Aug 05, 2019 / 17 SDGs

Kolkata’s fight against Climate Change goes global

Wednesday, 31st July 2019 – On that Wednesday, citizens, students, youth, teachers and organisations from all corners of the city came together at Offbeat CCU to initiate and continue their efforts towards Kolkata’s fight against Climate Change

, cristalised for around an international lecturer specialised in Science in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University, Michaela Korodimou.

Climate Change is indeed the topic of the hour. Kolkata has been at the heart of climatic discussions for the past few years as air pollution and environmental degradation gets more and more visible and destructive. Kolkata is indeed one of these localities where environmental realities are especially tangible, and not only for the eye: climate change has by many aspects become a public health issue – and crisis. This observation, evidently, goes beyond Kolkata and beyond human realities, affecting global fauna and flora ecosystems across the globe. This can be illustrated by many figures, among which the oustanding 47% of terrestrial flightless mammals and 23% of threatened birds, whose distribution may have been negatively impacted by climate change already – according to Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Locally in Kolkata, voices are speaking up. Lata Bhatiya, founder of Green Legion said on the matter, ” It is high time we take responsibility of our actions.” Mr Ajay Mittal, National Convenor at Kolkata Clean Air, added “Climate change will affect the pattern of deaths from exposure to high or low temperatures as a WHO report says. If this is the future we hold for ourselves, then our race is soon to be extinct.”

Not only are local citizens and organisations speaking up – such as Kolkata Clean Air (KCA), Earth Day Network (EDN), Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), Green Legion, Banglanatak, Y-East… they are also acting up. They are heavily raising awareness and taking action in favour of environmental responsibility, both at the citizen and systemic levels. Priyanka Modi, a full time mom and a concerned citizen said “Climate change is a roller coaster that will soon reach the point of no return. Let us put the brakes on while we still can”.

Action usually takes the shape of citizen and student workshops, awareness marches and drives, seminars and conferences. Some initiatives are also more innovative. For example, Mrs Karuna Singh, Regional Director Asia and Country Director, India of Earth Day Network, said, “EDN a partner of KCA is developing a special App that will help citizens measure air quality in their vicinities. This global project will be available to all in time for our upcoming 50th anniversary in 2020.” Another example is Y-East, initiative of Techno India Group, which organised a Plogging Run – consisting of running and picking up litter from the streets at the same time – last March in Saltlake Sector V.

In the academic field as well, professors are increasingly including sustainable development and climate change into their discourse. Dr Chandrima Goswami, Guest Lecturer at Jadavpur University & Rabindra Bharat University, said on the issue “Anthropogenic activities are immensely affecting our global climate and the adverse changes are right in front of us, which are largely driven by CO2 and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. The severity is affecting our health and well-being, together with generating ecological crisis.”

On the same note, Pauline Laravoire, Sustainability Director at Techno India Group and founder of Y-East, asserted: ‘Bridging Sustainable Development and Education is fundamental. Governments and educational institutions ought to integrate social and environmental responsibility across all academic subjects, like an ethical backbone, so the societal mindset can grow more conscious and responsible, both in individual daily choices and for career decisions. That’s where the Young Conscious Leaders Programme is moving forward’.

The Young Conscious Leaders Global Fellowship Programme is a one-of-a-kind bootcamp, co-organised by Techno India Group and France-based ENGAGE University. Speaking at the occasion, Jérôme Cohen, founder and president of ENGAGE University, said “This is precisely what we want to do at ENGAGE: raise awareness on major future challenges like climate change or inclusive technology and empower people with knowledge and tools to give to every one the opportunity to take action and become a leader on these issues.”
The two academic partners flew over four speakers from Europe on this occasion: Jérôme Cohen, Benjamin Gratton, Michaela Korodimou and Guy-Philippe Goldstein, respectively specialised in Conscious Leadership, Collective Intelligence, Climate Change and Ethics. While she has been teaching Climate Change to the twenty Young Leaders of the Programme, Michaela Korodimou was also willing to meet and exchange with local citizens and organisations. This is the reason why she led an open-to-all workshop on Climate Change action this Wednesday, where she provided insights and specific tools to tackle Climate Change challenges to the audience. The event gathered representatives of most of the aforementioned organisations, along with students from diverse educational institutions across the city. Through scientific data, visually presented with animated world maps and videos, Michaela emphasised again on the alarming climate trends of the past decades, implicitly providing precious tips on how to smartly communicate about these complex issues. The second part of the workshop was fully interactive, as participants could exchange on their individual and collective capacities to generate positive change, and could brainstorm on concrete solutions in smaller groups. On her way out, Michaela left behind her the hope that present and future generations in Kolkata will positively contribute to making the city and region more sustainable and liveable.

About

Kolkata Clean Air – It is a community and citizens initiative with the vision for Kolkata to be the be most liveable and climate friendly city in the world. Initiated in 2017 as a movement of concerned NGO’s and citizens of Kolkata has become a network of 100 plus organizations/ institutions and thousands of active citizens. Our mission is to make Kolkata Pollution free through community projects behavioural change and policy advocacy.

Y-East is an aggregating platform which focuses on including social and environmental responsibility into education, and bears the strong belief that education is absolutely incomplete without inculcating such sense of ethics and respect as the backbone of academics. Concretely, Y-East aims to raise more and more awareness on sustainable development and social impact by connecting local impact-focused actors more efficiently (NGOs, corporations, social startups, consultants, impact investors, educational institutions…) and creating more impactful collective projects and events this way.

Banglanatakdotcom – banglanatak dot com is a social enterprise, headquartered in Kolkata, working across India with a mission to foster inclusive and sustainable development using culture-based approaches. It works for the protection of rights of women, children and indigenous people. A key focus area is developing agency of young people for giving leadership in building happy communities and a safe and healthy living environment.

Earth Day Network is an international, environmental NGO that grew out of the first Earth Day (April 22, 1970) and today engages with over 50,000 organizations in more than 195 countries to widen, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement worldwide. This year, the theme for Earth Day is “;Protect our Species”.

Green Legion also works towards increasing green cover and reducing the waste by managing your own waste through composting and waste segregation. The Green Legion group works towards a mission to inculcate sustainable-lifestyle habits amongst people so that waste can be either refused or diverted from the landfill.

Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) was formed in 2008 with the mandate of promoting environmental democracy i.e. access to Information, public participation and access to justice in matter relating to environment. The mission of LIFE is based on the belief that effective environmental protection which is possible if the affected people have a voice in decision making process. LIFE is addressing the issue of declining environmental quality and the shrinking space for people’s participation in environmental decision making. It has been focusing on India’s Environmental Impact Assessment process specifically the public consultation process and ensuring that impact assessment studies correctly examines the social and environmental impacts of proposed projects.

Techno India Group is one of the largest educational conglomerates in India. It encompasses 4 Universities, 22 Engineering Colleges, 30 schools, 56 knowledge campuses across West Bengal and in another 6 Indian States. It serves to meet quality human resource according to Industry demand since 1985. Initially focused on engineering branches, Techno India Group has opened its specialities to broader avenues: architecture, law, pharmacy, business administration… Since its inception, it also strongly advocates and includes innovation and entrepreneurship at the core of its curricula and campuses.

ENGAGE University, founded in 2015 is situated in Paris, France. It addresses the challenges of the 21 st century and brings together potential leaders by the deep desire for reinvention, the desire to imagine and the desire for action. It is a space for exchanging, decrypting, imagining and hatching desirable futures. ENGAGE has developed to major activities:
– ENGAGE University to empower people, facilitate their comprehension and acquisition of major contemporary issues and soft skills necessary to the transition.
– ENGAGE Action which gathers citizens, corporations, associations and media to participate in the resolution of majors issues and to foster the development of impact projects.

Michaela Korodimou is half British, half Greek. She is a PhD candidate under the FNRS FRESH funding scheme at the Hugo Observatory and University of Liege. After a degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, majoring in Anthropology and Development at University College Utrecht, Michaela went on to obtain a Master of Science in Environmental Change and Management from the School of Geography of the University of Oxford.

Offbeat CCU is Techno India Group’s newest and most innovative campus, embodying the Group’s emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship. It is a very unique learning centre in India which promotes interdisciplinary learning and various specific, targeted skills through mainly short-term certification programmes and workshops. Beyond this more flexible, specific and interdisciplinary education system, Offbeat CCU also offers entertainment and accommodation, especially through its live performance venue TopCat CCU and its in-house hostel, Offbeat CCU Bunkers.