Environmental politics: Towards just, sustainable recovery from COVID-19

By Simi Mehta*
The COVID-19 Pandemic has highlighted the opportunity to maximize the impact of national and global energy policies while reducing air pollution and greenhouse emissions. The importance of the real-world package to drive energy transitions has never been felt so urgently as now. Opportunities for making amends to the past gaps remain at the disposal of the nation states. Domestic constituencies and compulsions remain at the core of all environmental politics and energy policy.
With that in mind, Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi conducted a Special Lecture on “Environmental Politics and Energy Policy: A Just and Sustainable Recovery from COVID-19". The IMPRI Center for Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development (ECCSD) hosted Prof Johannes Urpelainen, Director and Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment, and Founding Director, Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP), Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, USA as the speakers for the talk. Dr. Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan, Associate Professor, Institute of Rural Management, Anand were the discussants.
The first observation was the timing of the pandemic when we were going through a public health crisis and witnessing increased problems with climate change. Concern and awareness of climate change reached an all-time high just before COIVD-19 in early 2020 with the Youth Climate Movement and governments.

Economic Recovery Post-COVID-19

The second observation was the impact on the economy and people’s changed lifestyle. A feature of the COIVD-19 recovery is the K-shaped recovery, where some parts of the economy are doing better than ever like some mega companies- Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. The other parts of the economy, where many people are working, have suffered. Globally, this is a misleading picture because in most countries you do not have many companies like that. As a result, in most countries, the economic damage is far more significant, which includes countries like India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.
Research on the COVID-19 economic stimulus policies in the group of the largest twenty economies shows the structure of depending on policies if it increased or reduced emissions and their spendings during the time period.

The Role of Public Transportation

Dr. Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan focused on the idea of transportation and building a system that is meant for the public and not for cars, where one thinks that one’s car is a liability, not an asset. He further quoted Enrique Penalosa, “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport”.
The efficiency was expected to lead to an inverted U, but what happened globally is a straight U because of many reasons, be it lack of availability and access of choices or consuming goods as status symbols. Lack of availability of decent public spaces and transportation forces even the conscious ones to opt for personal means.
He believes we need some fundamental change in terms of national decisions as far as India is concerned. Furthermore, we need to learn from European countries about renewable energy and other sustainable incentives.

Question and Answer

One question asked was that “The path dependence is organizational and infrastructural within energy transition debates. Do you think that the economic impacts of COVID-19, especially for developing countries like India is likely to downrate its climate ambitions, increase its dependence on carbon-intensive energy sources and kick the global energy transitions further down the road?”
He replied that path dependency is very important. The debuilding of fossil fuels is happening in both spheres. Ten years ago, it was a complete niche conversation but today it is mainstream. The path dependency has led to more progress.
Replying to the next question by another viewer about limiting the economic activities as COVID-19 affected during the tenure, which led to less carbon emission, he believes it is not going to be the permanent solution because it slightly declined the charts. We need to go to the decarbonized way rather than shrinking the economy to zero.
Dr. Nathan pointed to the governmental failure towards the decentralized establishments working in this direction rather than attracted to large scale plants which probably has some investment in stakeholder. The way forward is to empower the local decentralized bodies in the field which play crucial roles at the ground, smaller level for sustainable development.
—
*Inputs: Anshula Mehta, Ritika Gupta, Ishika Chowdhary. Acknowledgment: Annu, Research Intern at IMPRI

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Weaponizing faith? 'I Love Muhammad' and the politics of manufactured riots

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* A disturbing new pattern of communal violence has emerged in several north Indian cities: attacks on Muslims during the “I Love Muhammad” processions held to mark Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. This adds to the grim catalogue of Modi-era violence against Muslims, alongside cow vigilantism, so-called “love jihad” campaigns, attacks for not chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” and assaults during religious festivals.

Counterview

Search This Blog