Billions Pledged for a Green Future
Mahak Agrawal
Bridging the gap b/w climate commitment & action via science-driven strategies | United Nations Fellow | TEDx Speaker | LinkedIn Top Green Voice ?? | Sustainable artist | Urban Planner
Indo-German ties beyond public health emergencies!
~Mahak Agrawal, Sayanti Sengupta
It was a usual November morning when smog filled up the lungs of north India, as satellite images highlighted major regions enveloped in thick layers of hazardous smog. But, wait, it was not “usual”.
The National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi woke up to a grey storm of pollution, the Air Quality Index (AQI) soared way past the measurement scale of 0-500+, leaving citizens of Delhi teary-eyed and breathless. Just to give you some perspective here, AQI above 100 is already unhealthy, and cities like Paris declare emergencies and initiate odd and even license plate schemes, as soon as the AQI is above 100.
With AQI above 500, National Capital Territory of Delhi declared a public health emergency, temporarily banning all construction activities, shutting down schools and rolling out yet another round of odd-even schemes. Perceptive professionals filled social media handles with their two cents criticising Delhi NCR for its unhealthy state of air affairs.
What was Delhi NCR doing in this state of emergency? Well, the four states surrounding NCT of Delhi- Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan- were passing the blame buck to each other. Amid the blame game, 5 million masks were distributed, 262,000+ citizens demanded their #RightToBreathe, Supreme Court ordered a ban on the burning of crop stubble in the states surrounding Delhi and select government bodies initiated ad-hoc measures to curb the pollution.
Whilst the city and its surrounding region was burning, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel witnessed first-hand the toxic state of the nation’s capital during her a two-day visit (October 31, 2019, to November 1, 2020) to Delhi for the fifth round of Intergovernmental Consultations (IGC). After much discussions and deliberations led by the German Chancellor and Prime Minister of India, the two nations decided to focus on giving a new momentum to the bilateral ties by scaling up cooperation in several sectors. Germany agreed to co-operate on climate protection and green urban mobility and earmarked 1 billion euros towards this. Apart from climate protection and green urban mobility, sectors of healthcare, agriculture, energy and artificial intelligence were recognised important in the strategic partnerships.
Five action areas were identified for the Indo-German strategic partnership for sustainable growth and a reliable international order. These include:
- strengthening cooperation in the field of Artificial Intelligence and digital transformation,
- expanding frontiers of trade and investment through innovation and knowledge,
- taking action for climate and sustainable development,
- bridging people together, and
- sharing global responsibility.
As soon as the pledge was publicly announced, media channels flooded with the news of one billion euros pledged by Germany for sustainable urban mobility in India. Like everyone else, development practitioners like us were also excited to see what's next. It’s been half a year since then. And we are still left with questions.
Where is the money? How is it going to be used? And when?
Well, we do not know!
What we do know is that India and Germany have long held strong ties. The bond was visible amid the COVID19 crisis as well, with thousands of test kits imported from Germany. But when it comes to this billion-euro pledge, there is no clear picture in terms of actions or actors responsible.
We can only hope that the pledge transforms into effective interventions with long term impacts. Over the next 4 weeks, we will deliberate on the pledged investment sectors and share our perspectives on potential intervention areas with lessons learnt previously in the Indo-German context. Stay tuned!