NDTV | The New Climate Resilience Playbook

TRANSCRIPT:

Reporter: Viewers, we live in an age where global warming feels more personal than the next door Instagram story. Whether it’s the air of cities, whether it’s the scorching summers in Chennai, or the biting cold winter in Delhi, or the harsh monsoons in Mumbai, people feel it everywhere. But perhaps that’s not the starting point.

And I’m referring to a very interesting report that made me realise that there’s a lot more to do. And in fact, actions taken towards climate change will be inevitable. Maybe it is already inevitable.

I have with me Rohini Nilikani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilikani Philanthropies that helped formulate a thought provoking report that focusses on building community resilience in the face of climate change and disasters. Rohini, thanks so much for having this conversation with us. My first question to you would be and a very basic one, the report calls for the need of living in tandem with the new normal, which demands the new kind of thinking.

Rohini Nilikani: What is the new normal? And what is the new thinking? Thank you so much, Mallika. And for us, this report is very important because we’ve been working in the sector of environment and climate for a long time. And it was becoming very obvious that all these years we are saying climate change is coming.

But then you realise it’s already here. And there is plenty of data in this report to tell you that most of the districts of India are experiencing, almost 85% of them are experiencing forms of climate change related either weather patterns, changing floods, droughts, all those things on a regular basis. And that’s why we are calling it the new normal.

That this unfortunately is the new normal where you’re going to have to deal with unreliability all the time. There are going to be continuous shocks and one shock after the other. You hardly recover from one when another one is coming of extreme events.

And I really think we need to shift our mental model on this because we are very good in India at responding. When there’s a flood, we’ve become very much better in the last few years at responding, at preventing deaths, at pushing in more public funds for the recovery. But it’s not going to be enough.

So it needs a real mental reset. So that’s why we say we need new thinking for this new normal. And the report also illustrates many, many examples of that new thinking that are being experimented with by the Sarkar, of course, but also by Samaj entities, many civil society organisations, some of which we are so proud to support, which are enabling us to relook at this whole question of disaster from a community first lens, very much from a Samaj lens.

That’s the new thinking for me. Definitely. New old thinking.

New and needed thinking to fight climate change and also live with it. Rohini, one very important point I think the report makes, and you said that climate change is not just an event in many lives, right? It has become a periodic way of living for so many. In fact, quoting our statistics from yours, you said that 85% of districts in India tend to either face with one of the floods or cyclones or droughts on a regular basis.

And in fact, that frequency is so alarming that it is worrisome. What do you think communities have to do on the grassroots level, not just to fight or survive climate disasters, but also build a framework so that they can sustain the solution of it in the long term? This is the kind of brainstorming we’ve been convening for the last few years. And what we are seeing is the first thing I would say is we have to convey to communities that they have in them the agency to work for their own future, to secure themselves post disaster.

The state must step in to help. But instead of saying that the state will do something for you, they have to do something with the communities. So the communities have to be able to do it for themselves and pull in the required governmental or even, you know, bazaar resources for what they need.

And I think therefore, getting people to make their own community level plans, first of all, to understand what assets they have that might be at risk, both public assets and private assets. How do you then secure them? What happens? What are the roles and responsibilities when unfortunately something does happen like it could be a flood? And how do you then post that? You will get a lot of immediate government response post an event. But usually the real tragedy begins just a few days after that.

How do you put in place before a disaster, a kind of a scenario building an action plan, a place where everybody knows what they are going to do, what they have to do after something like that strikes. And then there are many innovations, both financial innovations and social innovations, which we are trying out. People are trying out to help communities respond, recover, and rehabilitate their communities and their livelihoods.

For example, I’ll just give you one example, Seeds, an organisation called Seeds has been developing these disaster wallets like Akshavi, where before any disaster happens, people get to authenticate the actual assets that they have, say it’s a house or a farm or a business. And suppose something happens and you lose those assets, which happens very routinely. Government can’t completely reimburse.

But the process of, because it is already pre-authorised and authenticated, the way in which you can get back some compensation for that is quicker, faster, smoother, and more just and equitable. So that’s something that is truly useful. There are many other things that are being done is, first of all, to get communities to understand their own vulnerabilities, their geographical vulnerabilities, the vulnerabilities in the face of whether you’re in the climate change pathway because of too much heat or whatever it is.

Reporter: So do you think education is lacking there? Education? I think awareness, when we say education, we think of schools and colleges, there it has to happen. But I think we need new forms of storytelling, Malika. Where’s Bollywood? We need Bollywood.

Rohini Nilikani: We need books. We need, I mean, you young people have many forms of communication through social media. Lots is happening.

But I think what needs to happen more often is where people don’t feel helpless, helpless, hopeless, where they feel like we can do something together. So I have a question for you that made me think about it and contemplate over it for a very long time. In fact, when I was noting down questions, number one, firstly, I also read in your introduction to this report, you said that some disaster affected households, recovery, they take about 19 years to recover from economic losses as a part of this repercussion that happens to them because of climatic disasters.

So that is extremely, I think, nerve wracking in a way where families are taking more than about two decades to recover from economic losses. So how does one prevent that? And second, you’ve spoken about the role of the government in all this and steps have been taken. Initiatives, as you said, have been taken in the past couple of years.

But what incentive can be practically given to the private community, the private funders to help and catalyse this process altogether? Because I think climate change is at that given point in time where it needs not just the government’s attention, but as you said, grassroots level attention as well as private funders also to come in as and as your report highlights the bazaar to come in. So what do you think is going to incentivise that move? When you say private funders, do you mean like philanthropy? Philanthropy, or even private institutions to take it up in some form or the other. I know CSR activities exist, but how can it be increased? I think CSR has certain restrictions of what they can do.

Certainly, they can come in quickly for post-disaster response. There are houses to be rebuilt, there are materials to be given. There is mental health relief to be organised.

There are many silent things that are happening where CSR can step in. But I think there is a bigger role for private philanthropy to play, which is much more unrestricted in that sense and private people are free to give to whatever. I would say that this is a really call to action for private philanthropy to step in and look at how we can make communities much more self-reliant in the face of disasters.

One thing I’ll tell you which makes me sad is talking to a few agencies like Goonj, etc., which go in after disaster and help people. They do that by making sure that those people’s agency and dignity is not trampled upon. They don’t just become recipients of somebody’s largest donation, but they become partners in rebuilding their own communities.

So they were telling me that, off late in the last few years, that people like us who sit in urban India and are relatively secure, somehow we have lost our empathy because there are so many disasters happening all the time and there is so much call for, give me money, I want to give food, clothing, shelter, blankets, whatever, that the kind of response we used to get five to seven years ago from the people of India, for the other people of India who are suffering, that empathy and sympathy has dropped. And I don’t want to use this interview to say, no, no, we need that empathy and sympathy more than ever because people are now, earlier a disaster would happen and people would crawl back, but they would become alright, and then much later something else would happen. Now it’s happening before they can, they’re still crawling, they haven’t stood up and something else is hitting them.

What is a practical step for us to take, for people like us in urban cities? So when calls for help come, okay, do, even if you do very little, every little bit count for somebody there in Assam, somebody there in Bihar, somebody there maybe even in Kerala or wherever these things are happening, all along India’s hinterland and our coastline. So I just want to say, sympathy and empathy is what makes us human. Let’s not forget that it’s continuously needed.

Today I think middle-class families spend 5000 rupees on a pizza night. Ek night ka toh rakho, every time. Because that’s what connects us to our interconnected future.

I took you slightly off track, but I did want to say this message, ki ye, this is really a question of our humanity. So more than ever, Indians need to reach out when they need to help other Indians. So let’s not drop that empathy which we’ve always had for all these years.

I can understand why people are fatigued, but this is not the time for fatigue. It’s time to take action. We have to keep that chord going.

Reporter: Rohini, I think I’m going to take this opportunity and also ask you, for youngsters especially who are at the forefront of building decisions, influencing decisions rather, what steps can they take to contribute to climate change and building communities that can fight through resilience, as the report also highlights? Because we know that we can go and perhaps donate. But what’s the first step that we should take as youngsters? I think when it comes, you know, we think that all these things happen only in villages and remote parts of India. It’s absolutely not true.

Rohini Nilikani: It happens right here where we are sitting in Mumbai. It happens in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Jaipur, everywhere. So first thing I would say to young people is, first, understand.

Because unfortunately, my generation and the generations of these last 300 years, somewhat unknowingly, but sadly, have left young people like you and even younger people like my grandson, very vulnerable to climate change and what’s happening to this planet. First, become aware of what we ourselves are doing and why. And second thing I would say, be part of anything in your neighbourhood.

It could be a waste cleanup drive. It could be a collection for something. I’ll tell you why, because that is how you build the samaj muscle, the societal capacity to come together for collective action.

So for young people, do things. Become aware of what’s really happening. Look at the science.

Look at the history. Look at the technological innovation that’s also coming. So there’s a lot of hope also.

Get in touch with those things first. And secondly, get out of your screens, if you can, just for a little while, and get involved with some neighbourhood activity. Because when something like a disaster comes, and it will come unfortunately, then you will have the muscle that can kick in when you need to all work together and play a role when something bad happens.

I hope it doesn’t happen in your communities. But if it does, this is the time to think that all of us have a role to play. Definitely.

Reporter: Baby steps, for sure. Rohini, another question that comes to the mind, especially if you think about climate change in the context of India’s geography, we’re a very diverse country with very geographical challenges, as you said. And communities need to be aware of their own geographical vulnerabilities.

How do you think policies made in this direction can be customised or can actually suit the geographical needs of different regions, at the same time, fight resilience in the long term for the coming decade or so?

Rohini Nilikani: That’s a good question, because your response has to be very contextual to your region. So CEW, for example, has had map India’s vulnerabilities and climate risk. This climate risk atlas has now been combined with looking at what’s happening with, say, heat.

And using those maps to create heat action plans at the local level. So the heat action plan required in Bangalore may be completely different from the heat action plan required in the Himalayas, for example. So contextual responses have to be planned based on your geographical location, your eco zones, etc.

So I completely agree with you that knowing that, knowing your specific risk, two very big risks in India, the whole Himalayan belt, our glaciers are melting and at least 500 million people will be immediately affected as that is happening. And then our coastal line, we have one of the longest coastlines of countries in the world. And that’s very, very vulnerable to warming seas.

People will have to start thinking or moving inland. How are we going to protect our coastlines from erosion? These are very context specific responses. So communities need to understand and need to get involved to respond in a very contextual and diverse manner.

And that’s why there are many heat action plans, disaster management plans being put in place. Samaj has to participate more. Okay, Samaj has to.

Reporter: I’m going to wrap this interview on that note, that Samaj needs to participate more and the young generation… And philanthropists need to come in boldly, quickly, generously, open the head, the heart and the pocket. The head, heart and the pocket. Thank you so much, Rohini, for having this conversation with us.

And viewers, today, climate change is more ubiquitous than we may realise. And therefore, as Rohini highlighted, it’s important for us to participate in our own capacities whenever, wherever possible. That’s all the time we have.

Stay tuned.