It is 1964. Delhi is a collage of villages, fields, the rocky Aravalli ridge, and upcoming urban habitation. Summers are scorching; evenings promise relief. Come sundown, buckets of water are sprinkled on brick terraces.Charpoys of bamboo and soft jute cord stored in the stairwell are laid out.Thick home-spun cotton mattresses ensure the jute cords do not sting, while home-spun cotton blankets protect from mosquitoes and the cool breeze at dawn.Tired eyes stare at the bright sky with billions of stars and the moon;silently, sleep would take over. Chirping birds and the cold morning breeze gently nudge to wake.

Come monsoons, all eyes would be on the sky. Clouds would gather, loiter around, and disperse. One day, the heavens would break open with sheaths of water. Barefooted, bedraggled, naked children would come out shrieking with joy. Bathing in the showers, rolling in the mud, digging canals and lakes of water, launching paper boats, and, for the lucky few, munching fried savories with hot tea. There would be a chorus of chirping crickets and rainfall—no more sleeping on the terrace. As evening fell, thousands of male frogs would start singing their mating call in unison. Puddles of water and drains would teem with tadpoles in a few days. Children would scoop them up in bottles.  A week more and a deluge of tiny frogs would cover the landscape. Frogs would leap at the mosquitos and other insects, snakes would swallow the frogs, mongoose would feast on the snakes,and wild jackals from the Delhi ridge would prey on the mongoose. All haved isappeared.

As winter arrives, the Delhi ridge, wild gardens, and fields extending from the Delhi University Campus to the ruins of Mehrauli burst into a riot of color—red, violet, blue, saffron, and yellow. The mustard crop flourishes,and bees work overtime, moving from flower to flower, pollinating, and making honey.Beehives are plentiful in the ruins of Delhi and Mehrauli.

Farmers harvest the mustard, while Muslims and Hindus adorn themselves with flowers for the annual “Phool Walon Ki Sair.” The “Procession of Florists”would go to the tomb of the Sufi saint Kaki and the Hindu temple Yogmaya.

One day, the frogs stopped singing, and the bees flew away.

Like most people, I am deeply concerned about bio diversity loss and climate change. I have been following the annual COP meetings. The COP, or Conference of Parties, comprises countries that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC, established at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, is an international environmental treaty addressing climate change. Its objective is to stabilize green house gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

These annual conferences unite representatives worldwide to discuss and negotiate climate change solutions. Their main objectives are to assess progress in combating climate change, review the implementation of the UNFCCC, and establish new commitments and policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating global warming.

The Paris Agreement was adopted in the last decade at COP21in Paris in December 2015. It aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Unfortunately, the 1.5C global warming threshold has been breached for 12 months for the first time in 2023, as confirmed by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Lately, Carlo Buontempo, C3S Director, comments: “It is virtually certain now that 2024 will become the first calendar year above the 1.5°C threshold. And the relentless increase in the atmospheric concentration of GHGs has undoubtedly played a key role in this warming.”

We are at a point where, by 2025, we may permanently cross the limit of 1.5 degrees to 1.75 degrees. The present CO2 level is around 420ppm. Look closely at the chart on NASA’s website.  450 ppm, the mythical tipping point, shall be a reality by 2027. At this point, there should be a significant loss of ice sheets and sea ice, severe distress to coral reefs, die back of Amazon forests,and the demise of numerous natural systems. These events shall be runaway reactions with disastrous feedback loops, such as loss of permafrost resulting in further release of CO2 and CH4, higher temperature and further loss of permafrost, and so on.

The last COP29 was held in Azerbaijan and concluded on 23November 2024. To say the least, the key takeaways were disappointing. Developed countries, which should provide at least a trillion US dollars annually to fight climate change, agreed to provide around US$300 billion annually from 2035.

The IEA’s modeling finds that reaching net zero by 2050 will require $5trn a year of investment in clean energy by 2030. A similar scenario from BNEF involves $5.4trn a year this decade. McKinsey Global Institute, a research outfit, puts the annual cost of net zero by 2050 at $9.2trn, WoodMackenzie at just under $3trn. UNEP estimates that a range of $7trn to $12trnper year will be needed by 2035 to limit warming to 1.5°C. Alas, we have breached this limit in 2023.

The Economist states as follows. “The most frequently cited estimate of what it would cost for developing countries (excluding China) to both end their use of fossil fuels and adapt to climate change comes from Amar Bhattacharya, Vera Songwe, and Nicholas Stern of the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance. The three economists see a need for investments of $2.3-2.5trn annually by 2030, rising to $3.1-3.5trn by 2035. They think that first $1trn and then $1.3trn will come from private and public sources beyond those countries”.

Ironically, the recent plastics treaty conference, the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3), concluded in November 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. This round of talks aimed at creating a legally binding international treaty to address the global plastic pollution crisis, but it ended without a consensus on several key issues. There is one ton of plastic waste in the oceans and land for every human, and more is coming.

There are three significant issues.

Firstly, trillions of US dollars per year are needed from the developed world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by establishing measures to curb emissions, investment in renewable energy plants, and funding mitigation initiatives in various parts of the globe. Every country, including those in the developed world, faces financial deficits and needs. A goal established in 2015 aimed to collect US$ 100 billion per year from developed countries for 10 years, which took seven years to achieve in 2022. The objective of most politicians is to remain in power. Therefore, they must balance their own and the voters’ interests, and in the end, it may be complex to rustle up the billions of dollars a country may need to fund a nebulous subject such as Climate change.

The money needed from developing countries is not coming.

China has emerged as a leader in providing affordable solar panels, inverters, electric vehicles, and storage systems. On the one hand,purchasing from China would boost renewable energy penetration, while on the other hand, local industries in the USA and Europe would suffer. The USA has imposed tariffs on these products at rates that can be considered punitive.Europe is following suit. From a global perspective, buying solar products and electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is sensible, yet the US and Europe regard China as an economic adversary. Its voters would be unhappy if their jobs were lost to China.

In another context,India is expanding coal-based power plants and continuing to operate old ones.The country’s coal sector employs millions of people, making it challenging to lay them off. Similarly, each country faces unique challenges that slow the pace of change, ultimately causing the world to suffer.

Governments worldwide have imposed Carbon taxes, introduced a Rating System for Energy-Efficient consumer equipment, and imposed punitive taxes on corporations and sectors with high GHG emissions. However, there is so much a country can do.

Secondly, companies must reduce GHG emissions by changing their processes and technologies and using clean energy. It is difficult to cut down GHG emissions in sectors such as Power Generation, Cement,Iron and Steel, Petroleum and Petrochemicals, Plastics, and Nitrogenous fertilizers, which are guzzlers of fossil fuels. In addition, land, air, and sea transportation relies primarily on fossil fuels. The world’s economy and basic needs of civilization are based on these products. Doing away with them in the short to medium term is nearly impossible. Offices and data centers use enormous amounts of electricity, mainly from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are a crucial pillar of global economics and the stock market. New coal-fired power plants continue to be built,particularly in India and China, while oil and gas companies plan to expand significantly over the next 30 to 40 years.

Thirdly,individuals in developed countries must reduce their carbon footprint by changing their way of life.

Imagine a redneck American giving up a Big Mac, which includes two large beef patties, and the 750-horsepower F-150 truck. Heavens would fall if the U.S. government banned beef imports from South America or restricted the use of the F-150 beast to a single driver. The individual lifestyle of the American people is a core part of their identity. Why should they live like Tibetan monks? Conversely, the aspirational developing world wants to savor their success. Fossil fuel is consumed in abundance by their wealthy and upper-middle-class populations class. Humans have walked a long,arduous road to create civilization. It is tough to give up on entrenched habits and lifestyles for the middle class and wealthy. Humans find it easy to discount future problems vis a present enjoyable lifestyle. We tend to make decisions that provide immediate happiness rather than avert probable discomfort in the future.

Personally, it is difficult to ignite a debate on anthropogenic behavior and its consequences with my family, relatives, friends,and colleagues. Nothing seems to happen except the disappearing plants and animals in my locale, except for long, extremely hard summers followed by harsh winters lasting a few weeks.

Even if the Earth exceeded the 2 degrees Celsius limit,resulting in the loss of thousands of plant and animal species and the submergence of coastal areas in some countries, would it impact a landlocked city dweller in an air-conditioned home who can afford necessities and luxuries? If you had the financial means, life could continue.

Yes, the impoverished coastal inhabitants and fishermen may lose their homes and livelihoods; lives could be lost, resulting in wide spread suffering. Fish will move north from the warm equatorial regions. Farmers will lose crops as rivers dry up or change course; extreme storms and high temperatures could destroy crops, forcing farmers to relocate to more hospitable areas. There will be years of hardship, disease, and death. Billions of poor and middle-income residents in the developing and underdeveloped world will suffer, being driven into poverty because the developed world and their governments are unlikely to change before it is too late.

More than 50% of the world’s population lives in areas that are worst affected by Climate change and biodiversity decline. More than half of the world’s annual GDP is dependent on nature! We are hurtling towards an existential black hole.

Why are developed countries and their citizens not paying to handle this global calamity, which they have created and continues to intensify?Why do we get lip service from their people?

We find the answer by understanding the deep-rooted nature of Homo Sapiens.

From their days as hunter-gatherers, loosely knit clans, and later tribes, humans settled into farming communities, fiefdoms, counties,kingdoms, and empires, eventually torn apart and replaced by nation-states.Most of the world has adopted democracy at varying levels. We live in democracies, many under various shades of autocracy. On this journey from barbarism, we have evolved into a civilized society with beliefs in equality,freedom, and social justice. However, these are difficult to find in real life.

What remains unchanged,however, are the hierarchies of power and wealth: the greed of individuals or tight-knit communities and the reptilian lust for power. Scratch the surface, and you will uncover human greed and a desire for power lurking beneath the facade of altruism and civilization. Gordon Gekko continues to be the ideal for many entrepreneurs, corporate warriors, and business school students.

Humans, as individuals, are physically weak and small. They compensate for this with their cunning and deceit. Their survival and dominance in many respects stem from their self-interest, which enables cooperation in situations framed as “us” against “them.” The constructs of morality, sin, vengeance,violence, altruism, love, and belief in religion are tools they have skillfully employed to select leaders, expand their territories and wealth, and safe guard their families and clans, according to anthropologists and evolutionary scientists. Humans require enemies to thrive.

Humans must be seen as powerful. The USA openly describes itself as the most powerful nation in the world, but it does not aspire to be the most altruistic nation.

Climate change is positioned in this conundrum. For the first time, the world is in a position where everyone faces the same problem.With nearly 200 countries as stakeholders, reaching a consensus is impossible.  

To think of a united world will make politicians reluctant to cede power. Nations and individuals would need to learn to empathize with different cultures. The people of this world would have to think of themselves as a brotherhood.  This is exceptionally challenging.If mankind can achieve that milestone, we can fight Climate change.

As the great Indian poet Ghalib wrote in Urdu in the nineteenth century in Delhi,

“It is nearly impossible for a person to aspire to become human.”