We stand at a cross-roads. Unsustainable growth is driving us towards climate catastrophe, while inequitable growth is fuelling increased poverty, increased marginalisation and increased anger. Our learning in India is that growth that is not affordable or, in other words, equitable, cannot be sustainable.
Consider air pollution. Delhi has become synonymous with toxic air. This is not for want of action. All coal plants have been shut; pet coke import (incidentally which the US exports because it is too toxic for local use) has been banned; and we are moving towards the cleanest fuels and vehicle technologies. But it is not good enough. Each winter, pollution returns with a vengeance. My colleagues estimate that air pollution in Delhi has fallen by 25 per cent over the past three years, as compared to the previous three; but levels still need to decline by 65 per cent to get what you can call, clean air. And this is when air pollution is a great equaliser. It does not differentiate between the rich and the poor; between the rural and urban populations. This is different from water pollution, where the rich can turn to bottled water. The middle-classes of the city may buy air purifiers, but they still breathe in the same airshed that contains toxins from the cars of the rich as well as the biomass-based stoves of the poor.
This is where the question of what we do next, becomes critical. We can continue to do what the rest of the world has done to combat pollution from each vehicle: improve the quality of fuel and even consider moving to electric vehicles. But these incremental actions would keep us spending and keep us behind the pollution crisis. The reason is simple: today, less than 20 per cent of my city drive in cars to work; roughly 25 per cent own cars. But these 25 per cent vehicle owners take 90 per cent of the road space. The question is, if the demand of just 20 per cent leads to huge congestion and pollution, where and how can the city find the road and air space for all?
This is where the environmentalism of the poor kicks in. Adding a few buses or trams or metros won’t work; we need to transform mobility so that it works both for the rich and the poor. This will mean combining affordability and convenience and safety.
Transformative action is also needed in case of energy. Today, many households in my world still use biomass to cook food. Women are exposed to toxic air pollutants. The problem is this pollution, which is killing poor people, is also contaminating the airshed of the rich and those owning SUVs. So, if we want clean air, we will first have to get the rich out of their polluting vehicles, but we will also have to ensure that the poor women get options to move out of dirty fuels. The opportunity is enormous. If we reinvent for transformative action, we can provide them viable, affordable options to leapfrog—from non-fossil dirty fuels, not to fossil, but to non-fossil clean fuels. This is where the world needs leadership so that finance for the energy transition is concessional and provides the opportunity to scale up the system for the poorest in the world.
The challenge of climate change reflects a similar tension. In 1990, my colleague Anil Agarwal and I argued in our publication Global Warming in an Unequal World that the world could not combat climate change without a fair and equitable agreement. Today, the same issue is on the table. If solutions cannot meet the needs of all—are equitable—they will not work.
Events in our world are spiraling out of control. Every year, we are told, is the hottest on record until the next year arrives and breaks that record. It is getting worse: from forest fires, to increasing frequency and intensity of storms, to blistering cold waves and scorching heat. The most inconvenient truth is that at current rates of emissions, the world will run out of the carbon budget—how much it can emit to keep temperature rise below 1.5°C—by 2030. Vast numbers of people still do not have access to basic energy; they need to grow and need energy for development. This is why we need cooperation so that future development can be low carbon for all.
It is clear that increasing numbers of disasters will make the poor, poorer. Their impoverishment and marginalisation will add to their desperation to seek alternative livelihoods. Their only choice will be to migrate—move to the city; move to another country. This will add to the already volatile situation, making our world insecure and violent. This is the cycle of destructive change that we must fight. Our globalised world is inter-connected and inter-dependent, we must recognise this. Sustainable development is not possible if it is not equitable. Growth has to be affordable and inclusive for it to be sustainable. But all this will not happen unless we articulate that the environmental challenge is not technocratic but political. We cannot neuter politics of access, justice and rights and hope to fix environment or indeed development.