Another picture of Arunachala from the place we stayed for a few days. A new place- [The White Flower Retreat] (https://goo.gl/maps/gqYUr9FnfEAjfhzT9). - which we discovered and really enjoyed the solitude and a great view of [the sacred Arunachala] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunachala).

The year end posts are half written and there is a long list of pending things that I will not be able to finish this year.

A visit to Skandaashram and Virupaksha Cave where Maharshi Raman spent most of his life. It was an arduous trek with a seven year old kid, but we managed.

In the foothills of Arunachala

Pondicherry Diary -2

Away from Delhi’s pollution in our favourite town..

Pondichéry

Finally all set for the year end break. Never ever looked more eagerly for this break.

Finally after a long hiatus, I decided to get back to micro.blog. The things that I am looking to build this time (I am not importing my wordpress blog for now) is a) back up for twitter, b) use frontmatter and markdown for my blogs and c) create an alternative to instagram and goodreads.

Testing the new crossposting setup!

The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits , a seminal piece by Milton Friedman was published on September 13, 1970. As the title suggests, it argued vehemently for businesses to focus on maximising profits for their shareholders. The article in today’s time would have been viral due it Mr. Friedman’s several twit-worthy retorts against ‘the social responsibility of business’.   But to be fair to Mr. Friedman, he has several nuances and assumed a perfect functioning market.

“What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities.”- Milton Friedman

Half a century later,  it can be safely said that imperfect markets, greed, and our inability to price critical natural resources have made this planet unsustainable and almost uninhabitable for the underprivileged. And, businesses are now espousing a new commitment to environmental and social concerns.

We are at a juncture where almost every business is talking about its environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities.  In less than 5 years, we are seeing terms such as ESG reporting, ESG investing, ESG Frameworks and Sustainability Reporting become part of mainstream business discourse. For some emergence of ESG is a new business opportunity; for some, it is the solution that will transform corporates into a benevolent, sustainability driving engine; and for some it is just a new fad. However, for a majority, this is one of the most confusing three-letter words that has occupied our mind-space.

What is ESG?

First thing first, the three letters E (Environment), S (Social) and G (Governance) are one of the most brutal simplifications of a complex set of variables that constitute these three dimensions. The table below gives what is generally represented by these three letters.

• Environment: Issues related to the quality and functioning of the natural ecosystem and environment.Example: Carbon/GHG emissions, energy efficiency, biodiversity, air and water pollution, impact on natural resources, waste management.
  • Social: Issues related to the well-being of communities, employees or people in general.Example: Impact on local communities, a wide range of employee and labour issues (health and safety, gender diversity, pay gaps), corruption and anti-social activities etc. at company or contractors premises.
  • Governance: Issues related to management and corporate governance.Example: Ownership structure and transparency, shareholder’s protection, executive pay etc.

Once we look at the broad category of variables that come under the ESG, it is obvious that many of these have been covered under corporate, governance and sustainability best practices, and in many countries, a number of these variables are already under different legal and regulatory frameworks. In India, we already have The Forest Conservation Act, Environmental Protection Act, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act to just name a few. So what is so different about this ESG concept?

ESG : the Genesis, Rationale and Drivers

ESG appeared probably for the first time in the Global Compact’s report “Who Cares Win: Connecting Financial markets to a Changing World”. This endorsed by more than 20 leading global financial institutions highlighted that “in a more globalised, interconnected and competitive world the way that environmental, social and corporate governance issues are managed is a part of companies overall management quality needed to compete successfully.”

This report was significant as it change the discourse from business should care for society and the environment as good practices to being part of the business strategy and risk management. The report provided very succinct recommendations to investors, regulators, stock exchanges, financial institutions and companies on building a resilient investment market and contributing to the sustainable development goals. This report was just the beginning of the new discourse.

Since then gradually, Governments, investors/business shareholders and civil society have started demanding adherence to ESG reporting and compliance to the best practices. These stakeholders have different primary motives but align on the importance of ESG.

While investors and shareholders see ESG as a strategy for long-term risk mitigation and/or value creation, civil society and governments have been using this to make businesses more responsible and amenable to sustainable development goals. This has resulted in three broad areas and quite a diverse set of activities that we do which are driven by core ESG focus.

ESG Reporting: Today business stakeholders, investors and regulators are demanding that companies provide an assessment or report on how their businesses are operating in the context of ESG dimensions. There are principles, frameworks and standards that are guiding the ESG reporting. A majority of these reporting requirements are voluntary as of now but we are seeing several regulators coming up with their own standards and frameworks and making ESG reporting mandatory. Some of the guiding frameworks for ESG reporting are:

• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
  • Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
  • Task Force on Climate -related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
  • SASB Standards
  • International Integrated Reporting Framework
  • International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB)

The above are just some frameworks that are globally in practice but depending on stakeholders and reporting format prescribed by regulators you have more than 100 ESG reporting formats. India has introduced its own Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework that is mandatory for top 1000 companies. These multiple frameworks have created a lot of confusions among companies about ESG reporting. To address this, there is a demand for universal sustainability accounting standards and already we can see some traction with the establishment of ISSB. The recent standards are also trying to address this challenge by integrating key framework recommendations in their reporting format. BRSR has aligned its reporting requirement to TCFD, GRI, CDP and SASB.

ESG Investing: Investors see companies that are scoring high on the ESG dimensions as long-term value creator and more resilient in dealing with risks originating from an increased focus on sustainable development and community welfare. ESG Investors believe that investing in these companies gives better economic results as it minimises long-term risks, however, this is not universally accepted. Very similar to ESG reporting, ESG Investing is also riddled with many challenges. A majority of fund managers rely on some type of ratings for exclusions or inclusion of companies for investment but these are very subjective and difficult to compare (Tesla was kicked out from Dow Jones ESG Indices and Philip Morris International – the leading cigarette manufacturer scored quite a decent ESG score!).

ESG Strategy and Implementation: This is the real crux of ESG focus. How to achieve ESG outcomes? And, this is an unsurprisingly complicated and herculean task for corporates. As we have seen with the wide range of issues being covered under the ESG frameworks, companies are suddenly looking for expertise and understanding of the topics that are not their forte. A mining company finding a way to do mining without causing biodiversity loss; a consumer goods company selling a zillion things in small plastic packets looking for reducing their plastic footprints or a fossil fuel company trying to achieve net zero emissions.. all of these are examples of ESG strategy and implementation focus. While ’S’ and ‘G’ are relatively easier to achieve; ‘E’ is quite complex and requires innovation in the way we do business and produce things and a deep understanding of a multitude of ‘E’ dimensions.

ESG is a step in the right direction but still, it is a work in progress.

While ESG focus is rapidly engulfing corporate and sustainability champions, we must acknowledge that it is not ‘the’ solution for sustainability challenges in the current form. ESG is too simplistic and it misses out on some of the key concepts that are core to sustainability discussion. Most of the ESG reporting frameworks and parameters do not focus on ‘contextualization’. In simple words, a fashion house can report or commit to reduced use of water for its jeans brand but to understand the real environmental impact of a pair of jeans you need to factor in where the water is being consumed and what is the ‘local ecological carrying capacity.

Similarly, many activities that are part of the usual business practices are now being ‘termed’ as ESG practices and yield no additional benefits.

To conclude, ESG as of now is a step in the right direction but it is a work in progress and would require a strong commitment to building on these existing initiatives to achieve the goals of social and environmental sustainability.

Some Recommended Reads for ESG Enthusiasts

Understanding Sustainability

• The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows
• Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows
• The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells
• The Future of Nature and Business

ESG Reporting Frameworks

• IFC ESG Guidebook (A very good resource to understand how IFC -one the leading development finance institutions – integrates ESG in its investment decisions). You can also look at the Asian Development Bank’s ESG integration here.
• Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (Guidance on Metrics, Targets and Transition Plans)
• Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
• GRI Standards, SEBI Standards, SASB Standards
• Thresholds of Transformations (UNRISD Working Paper) – Highly recommended read for understanding the nuances and discourse on sustainable development performance indicators.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a big setback to one of the most ambitious goals humanity has ever set for itself: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to a recent study by UNDP, even in a non-Covid scenario, the global community would be struggling to achieve the SDGs by their 2030 deadline. The long-term impact of the pandemic has moved us further away from achieving these goals. There is a need to push and accelerate our efforts to an unmatched level to achieve the SDGs by 2030. This will not be possible without bringing in disruptive and innovative technologies, adopting more inclusive business models, and nurturing entrepreneurship to achieve these inter-connected and cross-cutting goals.

Achieving SDGs has the potential to create a new market opportunity of USD 12 trillion while making the world more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous. Local entrepreneurs and small enterprises will be critical in this journey, as they can harness technologies and innovations to develop solutions that address the challenges faced by communities at the ground level since they are also most in touch with the needs of these communities.

India, with pioneering progress in building the ecosystem for innovations and entrepreneurship, is poised to become one of the leaders in achieving the SDGs. According to the Economic Survey 2021, India had 41,061 startups in 2020. Currently, India has over 75 start-ups classified as unicorns, each with an estimated valuation of more than USD one billion or more. This has also led to increased investments coming into India to fuel these startups and their innovative solutions. While a majority of the unicorns are in the e-commerce and fintech space (such as Slice, Upstox, Grofers, Bharatpe etc.), we now have the experience and ecosystem required to create impact unicorns that could provide universal quality healthcare, address challenges in the provision of education, address climate-related issues and transform our agriculture sector, both in terms of economic contribution as well as making it more resilient to climate impacts.

The “impact unicorns” are going to happen sooner than later. India has almost achieved universal access to power (99.99% of households having access to electricity), addressed major challenges in financial inclusion (through government programs such as Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile, in order to ensure access to finance for last-mile customers), and probably also hosts the world’s most advanced digital inclusion framework (by building IndiaStack, a unified digital platform to conduct financial transactions and provide government services at scale). Access to power, access to finance, and data and digital technologies are the ingredients that will help us scale and develop the solutions that are needed for many of the SDGs.

While these foundational blocks are being put in place, the enormity of the challenges and the complexity of the development goals also require us to put consistent emphasis on addressing some of the gaps in our current innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Ecosystem for Empowering and Enabling Women

The first and foremost priority should be to focus on empowering and enabling Indian women to leverage innovation and entrepreneurship. A recent RBI survey found that only 5.9% of Indian startups have all-women founders. Gender segregated data further shows the harsh divide, especially in rural India. Only 25% of the women in rural areas use the Internet compared to 48% of rural men. Around 64% of the population in India still relies on solid fuels for its cooking needs, and women are disproportionately exposed to dangerous air-pollution. Our entrepreneur and investor ecosystems continue to be male-dominated and biased towards men. Within the agriculture sector, women are still struggling to get their land rights, and while they account for nearly one-third of the agricultural labour force in the country, they hold only 12.8% of operational land holdings. They are also among the most impacted by the adverse effects of unsustainable agriculture practices.

We need to make the innovation and entrepreneur ecosystem more gender-just as we can never achieve the SDG goals if women continue to remain at the fringes of the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem.

Investing in Research and Development

There must be concerted efforts to increase investment in R&D and labs that will help create proofs of concept and streamline funding to undertake pilots to scale and commercialise operations for startups. We are significantly behind in terms of per capita spending on R&D compared to other regional leaders. Korea leads in terms of R&D spending, at USD 1995 per capita, followed by Israel (USD 1991). Other countries’ spendings include China (USD 1127), Brazil (USD 719), and South Africa (USD 520). India’s per capita R&D spending stands at USD 464.

Dedicated Focus on Scaling up Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry

Entrepreneurship, technologies, and innovative business and financing models can provide us a great opportunity to transform the lives of small-farmers and forest-dwelling communities.

India has to alter its path in order to achieve SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) while ensuring SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production). To reach a sustainable stage of food security, India needs to emphasise and promote sustainable farming practices and support innovative solution providers in agriculture and livestock that help reduce hunger and risks of nutrient deficiencies. The development of innovative solutions across the agriculture value chain can address multiple SDG goals.

In addition to large agricultural land coverage, India also has vast forest lands which impacts SDG 15 (life on land) and several others, as forests can act as carbon sinks and create great value for the environment. As per a 2019 assessment, India had a total forest cover of 7,12, 249 sq. km., accounting for 21.67% of its total geographic area. Our goals to increase the forest cover and improve the quality of our forests can be expedited with the use of technologies and new business models (such as global carbon markets and payment for ecosystem services).

Incubators and Accelerators for Climate Tech

India is gradually emerging as the hub in the global south for incubation and acceleration but we need more deep-science climate tech incubators and accelerators. These are essential for developing a pipeline of climate tech startups focusing on achieving SDGs.There is a massive upsurge in climate tech investment globally but only a fraction of that is coming to the global south. In the first half of 2021, about 250 deals were made in climate tech ventures worth about USD 16 billion. In terms of regions, North America has the most climate tech venture funds coming in, followed by China and Europe.

Globally, India ranks ninth with the country’s climate tech start-ups receiving USD 1 billion in venture capital funding between 2016 and 2021. Over this time, 120 Indian climate tech startups raised more than 200 funding rounds from 272 unique investors. Indian climate tech investment activity has been growing in terms of the amount invested as well as the number of deals – it has grown from 18 deals in 2016 (USD 102 million) to 58 deals in 2019 (58 deals; USD 506 million). This number decreased slightly in 2020 owing to the pandemic, with 48 deals (USD 236 million). The majority of the climate tech investment in India flows to the sectors of energy and sustainable mobility. The sectors gradually gaining traction in the market are climate-smart agriculture, circular economy and waste management, and natural resources and the environment.

Though there has been significant growth in recent years, the climate tech entrepreneurial ecosystem in India is still at a nascent stage. Investments in climate tech account for less than 10% of the funds that are flowing into impact sectors in the country. Some of the challenges impeding the growth of climate tech start-ups include limited early-stage and long-term financing, lack of business support services covering mentorship, strategic advisory and talent management, and low customer willingness to pay a premium for green products and services.

There is a need to enhance the ecosystem for climate investment by setting up climate-focused incubators/accelerators, designing innovative financing options (such as blended finance) to encourage private sector investment, and developing policies to promote green products and services.

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Recently, a number of friends reached out to me to know more about ‘Carbon Credits’; knowing well that their interest in climate change and carbon credits was very limited, it was slightly surprising for me to have their keen queries on carbon credits. It did not take much time to figure out that their interest was piqued by recent coverage of a firm that turned into a unicorn. This firm deals in carbon credit supply and carbon project development.

The other word that is a buzzword these days with anyone who is following the global development discourse, is Net Zero. With COP26 global coverage and our Prime Minister announcing a Net Zero target for 2070; ‘Net Zero’ and ‘Carbon Credit’ are becoming a part of mainstream discussions. While the words ‘Carbon Credit’ and ‘Net Zero’ are becoming a more prominent discourse in mainstream media and business press, these are not yet properly understood by many.

What is “Net Zero” and why does it matter?

In the simplest terms, an entity (corporate, institution, country, planet) achieves Net Zero when its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are balanced by removal of the greenhouse gases (in terms of CO2 equivalent) from the atmosphere. So, if a corporate emits one million tonnes of CO2 equivalent from its activities (direct or indirect emissions from the use of coal powered electricity and other activities, technically classified into Scope 1, 2 and 3) and removes one million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, it is said to have achieved a Net Zero status.

If you are wondering why there’s a need for this, (I would be disappointed if you do not know that Climate Change is an existential crisis and we need to spend some time understanding it) the short answer is that we need to achieve Net Zero by 2050 to have a realistic chance of limiting global warming within 1.5 degree celsius. If we fail to do so, our kids would inherit a disastrous future to say the least. More than 200 countries are committed to achieve this goal and are taking actions towards decarbonization of the economy. Further, close to 400 of the 2,000 largest publicly traded companies in the world have already proposed or set Net Zero goals for themselves.

Understanding Net Zero Commitments of Countries and Corporates and the role of Carbon Credits

In the last five years, there are two major shifts that have happened globally. Firstly, countries as part of their commitment to reduce GHG emissions are introducing different carbon pricing mechanisms (such as emission trading systems or carbon taxes) that put a cap on how much emission is allowed for a company within their jurisdiction. In this scenario, if a company exceeds its emission cap, there is an additional cost that it has to bear for each tonne of additional CO2 equivalent emission. They either pay to those companies whose emissions are below the assigned caps or buy carbon emission reduction certificates from others to offset their additional emissions. Secondly, corporates/companies as a part of their net zero goals are procuring carbon credits to offset their residual emissions.

These new developments have suddenly driven demand for carbon credits to an unprecedented height. In 2021, the voluntary carbon market hit a record value of $1 billion worth of carbon credits mainly driven by net zero commitments or other emission reduction goals/targets of companies. Along with the sudden jump in demand, many industries operating in ‘energy intensive and hard to abate sectors’ such as steel, petrochemicals, cement etc., have realized that they will need to offset a huge amount (in 2021 global energy related CO2 emission were approximately 36.3 billion tonnes mainly due to industrial processes from these hard to abate sectors) of carbon emissions. These sectors have limited scope for emission reduction in their own operations (approximately 60–70% emission reduction feasible through energy efficiency, resource efficiency measures and deep decarbonization technologies). Hence, they would need to rely on offsetting their emissions by either directly investing into carbon sequestration initiatives or purchasing carbon credits generated from other sectors. This realization has led to a sudden rush for obtaining carbon credits before the prices rise.

Several projections and estimates suggest that carbon prices need to reach around USD 40–120 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent to meet the 2 degree celsius temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The prices are already moving in this direction.

While it might seem that there is a lot happening in the carbon market, this is currently a very nascent phase of ‘Carbon Market 2.0’. The next two years look very promising for the carbon market as we look to gain more clarity on different dimensions of carbon markets.

Two decade back I had never imagined how important (and how frustrating) email was going to be. Today, when I look at my most commonly used personal email id (yes, its a gmail id) it is a nightmarish mess of spam, alerts, notifications, family mails, transactions receipts and key documents. But this is only one part of the problem. The other problem is that Google uses or mail content to send targeted ads that appear almost everywhere wherever I have my online footprint. Gmail has access to all my data and content of my mailbox. Anyway, I was not lucky or fast enough to get myname@gmail.com so I decided to get a new email id with my own domain and make it my primary personal id. And, this started the search for the best email service provider for my custom domain.

I was looking for the three key attributes, apart from the usual things (reliability, ease of use etc) that you expect from a mail service provider:

• End to end encryption with zero knowledge of your content. In simple words, the mail provider should not be able to read it or decrypt it even if they want to.
• Provides me offline access to emails both on my desktop and my mobile devices.
• The server is based in Europe as Europe has the best privacy and data protection laws.

I did my search and found 5 providers who met the first criteria and were recommended for their secure and ad free mail service. Unfortunately, none of them met all the three criteria that I mentioned above.

• Tutanota
• ProtonMail
• Mailfence
• Startmail
• Hushmail

ProtonMail is my choice.

The most popular among these, Protonmail comes closest to what I was looking for and I finally subscribed to it. Offline mail access on mobile is still a challenge but there is a workaround. They provide imap access to emails on the desktop but with a workaround. We have to install ProtonBridge that enables our mail clients to connect to Protonmail.

Tutanota : I am waiting for the offline access.

Tutanota has promised to launch offline access but its timeline is not given. Considering their track record I would only trust once they have launched it. But I was sold on to Tutanota for their privacy features. They are the only mail service provider who are not tracking any kind of meta-data from your mails. It is possible to open an account with very limited information and they do not ask for any phone or email id. You mail content, mail subject everything is encrypted. This is missing in all openPGP encryption based mail services; they only encrypt the mail content and not the mail subject and other details. Tutanota is quite economical as well (Starting Euro 1 per month vs Euro 5 per month for ProtonMail) so I am quite eager to see when it is going to launch its offline access to mail.

For those who are looking to get secure email address, both Protonmail and Tutanota have free plans with limited features (500mb to 1gb mailbox space) but you can try them.

I can pose #instagood #travel #auroville #puducherry #fujix100f #portrait
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXYsQePJUBz/?utm_medium=tumblr

If you have been reading about the success of solar energy and how renewable energy is going to replace coal, then the recent news of the coal shortage and the impending global energy crisis might baffle you. For the last 2-3 weeks the newspapers have been highlighting how we are running out of coal and gas for our power plants and there might be blackouts. And, this is not an Indian problem only, right now the energy crisis is global. Post-pandemic the economy is getting back on its normal track and the energy demand is up and so are the prices of gas (the European gas prices are up by 600%)and coal.

You have a look at the global energy mix and you will know that renewable energy is nowhere close to being the main source of our energy. More than 60% of electricity still comes from fossil fuels and more than 83% of our primary energy need is met by fossil fuel sources (Statistical Review of World Energy, 2021). In India, 70% of our electricity still comes from coal power plants. A renewable energy-powered world is still a distant dream.

Over the last decade, the technical and commercial feasibility of renewable energy has changed exponentially. There is also an overwhelming commitment from the governments and corporates to move toward renewable and clean power. Yet, these commitments are not translating into the required investments for these transitions. If we are going to meet our Paris Agreement 1.5 degree scenario, overall we are looking at USD 131 trillion investment by 2050 in energy transition, which includes USD 34 trillion in renewable energy (World Energy Transition Outlook 2021).

If we look at the current status of investment in renewable energy we have a lot of catch-up to do. In 2020, we had USD 524 billion investment in renewable energy and we anticipate around USD 750 billion in 2021.

I hope that with these blackouts and energy crisis, the policy makers are getting a reminder that their commitment need to be backed up enabling policy environment and significant push on the investment in the renewables. In absence of proper planning and investment roadmap in renewable energy ecosystem, the energy transition can be a painful experience.

The IPCC Assessment Report 6– The physical sciences bases is full of bad news for humanity and a lot of science highlighting and supporting why we need to take this bad news seriously. It gives us more and more evidences (as if we did not already have enough!) that the global warming is caused by humans and every tonne of CO2 emission contributes to global warming. 

These are not new things, even the first IPCC report had highlighted this. What is new is that our understanding of the science behind the climate change causes and impact has evolved. What is new that this report now adds the word ‘unequivocally’ and this is agreed by more than 190 countries who are part of IPCC. We now have more data and studies (report findings are based on more than 14000 studies!) confirming what scientists have been saying for more than three decades. If these cannot make you believe this obvious thing then nothing will.

The other thing that scientists have established that global warming beyond 2 degree (compared to the pre-industrial era) is apocalyptic. So we all are trying to keep the global warming below 2 degrees and desirably below 1.5 degree if we can. In 2015, 195 countries adopted a legally binding international treaty on climate change, known as ‘the Paris Agreement’ (https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement), to limit the global warming below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. 

The bad news is that there is a very little hope that we would be able to meet the 1.5 degree scenario (in simple words- the possibility that we would reduce the emission to such a level that global warming would not be more than 1.5 degree from pre-industrial era). As per the updated estimates of the report, we only have a carbon budget (the amount of CO2 we can afford to emit) of 460 bn tonnes to keep the global warming below 1.5 degree (well to be exact we have only 50 per cent chance of keeping the global warming below 1.5 degree if we can emit below the 460 bn tonnes. You will note that unlike the climate change deniers and anti-climate change lobbyists who talk in absolute certainties, scientists talk in probabilities and with evidences). This is around 11-12 years of carbon emission at the existing rate of carbon emission (in 2020 we emitted 34 bn tonnes of CO2) every year (unless we drastically change this!).

The following table in the report makes it clear that there is only on scenario SSP1-1.9. (SSP1-1.9, SSP stands for Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. SSP1 is the scenario and 1.9 indicates the Radiative Forcing. There are five SSPs, with SSP1 being the best case scenario where we adopt the a growth trajectory that has very low challenges to mitigation and adaption and focuses on sustainable development and SSP5 is the pessimistic scenario where we have fossil fuel led development and high challenges to mitigation and adaption.)

(Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

Once we go beyond the 1.5 degree, at 2-degree itself, we are going to witness increased frequency of extreme temperature events, intense rainfalls (heavy precipitation) and agriculture and ecological droughts. And, these are going to further increase the intensity and complexity of many manifestations of climate change impacts. 

(Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

You always have choices and will be known for what you chose.

A company in Australia https://thankyou.co/categories realized that it had a silly product in its portfolio. Packaged Drinking Water- a major source of plastic pollution. It stopped producing it. No justification, no convoluted statements.

On the other side, you will find corporates ad-washing their sins by mushy PR campaigns, headline-grabbing sustainability announcement wherein the money committed to sustainability returns more PR value and does nothing to the actual cause.

When you see an emotional ad that connects with you as it portrays the story of compassion, sustainability and reminds you to be more humane and less evil, do ask a question: do they believe in it?

Or they are using us to sell more products .. or to make their ads viral .. to grab more views.. to achieve more sales.. to establish their brand image by absolving themselves of their past sins..

Most of these companies used our inferiority complex to sell more products. Now, we have become more aware.. more conscious.. so they use our compassion and humanity to sell more products.

Times are changing.. I am waiting for all of us to be more critical, more questioning, and less forgiving when our core values and the future of our kids are in question.