Climate justice - Question of Cities

How Delhi’s poor and homeless beat the heat on their own

The country’s capital recorded this year’s first heat wave in early April, with temperatures touching 40.2 degrees Celsius. With summer making an early and harsh onset, the most vulnerable people – the homeless – have only themselves to rely upon…

Verse on water: Monsoon’s many languages

The monsoon lends itself to poetry and rhyme. But how to capture its majesty, its melancholy, its morbidity in a few lines? Which language captures the different rhythms of rain, from the gentle and soothing needed in overheated cities to…

Green talk: Included in party manifestos, excluded from campaigns

As slugfests and fiery speeches take centre stage throughout the campaign in the 2024 general elections, environmental issues and climate change which affect one and all have hardly been given space. Manifestos of political parties mention them in varying degrees…

Centring climate justice in rapidly urbanising cities of South Asia

The region is among the most vulnerable to climate change. With nearly 2.5 billion people and a limited capacity to adapt to climate change, South Asia shows how inequity and injustice lie at the heart of climate action. Billions in…

Deconstructing Hyderabad’s investment ‘climate’ and technological ecosystem

Market-led growth exploits natural resources, increases pollution, and creates vulnerabilities and inequities which worsen the climate impact on people. This essay examines the market-led ‘sustainable’ development approach shaping Hyderabad Vision 2050 and Telangana’s State Action Plan for Climate Change which…

‘Climate solutions should be grounded in human rights, equality, and participation of worst hit’

Climate change is a human rights issue too, as judgments in India and abroad recently underscored. This recognises that not all people are equally affected by climate-related events in countries or cities. The marginalised, women and girls, informal and outdoor…

COP28 skirts climate justice, shies away from phasing out fossil fuels

Although COP28, hosted by the oil-producing nation of UAE and controversial in some measure, important decisions and initiatives were launched to reduce the effects of climate change. The decision to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund on the first day…

Climate migrants: From cyclone-hit Sundarbans to Kolkata’s miserable shanties

The real struggle for those battered by cyclones starts after the calamity when they are forced to leave behind their home, land and fields as villagers living around the Sundarbans have had to do. As Climate Change led to more…

Brace for impact: Brutal heat due to unsustainable urbanisation will wallop the urban poor

Extreme weather events including intense heat waves, among other manifestations of Climate Change, were flagged off years ago in the reports by scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The intensity and frequency of heat waves increased this…