My City My Responsibility - Win over COVID-19 and more!

Dear All, 

In my last blog I did mention that COVID-19 the pandemic is in a way helping us realize that coming together for working towards a cause can actually help us WIN over other existential threats too as human beings! This also reminds me about THANOS - my favorite character and the super villain from the sci-fi movie AVENGERS. Favorite because somehow he felt the need to attain sustainability unlike the so called superheroes. He however chose a wrong path - to wipe out people the way COVID-19 affects. All the superheroes formed an alliance and came together to put an end to THANOS on seeing a threat of human extinction. I feel a similar situation has been happening around us, where we see how all national and international governments and local bodies, companies private and public, researchers, celebrities, education systems, transport systems, medical systems, supply chains etc and not to mention us, the Citizens are coming together towards tackling this super villain and trying to save humanity. It is indeed commendable, however the way we behave or take actions now at various levels of operation (individual, community and governance) has a solution to a bigger problem. 

Why I feel so is because a LOCKDOWN helped reduce China's pollution though temporary but at drastic levels just within two month's time. China has been reportedly been the biggest air polluter taking thousands of lives especially kids and older people. But the lockdown and slowed economic activity led the reduction of pollution and saved lives to almost 20 times than the pandemic as per this source http://www.g-feed.com/2020/03/covid-19-reduces-economic-activity.html 

Here, I don't mean pandemics are good, but we can learn something from such a situation. 

Global emissions scoreboard

From my area of work (as climate researcher), the point that I want to make here is if we are to achieve the goal of 1.5 deg C temperature rise instead of 4.2 deg C by the end of the century, it seems to be easily achievable. Imagine each country taking turns to even partially lockdown (not because of some pandemic but voluntarily) and slowing down economic activity, transport especially with personal cars and stop flying for conferences and events just for a period of say 3 months or so...may be more or less depends, need to research..., we can tackle the bigger challenge of climate change. Can we look at the lockdown situation as a way to reduce our carbon footprints and also ecological footprints? Italy's water canals have reported the come back of dolphins and swans due to no human activity over just a few weeks! We can definitely give our life supporting systems some breather to restore and meanwhile decide the further course of action.

In one of our river restoration studies that we conducted last year as an alternative to the riverfront development plan, we did suggest a temporary period of 'No Access' to the river in order to restore the river, of course we cannot ban the access completely but in a situation like a lockdown this can be easily accomplished temporarily. 

Now that our lives are at stake, we are mandated to take drastic actions, lets not wait till such a situation arises through climate change. Just read recently, we need to stop human DOING for some time and start BEING human. 

Last but not the least, I am sure all of us have enough information on where India and Pune stands with the number of people affected and all....however in order to limit ourselves to get into the stage III mode we better quarantine ourselves completely and help each other. But more urgent and important - we need TESTING facilities for ALL since that will be one of the key ways to manage this chaos. South Korea has shown the way in this. On the other hand, India is one of the countries conducting the LEAST number of tests per million citizens! This is totally unacceptable and needs to change! The government has started expanding the testing capacity since this week, but it is not moving fast enough. We the Citizens need to start demanding more urgency on this! 

Safe Sanitizing!!!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - World Environment Day initiatives!

Dear All, 

The World Environment Day is approaching soon and this years theme is Air Pollution. China is the host country this year. China has been investing heavily in renewable energy, energy efficiency and electric cars. China also suffers the impacts of air pollution to the extent of Beijing city coming to a halt several days during winter due to bad air quality. So it seems China may be the best host for this year's theme on fighting air pollution.

Last year India was the host country and the theme was to Beat Plastic Pollution, as a country we pledged to Ban Single Use Plastic completely by 2020. In Pune, there was a plastic ban movement which worked quite well for sometime, however lack of better and effective alternatives resulted in this initiative taking a back seat for now. However I feel that this initiative did create a consciousness among the Puneites about the ill effects of plastic to an extent and people have reduced using plastic items that are just Use and Throw...I really hope that we will continue this momentum.

Coming back to this year's theme, we all know a lot about air pollution and how it is affecting our health, increasing the number of deaths each year. We are also aware of the sources of air pollution in India. In case of Pune one of the major sources of air pollution has been vehicular emissions. Pune was a cycle city in past (though we are reviving it again through the Pune Cycle Plan) its the two wheeler city still to an extent and it looks like we are heading towards a four wheeler city. This means more dependence on fossil fuels, increase in traffic congestion, increase in travel time per trip and thus increase in vehicular emissions which is closely related to increase in carbon emissions and ultimately causing unsustainability. 

Considering this year's theme lets explore our public transport system. Can we as citizens use the existing bus service for a week in Pune while we commute to our work and back, whenever possible. Lets take any one week in this month and try to explore the Public mode of transport i.e the PMPML buses. Lets use the Bus Week as an action to curb air pollution as an individual. Lets document the experience with our buses and also brainstorm on its improvement and workability for all of us sometime in the next month. Also lets take a selfie with the bus. I am attaching a google form with this blog. Please fill in the form in order to help us document your experience. Click Here.

Some quick observations while using a public transport would be to see if the buses are on time, well maintained or clean, there is place to sit or stand comfortably, safe from theft, stalkers etc, travel time taken, frequency of the buses, condition of the bus, ease of last mile connectivity like whats the distance of the bus stop from your work or office space etc. 

As we are exploring this facility, I would suggest following pointers that will enable us to use the service effectively. 

• We all use smart phones enabled with GPS, there's a feature known as OK Google in all phones. Just type in ' buses near me' in this tab and you will be able to see the nearest bus stop. 
• We all use Google maps, just put your location and destination and select the bus option. You will see the bus number, all buses for those routes, scheduled time of arrival and approx time taken to reach the destination, they also give bus fare sometimes. 
• You can also use the PMPML app for all information related to the buses. 
• Lets be prepared to leave our homes an hour or an half early (i know its a bit too much) to reach anywhere since there is a lot of traffic congestion during peak hours.   
• Lets be ready to walk or take a rickshaw from the bus stop to our destination since many a times we may not have bus stops right next to our destination. 
• Lets see how much that will help in savings on transport for a week. 
• Lets not compromise as well, if its not convenient to use the public transport, however still give your feedback as to why its not feasible to use the buses.

Selfie in the bus

We at Samuchit, LAYA and INECC are part of a study project to make Pune a Sustainably SMART city by 2030 and part of ClimateCollectivePune (CCP) a network working towards making Pune a Carbon Neutral city by 2030. Going low carbon is the first step towards Sustainability and hence we are promoting this idea as part of this year's Environment Day. 

Looking forward to more selfies with the bus. In case of any queries please write to me at pournima@samuchit.com

You can also like/follow/comment on our FB and instagram page: Citizens of Sustainable Pune

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Youth for Climate action Part I

A casual group photo at CEE

Dear All, 

I am very excited to share with you the insights of a Youth Conference that I attended last week in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It was the Local Conference for Youth (LCOY 14) for South Asia region hosted by Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in Ahmedabad. The theme of this conference was what actions the youth of the country can take in order to have a low carbon future. Students, budding environment entrepreneurs, researchers, PHD scholars and professionals from all over India and Bangladesh participated in this conference. Being a South Asia regional conference participants from Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan were also supposed to attend but couldn't make it this time. So we were a cozy group of around 30 Climate enthusiasts for the conference.  

As a researcher working in the field of Climate action I have been curious about what exactly happens at the Conference of Parties (COP) especially after the  COP21 at Paris that led to a landmark agreement bringing all the nations together to combat climate change and accelerate actions for a sustainable low carbon future. When I heard about LCOY last year my curiosity had been awakened. and I wanted to know more about it. That's when I learnt that Conference of Youth (COY) happens within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and aims at engaging youth for understanding the climate negotiations happening at the global level in COP and strengthens the capacity for actions at the local level. 

LCOY provides an opportunity where all the initiatives and research happening at local level towards climate change impacts are discussed, compiled and presented at the GCOY i.e the Global Conference for Youth. The GCOY takes place before or during the COP every year. This year GCOY will be happening around 29th November ahead of COP24 in Katowice, Poland. I am glad that I could attend LCOY this year and could share our work on climate vulnerability and low carbon lifestyles choices. I really hope these suggestions get discussed in this year's COP.

At the COP, LCOY India is endorsed by YOUNGO which is an official constituency of UNFCCC and is a dynamic network of individuals and organizations focused on youth for climate action. YOUNGO has been accredited a status of  'Observer' at the COP and presents all the inputs from the LCOY's at the GCOY.  It was overwhelming to meet the south coordinator of YOUNGO - Yugratna Srivastava  in this conference. 

On the first day, after all the introductions and background, one of the activities involved role playing. Here we actually got a hang of what happens at the COP through mock climate negotiations. We all were grouped as different regional groups known as Party Groupings. The regional groups include G77+ China - a group that comprises of developing nations (India is included in this group), the like minded developing countries (LMDC's), Least Developed Countries (LDC's) and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) - one of the biggest group of nations. Then there is the African Group of Negotiators, the EU group comprising 28 member states of European union, an Umbrella group consisting of US and Russia predominately, the Environmental Integrity group comprising the Mexico, Korea and Switzerland etc. While there are some non party groups as well known as the Observers which includes all the non formal associations like NGO's, activists, professionals etc. 

I was a part of the G77+China group where we all had to advocate for the voices of the LMDC's who were struggling to just survive in the face of the climate change impacts, to other climate negotiators. We had a great debating session. I realised how important it is to have knowledge of country statistical data in putting forth one's point strongly. Moreover, I realized that the job of a negotiator representing his/her country is highly critical, knowledge based, political, diplomatic and absolutely risky. There may be more to it for sure. I also realised how tricky it is to come to a consensus for any single given issue. The mock took almost two hours for us as party groups, to come to a consensus on the single issue of deciding what should be the limits for the global temperature rise in this century. Should it be below 2 degree Celsius or  well below 1.5 deg Celsius??? Tuff job!

I am going to write more about my reflections on the other sessions at LCOY, some highlights and views on the Sabarmati riverfront development and the city of Ahmedabad in general in my next blogs. Stay tuned!

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com