🎉Delighted to 📢 the arrival of this baby that several of us nurtured through the trying times of the past three years. Such an honor to work with an inspiring group of academics, activists, artists, & poets. 🥁
The central question we seek to answer here: What does it take to pursue the aspirations of climate justice in countries like India, with longstanding social & economic inequalities and a large population of climate-vulnerable populations? 2/ #LossAndDamage#Inequalities#COP27
Compensations for Loss & Damage/climate reparations is a crucial first step. While civil society leaders (h/t @SaleemulHuq) fight that battle valiantly, we must ask what would it take to realize #ClimateJustice in the trenches of the climate crisis. We focus on this question 3/n
India is an instructive case because it has championed the cause of international justice as long as global climate negotiations have existed. Indeed, Anil Agarwal, @sunitanar, @CSEINDIA first articulated the case for #CBDR & international & domestic climate justice. 4/n #COP27
Looking past the cynical politics of global climate negotiations, esp the criminal reluctance of the Global North to take responsibility for historical injustices, we examine India's pursuit of climate justice at home. The failures are staggering but offer many imp. lessons. 5/n
Eric Chu & Kavya Michael (@kavyamichael) take a deep dive into urban climate resilience plans, which focus on describing vulnerabilities & procedural inclusion rather than tackling the structural drivers of development injustice that shape unequal exposures to climate crisis. 6/n
K. Rahul Sharma & Parth Bhatia of @CPR_India offer policy recommendations on India's solar policy, which pays little attention to Qs of distributive & procedural justice, risking the reproduction of existing inequities in India’s hugely anticipated renewable infrastructure. 7/n
Just Transition? @VChhotray maps the political, institutional & discursive aspects of ‘extractive regimes’ in India's coal heartlands, which limit the possibilities for achieving justice in coal mining. Offers lessons for just transition out of coal->a renewable energy future 8/n
How has a spike in economic inequality within India affected the domestic distribution of emissions? Haimanti Bhattacharya of @UUtah shows that in post-1990 India, the most unequal states are also the most polluting states. Econ inequality worsens the climate crisis! #COP27 9/n
Arpitha Kodiveri & Rishiraj Sen look for climate justice w/in the national & state climate plans. No surprises there, but drawing on good work in some states they envision a pathway to the progressive realization of climate justice within India’s climate policy & plans. #NDC 10/n
Srilata Sircar does a deep dive to show India's urbanism is founded on & reflects the shameful record of caste injustices. @TwinerTweets makes a powerful case for reimagining climate justice as caste justice. India cannot ever be just w/o the annihilation of #Caste. 11/n #COP27
Vaishnavi Behl and I apply the lens of intersectionality to the Q of disparities in access to safe drinking water, along the key dimensions of social inequality, e.g., class, caste, gender, & religion. We seek to show how donors/NGOs could address daunting challenges 12/n #Water
Agroecology activists Ashlesha Khadse/@ashleshak & Kavita Srinivasan use the lens of agrarian climate justice, to analyze state-level initiatives that help anchor climate by securing women farmers' land rights as part of the policy frameworks for agroecology 13/n #Gender#COP27
Amidst such inspiring work, I examine 3 world-renowned Indian env movements: Silent Valley, Chipko, & Narmada Bachao, to draw lessons about how middle-class environmental sensibilities shaped these movements. I see hope in @disharavii & India's new Youth Climate Movements. 14/n
In the concluding chapter, Eric Chu (@ucdavis) & I urge moving beyond the binaries of international vs domestic climate justice, asking instead how international & subnational policies, programs, & resource mobilizations intersect to shape climate action and climate justice. 15/n
And, you know what, all of this (& the art, poetry, & translations, which deserve another 🧵), was done without the excuse of a conference, project, or grant. It tears me up to think about how much the contributors sacrificed to make this work.🧡💚💙💜Salute the perseverance!16/n
And, beware of spiritual-sounding groups that sell orientalist fakery to unsuspecting westerners. They are full of bigots who crawl out of woodworks from time to time.
Here is a @guardian reporter's account of an encounter with the members/followers of a militant Hindu organization that has a large fan following among the Indian diaspora in the west. Thank you @ainajkhan for this thread!
📢New publication: "Globalization of Environmental Justice: A Framework for Comparative Research," which compares Indigenous Peoples' struggles in the United States & India. @OUPAcademic Handbook of Comparative Env Politics Ed. by Jeannie Sowers, @StacyDVanDeveer & Erika Weinthal
I build on the @Ostrom_Workshop IAD framework to compare the struggles of Apache activists opposed to proposed copper mining in Oak Flats (Tonto National Forest, Arizona) w/ the resistance of state-led mining in central India by Gond Indigenous Adivasis. #IndigenousPeoples 2/n
How do Indigenous Peoples' struggles in different sociopolitical & institutional context differ from one another? What can we learning from studying these movements comparatively? I adopt a comparative contextualization approach to broach the type of Qs that come up freqntly 3/n
Not sure where to start this thread, but @Trevornoah
& @TheDailyShow have made a serious error of judgment in giving platform to a known charlatan. As others have pointed, we wish they'd spent more time researching this gentleman before having him on. 1/n
We've been thinking about this for long: "Scientists, corporations, mystics, and movie stars have convinced policymakers around the world that a massive campaign to plant trees should be an essential element of global climate policy." #TrillionTrees#Restoration 2/n
Dear @jack and everyone else reading this. Please stop funding hate in the times of corona. @SewaUSA is a well-known peddler of hate and bigotry. #COVID19#Covid19IndiaHelp
To better know the supporters of Sewa USA, one should look through the replies to the following tweet by @Profdilipmandal, who has had casteist and bigoted slurs hurled at him. Don't feed the hate machine, @jack.
Here is an investigative report by @nehadixit123 on the involvement of 3 #RSS affiliates in trafficking of 31 tribal girls from the state of Assam in eastern India to Punjab in north & Gujarat in west. #COVID19#Covid19IndiaHelp#StopFundingHate
India wants richer countries to adopt “net negative” emissions targets. Indian energy minister "launched a broadside against the climate goals of big emitters in the EU and China, in a sign of how climate negotiations are heating up ahead of a UN summit this year." A thread. 1/n
The Indian minister is correct about the lack of ambition among the industrially advanced countries, esp. the U.S., which is creating hurdles against the EU-led effort to introduce a carbon border tax, which would go a long way in curbing consumption. 2/n ft.com/content/d31ec6…
Let's be clear, nothing can replace the need for reducing luxury emissions linked to profligate consumption. The environmental impacts of net-negative are unknown – where are we going put all that carbon with what other environmental & social consequences (unknown unknowns!)? 3/n
On Thursday, Delhi Police registered a criminal case against Greta Thunberg to probe international conspiracy to defame India & promote enmity among groups". They cited her tweets as an evidence in the case! No Kidding! #RightToProtest#FarmersProtest 2/n deccanherald.com/national/farme…
Unfortunately @GretaThunberg is not the first climate activist to face the wrath of Delhi Police. In July 2020, they blocked the website of @FFFIndia, describing the contents of the website as “objectionable” & depicting an “unlawful or terrorist act”. 3/n thewire.in/environment/fr…