Abstract
At COP 21 in Paris (Dec 2015), Parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future. The Paris Agreement (Nov 2016) built upon COP 21 to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects. Its central aim is to keep the global temperature rise between 1.5° to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. However, by COP 24 at Katowice (Dec 2018) the special IPCC report on the impacts of 1.5°C global warming became a major source of tension at the talks. Whether to agree to a single set of or
have different rules for rich and poor; and how to provide climate finance to developing nations created a standoff that showed that financial interests still trump environmental integrity.
Thus, a major question that is emerging is whether international negotiations on sustainable development can be confined to decisions on finance, technology, and management? Additionally, does the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities adopted by the United Nations apply only between nations or also to people within nations? This presentation argues that both these questions are being addressed in a flawed manner and the available data is showing that there are hard
choices to be made which depend more upon social and political determinants, rather than on technology and finance.
About the Speaker
Dr. Anubrotto Kumar Roy, popularly known as Dunu Roy, is a Chemical Engineer by training, social scientist by compulsion and political ecologist by choice. He is an esteemed alumnus of IIT Bombay. He completed his B.Tech in the year 1967 and M.Tech. in the year 1969 from the Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay. Currently, he serves as the director of Hazards Cente, New Delhi. Roy has worked pan India dealing in various sectors, ranging from FREA to World Wide Fund for Nature, to setting up own enterprise called ‘Vidushak Karkhana’ in a village. He believes that most of the developmental activities are micro-experiments limited to a few clusters of villages and sectors like healthcare and education. There is no understanding of linkages between sectors; and the people who did work in villages, worked only to implement their own ideas of progress and development. According to him, the problem lies in not understanding what people want. He prefers to be called a ‘student revolutionary’.