Sukumar Shinde, 52, who sells food items and snacks in rural fairs, said, “Because of the lockdown, I had to throw away several food items as they have a shorter shelf life.” / credit: Sanket Jain
Balu Jadhav usually journeys through 60 villages 300 days a year, selling toys and artificial jewelry in India’s “jatras,” or rural village fairs.
So if Jadhav travels less than 1,000 miles a year, that’s a sign of distress.
“In the past two years, I covered only 150 miles,” he said.
His two-decade-long routine was broken in March 2020 when far-right Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb a pandemic caused by COVID-19, the novel coronavirus. The lockdown was extended to 67 days, causing 121 million people to lose their jobs within the first month. Yet, with this lockdown, India couldn’t contain the coronavirus. Meanwhile, because case numbers ebbed and flowed for two years, district administrators banned fairs.
With a history of over 150 years, these fairs remain an important source of income for marginalized people. In Jadhav’s home state of Maharashtra, located on India’s Arabian Sea coast, almost every village hosts an annual fair for a couple of days. Jatras are held in reverence of local deities. Rural vendors sell a variety of items, including toys, posters of regional deities, local books, footwear, artificial jewelry, balloons and household items. “A fair is like a festival and a holiday season for rural people,” said Gangabai, Jadhav’s wife. “Everyone prepares good food, dresses up and relatives from different villages attend the fair.”
With no option for selling goods, the Jadhavs were forced to work in 10 other occupations. They labored as farmworkers and masons, and in factories, but nothing helped them earn enough to survive. “There was no regular work because COVID devastated the rural economy,” she said.
The 2022 World Inequality Report states India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Oxfam’s Inequality Kills report mentions, “The wealth of the 10 richest men has doubled, while the incomes of 99 percent of humanity are worse off, because of COVID-19.” Further, it found that a new billionaire was created every 26 hours since the pandemic began. Meanwhile, millions like Jadhav could barely find 26 hours of work per month during the peak of the pandemic.
After two years, local administrators in the village of Jambhali in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district were permitted to arrange a fair that would be held January 1-2. Unfortunately, while the Jadhavs assumed it would help them sail, it was far from reality.
With rising coronavirus cases in January, reporting as high as 347,254 cases one day, several COVID restrictions were implemented again.
“We earned about 3,000 rupees ($40) from every fair before the pandemic. Now we are finding it difficult even to recover the transportation cost,” Balu Jadhav said. “Ever since COVID, people have stopped spending money because of dwindling wages.”
Hundreds of vendors in the Kolhapur district protested several times outside the local administrator’s office, demanding revocation of the ban on fairs. “Despite writing hundreds of letters, nothing concretized,” Jadhav said.
Anusuya Chavan, who lives in the same village as the Jadhav family, is in her mid-40s and sells toys. “This occupation forced us to never send the children to school, and with COVID, there’s no possibility that four of my children will ever see the school.” Her children, all below 18, are busy looking for work. “Earlier, we took loans to support our business, but now we are forced to take loans for eating food twice a day. It’s that bad.” Chavan has 13 members in her joint family and is in $670 debt. Her husband, Yuvraj, 50, has spent four decades traveling to sell at fairs. “My entire life has gone sleeping on roads,” he said. “But with lockdowns and curfews, we don’t even have roads on which to sleep.”
Vendors rely on informal loans to buy items to sell and pay them off immediately after fairs. “The moneylenders send their goons for collection, and we always pay on time,” Yuvraj said. However, with no sales, several vendors have been caught in debts of at least $3,350 each. High interest-rate fees have caused those debts to amass.
Meanwhile, fear, anger and frustration pile up, with another generation missing out on obtaining an education. That leaves Jadhav to vent.
“Even our children will have to live the same cursed life now.”
A view of the Jambhali fair at night. Vendors said they had never before seen such a low turnout / credit: Sanket JainVendors sell a variety of items, including toys, posters of regional deities, local books, footwear, artificial jewelry, balloons, household items, and much more in India’s rural fairs / credit: Sanket Jain“I’ve taken both the doses of the vaccine and even follow COVID norms, yet the government hasn’t given permission for fairs,” said toyseller Yuvraj Chavan / credit: Sanket JainKanthinath Ghotane traveled from the neighboring Indian state of Karnataka state to sell keychains in the Jambhali fair of Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district / credit: Sanket JainFairs are more like festivals, and are special occasions for rural people. During these fairs, every household creates in front of their homes rangolis, a traditional Indian art form, in which patterns are created on the floor using powder, flower petals, colors, colored sand and limestone / credit: Sanket JainEveryone (irrespective of religion) first offers coconut and incense sticks in Jambhali’s Khwajaso dargah, a Muslim shrine, before entering the jatra. “These fairs are a sign of communal harmony,” said Sikandar Attar, a coconut and incense stick vendor / credit: Sanket JainSikandar Attar, 69, who travels to more than 100 villages every year, sells incense sticks and coconuts offered to regional deities. He began working at farms during the COVID-19 lockdown. Even today, he hasn’t been able to find his way through to make ends meet / credit: Sanket JainCredit: Sanket JainColorful LED-based toys are selling at a higher rate than other items / credit: Sanket JainRiyaz Latkar, 32, has been selling artificial jewelry for over a decade and said he has never seen a crisis like this / credit: Sanket JainDuring these two- to three-day fairs, vendors sleep and cook on the roadside. Kamalaxmi Bahurupi said, “I’ve spent my entire life cooking food on roadsides. I don’t know how long we will live like this.” / credit: Sanket JainArtificial jewelry is usually in high demand in the village fairs of Maharashtra. However, with people losing their livelihoods because of the pandemic lockdown, vendors have reported a steep decline in sales / credit: Sanket JainIn this stall, every item is sold for a fixed rate of Rs 10 (13 U.S. cents) / credit: Sanket JainBalu and Gangabai Jadhav were forced to work 10 different occupations as the fairs remained banned. “If there’s another lockdown, we’ll all die of starvation,” Balu said / credit: Sanket JainAs much as 70 percent of rural India lacks an internet connection. With schools shut because of the coronavirus pandemic, several children have been forced to pick this line of work to make ends meet and support their families / credit: Sanket JainHorse and bullock cart races remain a major attraction during these fairs. Here, a horse is getting ready for a race / credit: Sanket JainCredit: Sanket Jain
Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.
Cuban medical brigade doctors in 2020 holding a portrait of Fidel Castro
Cuba, like every other country on the planet, is struggling with the impact of COVID-19. This small island of 11 million people has created five vaccine candidates and sent its medical workers through the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade to heal people around the world. Meanwhile, the United States hardens a cruel and illegal blockade of the island, a medieval siege that has been in place for six decades. In April 2020, seven United Nations special rapporteurs wrote an open letter to the United States government about the blockade. “In the pandemic emergency,” they wrote, “the lack of will of the U.S. government to suspend sanctions may lead to a higher risk of such suffering in Cuba and other countries targeted by its sanctions.” The special rapporteurs noted the “risks to the right to life, health and other critical rights of the most vulnerable sections of the Cuban population.”
On July 12, 2021, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel told a press conference that Cuba is facing serious shortages of food and medicine. “What is the origin of all these issues?” he asked. The answer, he said, “is the blockade.” If the U.S.-imposed blockade ended, many of the great challenges facing Cuba would lift. Of course, there are other challenges, such as the collapse of the crucial tourism sector due to the pandemic. Both problems—the pandemic and the blockade—have increased the challenges for the Cuban people. The pandemic is a problem that people all over the world now face; the U.S.-imposed blockade is a problem unique to Cuba (as well as about 30 other countries struck by unilateral U.S. sanctions).
Origin of the Protests
On July 11, people in several parts of Cuba—such as San Antonio de los Baños—took to the streets to protest the social crisis. Frustration about the lack of goods in shops and an uptick in COVID-19 infections seemed to motivate the protests. President Díaz-Canel said of the people that most of them are “dissatisfied,” but that their dissatisfaction is fueled by “confusion, misunderstandings, lack of information and the desire to express a particular situation.”
On the morning of July 12, U.S. President Joe Biden hastily put out a statement that reeked of hypocrisy. “We stand with the Cuban people,” Biden said, “and their clarion call for freedom.” If the U.S. government actually cared about the Cuban people, then the Biden administration would at the very least withdraw the 243 unilateral coercive measures implemented by the presidency of Donald Trump before he left office in January 2021; Biden—contrary to his own campaign promises—has not started the process to reverse Trump’s designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” On March 9, 2021, Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said, “A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.” Rather, the Trump “maximum pressure” policy intended to overthrow the Cuban government remains intact.
The United States has a six-decade history of trying to overthrow the Cuban government, including using assassinations and invasions as policy. In recent years, the U.S. government has increased its financial support of people inside Cuba and in the Cuban émigré community in Miami, Florida; some of this money comes directly from the National Endowment for Democracy and from USAID. Their mandate is to accelerate any dissatisfaction inside Cuba into a political challenge to the Cuban Revolution.
On June 23, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that the Trump “measures remain very much in place.” They shape the “conduct of the current U.S. administration precisely during the months in which Cuba has experienced the highest infection rates, the highest death toll and a higher economic cost associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Costs of the Pandemic
On July 12, Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s minister of economy and planning, told the press about the expenses of the pandemic. In 2020, he said, the government spent $102 million on reagents, medical equipment, protective equipment and other material; in the first half of 2021, the government spent $82 million on these kinds of materials. This is money that Cuba did not anticipate spending—money that it does not have as a consequence of the collapsed tourism sector.
“We have not spared resources to face COVID-19,” Fernández said. Those with COVID-19 are put in hospitals, where their treatment costs the country $180 per day; if the patient needs intensive care, the cost per day is $550. “No one is charged a penny for their treatment,” Fernández reported.
The socialist government in Cuba shoulders the responsibility of medical care and of social insurance. Despite the severe challenges to the economy, the government guarantees salaries, purchases medicines and distributes food as well as electricity and piped water. That is the reason why the government added $2.4 billion to its already considerable debt overhang. In June, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas Ruíz met with French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire to discuss the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. France, which manages Cuba’s debt to the public creditors in the Paris Club, led the effort to ameliorate the debt servicing demands on Havana.
Costs of the Blockade
On June 23, 184 countries in the UN General Assembly voted to end the U.S.-imposed blockade on Cuba. During the discussion over the vote, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Rodríguez reported that between April 2019 and December 2020, the government lost $9.1 billion due to the blockade ($436 million per month). “At current prices,” he said, “the accumulated damages in six decades amount to over $147.8 billion, and against the price of gold, it amounts to over $1.3 trillion.”
If the blockade were to be lifted, Cuba would be able to fix its great financial challenges and use the resources to pivot away from its reliance upon tourism. “We stand with the Cuban people,” says Biden; in Havana, the phrase is heard differently, since it sounds like Biden is saying, “We stand on the Cuban people.”
Cuba’s Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said that those who took to the streets on July 11 “called for foreign intervention and said that the [Cuban] Revolution was falling. They will never enjoy that hope,” he said. In response to those anti-government protests, the streets of Cuba filled with tens of thousands of people who carried Cuban flags and the flags of the Cuban Revolution’s 26th of July Movement. Cruz said, “The people responded and defended the revolution.”
Manolo De Los Santos is a researcher and a political activist. For 10 years, he worked in the organization of solidarity and education programs to challenge the United States’ regime of illegal sanctions and blockades. Based out of Cuba for many years, Manolo has worked toward building international networks of people’s movements and organizations. In 2018, he became the founding director of the People’s Forum in New York City, a movement incubator for working-class communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad. He also collaborates as a researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and is a Globetrotter/Peoples Dispatch fellow.
Yamuna Pushta resident Arun Kumar Jha sits on a footpath across from Ring Road in Delhi / credit: Parva Dubey
DELHI, India—Rohit Sharma stood on the spot where, more than a fortnight ago, he had a bed in a night shelter. After having traveled more than 650 miles from his home city of Patna, Sharma lived for the past four years in a shelter the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) had provided.
“I used to get picked up from here for work. I would then come back and sleep here. This was my home,” said Sharma, who works in the tent-fitting industry. “Most of us fix tents or work for caterers for different occasions, like marriage or religious programs.”
Yet, everything changed on the night of March 9. That’s when bulldozers, in the presence of police, demolished temporary shelters, according to homeless people like Sharma. Now, he, along with about 1,200 people who used to live in four night shelters, sit under the sky. The site of the former shelter is close to the interstate bus terminus (ISBT) at Kashmere Gate, the northern entrance to the historic walled city of Old Delhi.
Map of Yamuna River flowing through Delhi National Capital Territory / credit: Google Maps
Displacing the Poor Ahead of G20 Summit
Activists and the affected said current demolitions are part of preparations for the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit that the capital city of New Delhi is preparing to host in September. G20 is an intergovernmental group made up of 19 countries plus the European Union. Altogether, the G20 represents two-thirds of the world’s population. Its stated aim is to address global economic issues. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became its chairman last year.
Past G20 summits had been met with protests from both anti-globalization movements and groups opposing the displacement of society’s poorest to make way for a summit venue. Such was the case in 2010 in Toronto, Canada, and in 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, for example.
Similarly, before Donald Trump visited India in 2020 as the president of the United States, the huts of poor families were demolished around the venue to host him in Gujarat state in western India.
Estimates of 100,000 to more than 300,000 people live in Yamuna Pushta, where India’s largest reported slum developed in flood-prone conditions along the banks of the Yamuna River flowing through Delhi, India’s National Capital Territory (NCT).
Demolished shelter in Yamuna Pushta in Delhi near a crematorium known as Nigam Bodhi Ghat / credit: Parva Dubey
Destroying Livelihoods
Since the demolition drive in Delhi began, poor and working-class people said police have been trying to ensure they do not linger in the area where they normally wait to secure gigs for the day.
“They take us in a bus forcefully and drop us at a distance from here and ask us not to come back,” Sharma said, adding, “We find work at this place. Contractors come here and pick us up from here. Where else would we find work?”
The location to which homeless people must be moved is supposed to be “close to where they are concentrated and close to the work site as far as practicable,” as per Indian Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Revised Operational Guidelines for Scheme of Shelter for Urban Homeless under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY-NULM).
However, the affected said they will struggle to find work after being forced to move.
“I have been working for the cause of the homeless for more than 20 years now. Governments never rehabilitate any homeless, like they claim to do,” alleged social activist Sunil Kumar Aledia, who is National Convenor for Homeless Housing Rights (NFHHR).
Yamuna Pushta resident Rohit Sharma (standing, in a pink shirt) on the spot where his bed once lay before a night shelter was demolished / credit: Parva Dubey
Bulldozing Homes
Aledia filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India on March 3.
“We approached the Supreme Court as the demolition drive was going on in other places, and we did not want other temporary shelters to be demolished,” Aledia said.
But, before the court could take up the matter, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) razed the shelters.
“We were sleeping when the authorities came with bulldozers. They did not tell us the reason for demolishing our home,” Sharma told Toward Freedom. “Some of the inhabitants were manhandled by the police.”
Little information is available about the source of the demolition drive. NCT Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj wrote to DUSIB on March 16, inquiring under whose direction the action was taken. The letter that the Times of India obtained stated:
“Director DUSIB has given a statement in the social media that the demolition has been carried out on the orders of Govt. of NCT, Delhi. DUSIB may kindly specify who in Delhi Govt. has given these directions? And whether these orders were recorded or merely oral?”
DUSIB remains mum.
“The matter is sub judice in the Supreme Court, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment at this stage,” P.K. Jha, an official of DUSIB, told Toward Freedom. Sub judice describes a matter under a court’s consideration and, therefore, official commentary is prohibited.
‘We Only Need Food and a Make-Do Shelter’
“Some big event is going to take place here. That’s why they broke this shelter,” said Arun Kumar Jha, another occupant of the night shelter, sitting on the footpath across the road. He frequents different night shelters in the area.
Dozens of homeless still sit in the place where their shelter was until a few weeks ago. They have always relied on voluntary organizations, temples and individuals for food. Across the road, approximately 300 meters (328 yards) away from the shelter is a revered Hanuman Temple. Hanuman is a Hindu god with the face of a monkey known for his devotion via service. The homeless crowd outside the temple has increased after the demolition. They find it easier to find food and money from worshippers visiting the temple.
“Food is not a problem here, many people come and serve us, that’s why we (homeless) do not want to leave this place. We only need food and a make-do shelter,” Jha told Toward Freedom. “Government takes us in a bus from here, but never provides food.”
Parva Dubey is a freelance writer based in New Delhi. Parva can be followed on Twitter at @ParvaDubey.
An image of U.S. dollar bills, Canadian dollars, Czech koruna notes and U.K. pound sterlings. Developed countries are required to fund climate-change mitigation and adaption efforts of developing countries / credit: John McArthur on Unsplash
Last month, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry visited India in an effort to bolster the United States’ bilateral and multilateral climate efforts ahead of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), which will be held in Glasgow in just a few weeks. Countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will attend the conference to deliberate as well as negotiate actions needed to combat the climate crisis.
Kerry’s visit to India also marked the launch of Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD). CAFMD is part of the U.S.-India Agenda 2030 Partnership Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden announced in April at the Leaders Summit on Climate. The talks took place within the context of India’s membership within an alliance colloquially referred to as “The Quad.” The alliance comprises Australia, Japan, India and the United States, and is aimed at countering a growing China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Soon after Kerry’s visit to India, Quad leaders met at the White House for discussions on a host of issues, including climate change. They agreed to work on climate targets aimed at 2030 and pursue enhanced actions in the 2020s.
But what tools are available to India—and other developing countries—to support them as they face climate-change impacts like eroding coastlines and droughts? And how will such tools be made available?
Mobilizing finance is considered key to helping developing countries meet their emission-reduction targets and adapt to climate-change impacts. At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.
But while COP15 set a clear target of $100 billion, it allowed flexibility in terms of what forms of financial support qualify as climate finance. The Paris Agreement, the successor to the Copenhagen Accord, reiterated the $100 billion per year commitment, but it also allows a wide range of financial instruments.
Indian Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav (left) and U.S. special presidential climate envoy John Kerry kick off the U.S.-India Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue on September 13 in New Delhi / credit: twitter/climateenvoy
Developing Countries’ Perspective
Developed and developing countries have different perspectives on climate finance. Chandra Bhushan, a public policy expert and founder/CEO of International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST), explained when developing countries speak of climate-finance requirements, they largely mean public grants from developed countries. But when developed countries talk about climate finance, they mean “everything from loans to grants to bilateral and multilateral funding,” Bhushan said.
Bilateral funding refers to financial support from one country to another. Multilateral funding involves agencies such as the World Bank, which derives its source of funding from multiple countries.
India’s official position on climate finance is only grants and grant-equivalent elements of other instruments, like loans and guarantees, ought to be recognized as climate finance. For example, in a recent interview to CarbonCopy, Rajni Ranjan Rashmi, a former principal negotiator for India at the UN climate change negotiations, said it is “logical” to include only the grant portion, or the concessional part, of the loans in the definition of climate finance.
Publicly available information about CAFMD does not reveal what exactly “financial mobilization” would entail. This reporter filed a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for minutes of meetings held between Kerry and the ministry. However, the request was denied.
Bhushan also expressed skepticism, noting how pre-COP launches of dialogues, like CAFMD, are not uncommon. But he said their progress is rarely tracked to ascertain achievements.
Mud cracks formed on a dried-out river bed in the district of Kutch in the Indian state of Gujarat / credit: Renzo D’souza on Unsplash
Unpacking “Finance Mobilization”
In general, “finance mobilization” can happen on both concessional and commercial terms. Arjun Dutt, program lead at Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) said concessional capital typically is channeled through grants and soft loans to market segments that are not commercially viable to catalyze investment. And as for finance on commercial terms, Dutt noted it typically flows into sectors that have achieved commercial viability and large-scale deployment, such as utility-scale renewable energy.
Elaborating on what India needs, Dutt said if the world wants India to decarbonize at an accelerated pace and commit to net-zero goals, the country “would likely require greater international [climate-finance] flows on both concessional and commercial terms.”
Through financial instruments such as guarantees, concessional capital could help lower the risk of loan defaults with new clean-energy technologies, which could catalyze more private-sector investments, Dutt explained. And as for commercial international capital, it would be needed because of the sheer scale of India’s decarbonization requirements.
Pays to note, in her meeting with Kerry, Indian Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitaraman also underscored a need for enhanced climate finance for developing countries, or funding beyond the $100 billion commitment made at the Copenhagen summit.
Recently, even African nations called for a 10-fold increase to the $100 billion climate finance target.
Climate Finance’s Track Record
Developed countries have largely failed in fulfilling their climate finance obligations, a September 2021 report shows. Out of 23 developed countries that have a responsibility to provide climate finance, only Germany, Norway and Sweden have been paying their fair share of the annual $100 billion goal. More specifically, it states that the United States has the biggest shortfall in paying its fair share of climate finance, based on historical emissions and national income.
Drought in Ooty, a town nestled in the Western Ghats mountain range in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu / credit: Shravan K Acharya on Unsplash
And closer examination of delivered climate finance reveals other issues. According to a report by Oxfam, the share of grants in global public climate finance was only 27 percent in 2019, whereas loans—both concessional and otherwise—totaled 71 percent. The remaining 2 percent comprised finance mobilized from private sources. Oxfam referred to this reliance on loans to fulfill climate-finance obligations “an overlooked scandal.”
Recently, a climate negotiator from a developing country, who anonymously wrote for The Guardian, pointed out how climate finance in the form of loans is creating a debt trap for countries in the Global South, where the COVID-19 pandemic has hit economies.
Interest rates on concessional loans are unequal, too. “The rate of interest in developed countries is around 2 percent and in India, it is around 14 percent,” said Bhushan of iFOREST. “So, if the United States gives a loan for 6 percent, will you consider it as a loan given on concessional terms?”
Funding Mitigation Versus Adaptation
Climate finance usually aids two solutions: Mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions like investments in renewable energy technologies or even making existing energy generation more efficient. Adaptation means remodeling and reorganizing society and the physical environment to address risks posed by climate change. Climate adaptation includes enhancing the resilience of coastal communities with nature-based solutions like restoration of mangroves and providing food security with climate-resilient agricultural practices.
Here, too, disparities exist between the needs of developing countries and what the developed world actually delivers.
Little doubt remains that climate change disproportionately impacts the Global South, given pre-existing conditions like food insecurity and lack of adequate healthcare. And so, countries in this region need as much financial support, if not more, for adaptation as they do for undertaking mitigation measures to arrest the global temperature rise. Even the Paris Agreement recognizes developing countries need equal amounts of funding towards mitigation and adaptation. But funding flows largely towards mitigation.
Oxfam points out 66 percent of global public climate finance supported mitigation while only 25 percent went toward adaptation. “Profitability drives the flow of money,” Dutt said, noting how climate finance goes toward mitigation efforts—like enhancing deployment in the renewable energy sector—and not to adaptation. But this is where public finance—or that which is provided by taxpayer money—can flow.
It also is unclear if developing countries have undertaken climate-change impact assessments and drafted clear policies aimed at mitigation, which could then be implemented using international climate financing.
Solar Power Plant Telangana II in the Indian state of Telangana / credit: Thomas Lloyd Group
Developing Homegrown Climate Technology
Article 4.5 of the UNFCCC states developed countries have undertaken a commitment to
“take all practicable steps to promote, facilitate and finance, as appropriate, the transfer of, or access to environmentally sound technologies and knowledge to other Parties, particularly developing country Parties, to enable them to implement the provisions of the Convention.”
But little clarity is available on what “practicable” entails, what “as appropriate” means and what “environmentally sound technologies” encompass.
More rudimentary questions exist about whether developing countries like India need technology transfers.
“Renewable energy technologies like modules and inverters are produced at a mass scale across the world and even in India. These technologies are well-understood,” Dutt said. The only challenge, Dutt added, is India has not been able to produce renewable-energy equipment at globally competitive rates.
Expressing similar concerns, Bhushan spoke of how technologies like solar photovoltaic (PV) panels have hundreds of parts and algorithms that could have hundreds of intellectual property rights (IPRs). “Many of these IPRs are from developing countries themselves,” he noted. These IPRs are then packaged together and sold to companies to manufacture solar PV modules and panels. “Technology transfer is not like giving a formula to someone to produce a chemical. It is a combination of hundreds of formulas, many owned by Indians themselves,” Bhushan said. “The bottomline is, if you have money, you can buy whatever technology you want.” And so, the issue is not about freeing technology, like with the COVID-19 vaccines.
India has largely handled its own mitigation pathway because the country has access to renewable-energy technologies—both imported and domestically produced. Bhushan said talk of technology transfer is largely rhetoric without substantive demands detailing what exactly developing countries need.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
