Climate Action for the Last Mile

Climate action and associated jargons are up and running again. The world has been pondering for a long time yielding a slow progress. We all have made major efforts in passing blames. What started on a continental and country level has boiled down to individual criticism. It's the high time that we take a pause for a course correction to find an implementable and inclusive action plan. 

How we break the problem plays a vital role in brainstorming the solution. The word ‘inclusiveness’ may hold a key to the impasse. We should ask ourselves if the current approach includes everyone in the process? Let me rephrase the question; What would you choose if it comes to ‘daily survival’ or climate change? The answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Our focus has been on the industries and developed cities for long. It is a practical yet incomplete solution. The cities have all the resources at disposal. They have the option to be responsible whereas the rural underprivileged population doesn’t have the luxury. So we have to take a feasible technical, social and economical solution to them. This is not an option anymore. We have to share the knowledge and resources with the marginalised population to ensure their right participation. But for that, we first need to understand the current situation. 

Rural population of the world is the caretaker of the fast declining natural resources
Source: World bank report
 

More than 50% of the citizens stay in rural areas in 62 countries of the world. The skew is very high in African countries and India too, is not legging behind. Roughly around 70% population lives in rural areas in India. Though the trend is on a decline, it will take many years to reverse it, and unfortunately time is not an asset at hand. An important fact is that this population is the caretaker of most of the natural resources like forests, rivers, glaciers and minerals. Another fact is that this population needs many reforms on basic facilities like energy, education, healthcare and employment, which means that the climate action is nowhere in the priority. So we have to make conscious efforts to include them in the economic development and eventually in the war against climate change. Here are many reasons behind the status quo.

Lack of Practical Solutions 

Since our core is electrification, here is an example from the field. Till a decade ago there were lacs of villages in India which didn’t have electricity access. It is a basic amenity and holds substantial political milage. The policymakers, with a good intent rushed to solve the issue. They installed poles and wires to in the dense jungles and high hills to reach out the villages. It took all the willpower to execute the projects. But a decade later, the situation is more or less same for the villagers. The festive season lasted just for days and most of the villagers have been living under dark. So what went wrong? The policy makers didn’t include the suggestions given by the field teams of respective electricity and rural departments. For an example, according to rural electricity standards, a 35 kV line should not exceed 35-40kms of distribution range, whereas in some of the tribal areas it expands to 160 kms. The recommendations on transformer and line capacity were also ignored resulting in incomplete solution. There are many villages where you see the lines without any connections.The other set of villages face frequent short circuits which takes days and months to repair. 

The story begins from here. In the absence of electricity, the villagers turn to medieval ways of light; firewood and kerosene oil, both of them with a higher carbon emission value. One household needs light for 5-8 hours per day. Imagine crores of them burning kerosene oil for their requirement, thats the scale of the problem. 
So what is the solution? Decentralised renewable energy is one option, but it has to be easy to maintain and install. Furthermore, many social innovations are needed to make it sustainable and long lasting. We need to create an infrastructure for both technology and human resource to complement each other. 

Many villages do not have electricity access despite of having infrastructure like poles and wires installed 

Political Myopia 

Because of the political leverage, there has been a rush to encash the situation. One of the byproduct of this race is ‘freebie mentality.’ The leaders waive off the pending bills of the population during the elections, resulting a heavy revenue loss to the electricity department. The department obviously isn’t left with a will power and determination to find innovative solution anymore. This is just the tip of iceberg, people knowing that they can get away with this, don’t pay the bills intentionally. They are fine with temporary discomfort of electricity supply cut. They know that some or the other leader will come to rescue and hence restore to temporary solutions of burning kerosene.
How do you motivate this group for taking action for betterment of their lives? The system has created a highly inactive individuals who do not want to contribute anything whatsoever. Imagine explaining the advantage of self-help groups, sustainability and climate action to them.

The Price of Inaction 

Inaction has consequences, and we need to evaluate them judiciously. What happens if we let the status quo to continue? The tribal villages in Madhya Pradesh for instance, not only use forest wood for self-consumption but also sell it illegally to contractors of nearby cities. You can easily spot such trade in the wee hours of the morning. Can you legally impose them not to do it? No, unless you find them an alternate for income generation. That’s where social innovation is needed. We need to find and create local employment opportunities to safeguard our combined interests. If not, then we will not be left with any forests. Passing the responsibility to the government has only brought us here. We need to act responsibly for the betterment of these areas.

Apples and Oranges 

One of the flawed approach is to compare urban and rural environmental issues. Waste management, for instance is a hot topic for such analysis. We are reluctant to establish waste segregation and treatment centers at remote locations for the lesser population. The cost to benefit analysis with the number of residents as input has produced wrong interpretations for such areas. 

Can we compare the plastic pollution of PenziLa pass with that of Mumbai’s Dharavi? The overlooked fact is that PenziLa doesn’t have waste pick up or cleaning services. The material dumped there will be preserved forever. Similarly, glaciers, origin places of river and jungles do not have adequate facilities to treat the waste. The best possible approach is to educate the natives on the hazardous impact of plastic pollution. But to achieve this, we have to create a robust alternative solution. The need of social development is relevant here as well, because nobody cares about the plastic pollution with a hungry stomach. Furthermore, we need to change the basic decision tools for such areas. ‘The number of residents’ can not be a sole criteria for setting up a waste management system, we need to include remoteness, exposure to natural resources and subsequent impact to the list.

High altitude areas have become waste dump yard in Himalayan region

Finding Simple and Feasible Solutions

The world needs simplicity now than ever. We tend to get lost under heavy words which do not yield any result. There are many easy approaches to ensure rural population’s participation into the climate action. A cooking solution for instance mitigates 10 tons of carbon in its lifespan. The solution is easy to implement and scale up. It not only improves in-house health conditions but also leads to reduction in deforestation for firewood. 

A solar micro-grid ranging from 1-1.5kW can eliminate 20Kgs of Co2 annually. A typical grid life is 15 years, which means it can eradicate 9 tons of CO2 for a small hamlet having 30 households. It is again a simple, easy to transport and implementable solution. 

With the fast emerging technologies, we are sure to find more convenient and robust solutions for the rural population. We just need to be good with imagination to select a technology which serves both the social and climate purpose. 

Offline Solar microgrids have been able to mitigate tons of carbon from the Himalayas

The challenge is severe and the approach has to be unprecedented. We have to join all the forces to expedite it. Not just the governments, the private sector and most importantly the people themselves have to innovate at every level. We need to work on the following elements simultaneously to ensure a holistic participation of the humans on this crisis. This is not crisis of a particular class and hence we need all the hands on deck.

1. We need to change the mindset from ‘freebie’ to ‘self-dependency’ at ground level. This will encourage people to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. Eventually they have to be aware and involved in the development process. The politics of creating ‘handicapped’ mass has to be discarded at all levels.

2. The social sector has to innovate immensely. We have to find ways to take development to these villages. Local administration, corporate teams and volunteers can pave a way for the same. 

3. The departments working at ground zero have to be involved in design phase.They have all the data and experience needed for the job. 

4. Based upon the recommendations, we need to design practical and implementable technical solution for the rural population. Social Enterprises, NGOs and Consultants have to play a strong role here.