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20 Oct 2023 : The Hindu Editorial

Editorial 1 : The shape of climate justice in a warming India

Context:

  • The G20 summit that was held in Delhi in 2023 agreed on tripling renewable energy capacity and a voluntary doubling of the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030. However, this Delhi Declaration on the climate question did not find consensus on the most contentious issue, which is the root cause of the climate crisis — of the phasing out of fossil fuels.
     

Energy transition:

  • Often, those who contribute to climate change are not the ones who are affected by it. Therefore, any mitigation effort must invert this carbon injustice by making the richer countries or richer classes within a country pay for the energy transition. While these two principles are articulated at the international level, how such policies and politics affect the domestic front do not get debated.

 

Indian position:

  • India’s stance on the matter has largely been framed through the lens of foreign policy and its approach to common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in international negotiations, which allows developing countries in the global south to prioritise economic growth and development over climate mitigation.
  • Given the country’s historically lower emissions, focusing on economic growth has naturally taken precedence over climate concerns. Such an approach evades concerns of climate justice within India, particularly its effect on inequality across levels class, caste and region.

 

Inequality matrix

  • It is now well documented across the world that climate change and energy transition disproportionately affect the poor. The climate induced problems and droughts have compounded the agrarian crisis and allied economic activities.
  • Variations in rainfall, temperature and extreme climate events directly impact agricultural productivity, compounding farmers’ income loss. Rising temperature in the ocean ecosystem has already begun squeezing fish stocks in parts of the country, hurting fishing communities.
  • While the relationship between inequality and carbon emissions is complex, it is clear that addressing both environmental and socioeconomic inequalities simultaneously is essential for sustainable and equitable development.
  • It is now evident that less equitable societies tend to have higher emission outputs per unit of economic activity. Given its highly unequal economic structure, India is falling in that trap.
  • Global experience suggests that societal responses which are necessary to address climate change (such as public action and state capacity), are impeded in more unequal settings. The cost of carbon emissions, in terms of societal impact, becomes significantly higher in such contexts.
  • Recognising and mitigating the barriers that these inequality matrices pose to effective climate action is a critical step toward a more sustainable and just future.

 

Greening development

  • If climate change compounds existing inequalities, India’s energy transition policies, though crucial, will affect the livelihoods of the poor and exacerbate existing class, caste, and regional disparities.
  • India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) aim to ensure that 40% of the total installed power generation capacity is clean energy. The country has pledged to achieve netzero emissions by 2070. Such an ambitious target necessitates careful study of its implications.

 

Transitioning to renewables

  • While renewable energy adoption is crucial, this shift should not exacerbate existing disparities. For instance, regions that are heavily reliant on coal production face a unique set of challenges. These regions often struggle with pollution, poverty, and low quality employment.
  • It requires a deliberate focus on protecting livelihoods, offering alternative job opportunities, and ensuring that vulnerable communities are not adversely impacted. The emphasis in the Paris Agreement (2015) is: “taking into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs per nationally defined development priorities'‘.
  • The skill sets required and the jobs generated per unit of output in renewable vastly differ from fossil fuel industries. Many fossil fuel firms are in the public sector and act as a critical avenue for creating job opportunities for Dalits and the lower castes in India.
  • A shift to renewable energy can potentially halt this generational mobility achieved by these disadvantaged groups. To ensure an equitable and sustainable transition, strategies must target inequality reduction and green investment simultaneously.

 

Greening federalism

  • Similarly, regions heavily reliant on coal production may lose revenues and livelihoods. This regional divide in economic inequality correlates with the energy source divide in India.
  • Coal, the cheapest source of energy, is located in the poorer regions in eastern and central India while renewable energy hubs, powered by wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) technologies, are located in the relatively wealthy southern and western India.
  • Despite the pollution it causes, the coal sector, owned by the public sector miners (85%), is the main source of revenue via taxes, royalties, and mining fees and employment for the State governments in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
  • India’s energy transition strategy must pay attention to these regional inequalities, transfer funds to States dependent on coal, and carve out State Specific programmes for reskilling development and local rehabilitation needs.

 

A federal deal

  • India’s federal governance structure implies that subnational governments play a significant role in addressing climate concerns. However, their priorities can differ significantly from those of the Union government. Examining subnational responses reveals how State entities are vital in tackling the challenge of climate inequality mitigation.
  • State governments have been found to implement policies, including those related to climate justice, climate adaptation, and disaster management laid out by the Union government, that are often at odds with the development aspirations of the States.

 

Conclusion:

We must delve into the intricate interactions between fiscal federalism and climate mitigation to understand how policy alignment and cooperation can be achieved across the levels of government.

Editorial 2 : An opportunity to recast India’s food system

Context:

Earlier this week, we celebrated World Food Day (October 16), but we rarely look at food as a system. No country can better understand the challenges of a food system than India, which feeds the largest population in the world.

 

The interconnectedness of nutrition security

  • While the primary goal of a food system is to ensure nutrition security for all, it can only be achieved sustainably if the producers producing the food make reasonable economic returns that are resilient over time.
  • This resilience, in turn, is intricately linked with the resilience of our natural ecosystem because the largest inputs to agriculture — soil, water and climatic conditions — are all but natural resources.
  • Appreciating this interconnectedness of nutrition security with livelihood and environmental security is essential to making our food system truly sustainable.

 

Nutrition, livelihoods, environment security

  • On the nutrition front, India faces a double burden of malnutrition. At one end, despite making great progress over the years, a sizable proportion of Indians exhibit nutrient deficiencies.
  • As in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019-21, 35% of children are stunted, and 57% of women and 25% of men are anaemic. At the other end, due to imbalanced diets and sedentary lifestyles, 24% of adult women and 23% of adult men are now obese.
  • India has been stepping up efforts to reduce malnutrition, which has included even the Prime Minister calling for a mass movement to eradicate it. On the production side, farm incomes are insufficient to meet the ends of marginal and small farmers.
  • The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and other forms of casual labour are picking up the slack, indicating a lack of skills or opportunities for income diversification.
  • Further, depleting natural resources and changing climate are making India’s food production highly vulnerable. As in the 2023 soil health survey, almost half the cultivable land in India has become deficient in organic carbon, which is an essential indicator of soil health.
  • Groundwater, the largest source of irrigation, is rapidly declining. In States such as Punjab, more than 75% of the groundwater assessment locations are overexploited, threatening the resilience of farm incomes.

 

Way forward: Adopt a three sided approach

  • To solve these interconnected challenges, we need a triad approach that engages all three sides of the food system: consumers, producers, and middlemen.
  • First, consumer demand needs to be shifted towards healthy and sustainable diets. We need to shift to a food plate that is healthier for people and the planet. The private sector drives the aspirational consumption patterns for India’s billion plus population.
  • What corporations have done to mainstream imported oats or quinoa in India, can be done for locally grown millets. Civil society and the health community could partner with social media influencers who can shape healthier and sustainable consumption for millions.
  • Alongside, the public sector, through its innumerable touch points such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), midday meals (MDM), railways catering, urban canteens, and public and institutional procurement, can help improve what at least 70% of Indians are consuming.
  • Second, to ensure resilient incomes, we must support farmers’ transition towards remunerative and regenerative agricultural practices. The National Mission on Natural Farming is a step in this direction, but the overall funding for sustainable agriculture is less than 1% of the agricultural budget.

  • We need to broaden and scale up such initiatives to various agroecological practices such as agroforestry, conservation agriculture, precision farming, and much more.
  • Further, agriculture support should move from input subsidies to direct cash support to farmers per hectare of cultivation. It would promote efficient use of inputs, while enabling a level playing field for agroecological practices to thrive.
  • Agricultural research and extension services should also earmark a proportion of their respective budgets to focus on sustainable agricultural practices.
  • Third, shift farm to fork value chains towards more sustainable and inclusive ones. A critical approach to enhance rural (farm) incomes is to enable more value addition of agricultural produce in rural areas.
  • Middlemen, such as corporations supplying raw and processed food to consumers, should prioritise direct procurement from farmers, incentivise procurement of sustainably harvested produce, and implement well established approaches such as fair trade.
  • Various young agritech enterprises such as DeHaat and Ninjacart are enabling such farmtobuyer linkages. Moreover, since all farmer families in a farmer producer organisation (FPO) are consumers of other farming goods, enabling trading of produce between FPOs is another way to ensure a greater value share for farmers, as showcased by a few FPOs in Odisha.

 

Conclusion:

  • Shifting an entire food system, however, is no mean feat. But the scale of the challenge must not deter our ambitions. If we act fast, India has a unique opportunity to showcase to the rest of the world how to get its food system right.