transition and climate shift. So all of the capital is pouring into that. The large transnational energy companies, even though it may be greenwashing for the moment, are no longer calling themselves fossil fuel companies. They’re calling themselves multi-platform energy companies, which means they’re embracing all of the above. Everyone has to come together. Citizens, corporates, NGOs, civil society. Government will never lead on its own. It will follow trends that citizens and movements and capital have begun. So what really emerged from COP26 in Glasgow and will probably be reinforced at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, which is coming up only eight-nine months from now, is that citizens, civil society and private sector private capital are already forming an awkward kind of alliance. That alliance will become more robust because I think that the activists have great ideas. Capital needs to fund it, and you can do this despite governments, not because of governments.”
As a closing statement on the discussion, Satya Das commented, “The realisation has to come that it’s not a climate change, it’s a climate crisis. So when it comes to water, how do you harvest rainwater and capture it instead of letting it run away? How do you make optimum use of the water resource instead of trying to remediate depleted soils? Why not move straight to controlled environment agriculture in places that have arsenic poisoning? Climate resilience has to come from a shift of attitudes, shift of resources, decarbonization on a massive scale and accelerating the energy transition into a compressed timeline. And if in the process, it takes away the absolute wealth and dominance or monopoly of the oil producers in the Middle East and West Asia, that’s a bonus to me.”
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