Decarbonisation isn't goal, human welfare is: World Resources Institute CEO

Dasgupta tells Subhomoy Bhattacharjee that India's requirements to ensure energy for all its citizens and raise per capita income should be an acceptable part of global climate strategy

In June this year, Aniruddha Dasgupta became the first Indian president & CEO of World Resources Institute (WRI), a global research non-profit of investment bankers, Wall Street philanthropists and former heads of MNCs. WRI members sit with GOI in several key committees on urban and energy issues just as it has been involved with the UN and the World Bank to offer practical solutions that spur investments in sectors that improve people’s lives yet protect nature. Dasgupta, who holds a master's degrees in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has worked with the World Bank, tells Subhomoy Bhattacharjee that India’s requirements to ensure energy for all its citizens and raise per capita income should be an acceptable part of global climate strategy. Edited excerpts:

What is the perspective you bring as the CEO? Rather, why are you here?

To bring the climate and development discussions closer together. That convergence is going to be the most exciting thing to happen in this decade, I believe. If there is a silver lining to the pandemic in spite of the scale of the tragedy, it is that development has to happen; jobs have to be created; and at the same time, climate challenges need to get addressed. 

It is a pivot now, that, I believe, is happening in every capital of the world. Nowhere more so than in the capital that both you and I grew up in, Delhi. 

A lot of money on the table is getting linked to climate positive investments. While that is inevitable, would WRI say there should be a nudge or a push from global capital in this direction? 

In India’s case, 600 million people still need consistent access to energy. You cannot talk about energy issues before ensuring such people have access to it. Sometimes decarbonisation talk does not take this into account. But, it must always be on the table. The same applies to sub-Saharan Africa. Science says this is possible to achieve. In WRI, we understand that decarbonisation is not the only goal; human welfare is the goal and we want to find the path to it. For instance, India has made incredible progress in the past five years on achieving climate goals. It has also put up for auction a large number of coal mines. Now if in key capitals of the world, investors do not want to be associated with such investment, that acts as a good signal. 

So what are the investment agendas that sit well with climate goals? 

Decarbonisation of energy, (which) we have just talked about, is certainly one of those. The others are transportation, buildings and recycling of waste. India can be the global champion in the circular economy of recycling. Traditionally, we throw away the least. India has also taken a bold step in pushing electric mobility.  

How should South Asian cities handle the post-Covid challenge, like public transportation for instance? 

For all the fastest growing parts of the world, and that includes a large part of Asia, getting the cities right is so important. Because not only are massive streams of people moving to cities, the cities are also the most suitable entities where one can make changes at a scale not possible for an entire country. So for WRI, cities are an incredible opportunity to get it right. We are most encouraged by the Indian government’s slew of programmes for the cities. Sure, they could be bigger and deeper but in Indian public policy, cities were not this important till some time ago. 

An aspect of this policy is on cars or transportation in general. Here we believe it is the national government that needs to step in with the right policies. Most of the money for the cities still comes from the national government and it should create a strong backbone of public transport. So a coherent national policy that puts cities on the growth trajectory is a critical step. And to be frank, very few countries have a clear national urban policy as part of their economic development policy and climate strategy. We did some work on this globally and inferred that to get the climate strategy right, you’ve got to get the city or urban strategy right. So yes, public transportation policy has to be a big action area. 

The incentive for the cities to plan well is the massive job creation that comes along. We did a paper last year that showed how it happens. 

In the context of what happened last year, like distress migration from the cities, there is a school of thought that cities have become far too dense. 

Yes, the New York Times had a headline, “Cities won’t survive”. It is true the pandemic impact has been very urban-centric. What became clear from our studies is that the evidence is not one-way. Cities will survive. On the density issue, it is not how many people live together but how well they are serviced. Roads, water or health services. Yet the fear of public transport is a real problem, and we need to work on this. But densities, as Indian cities show vividly, can help build up the viability of public transport. 

Do the three tiers of government in India hurt the development of the cities?  

My view is that despite all the structural rigidities in the system, there is a lot of innovation going on in Indian cities. We will want to lead with these solutions rather than wait for the structural shifts to happen. That is the faster path forward.