‘India needs to look at water, climate problems closely,’ says Joyeeta Gupta

Amsterdam-based Indian-origin scientist and environmental science professor Joyeeta Gupta has won the Spinoza Prize, which is often called the ‘Dutch Nobel Prize’. Gupta, who is the first India-born scientist to win the prestigious prize, is currently a full professor of environment and development in the global south at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the University of Amsterdam. Born in New Delhi, Gupta was previously a professor of climate change policy and law at the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Gupta did her BA from Delhi University in 1984, LLB from Gujarat University in 1987 and went on to acquire her LLM from Harvard Law School in 1988. She completed her PhD from Vrije Universiteit in 2007.

She shares this year’s Spinoza Prize with Toby Kiers, a professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. According to her website, Gupta was the “lead author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore and of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment which won the Zayed Second Prize”.

Gupta, who has authored and co-edited numerous books, including Our Simmering Planet: What to do About Global Warming and History of Global Climate Governance, spoke to Open a day after the Dutch Research Council announced the award. According to the Council’s statement, Gupta will receive 1.5 million euros to spend on scientific research and activities related to knowledge utilisation. Excerpts from an interview:

You have worked in the Netherlands for decades. Why did you choose to work in that country?

I was on my way back from studying in the United States to India with a six-month job in the Netherlands. I fell in love while I was in the Netherlands and that is what led me to stay here.

How deep is the divide between the Global North and the Global South in climate change negotiations? Is the climate change leadership contract cracking? Are you less optimistic now than earlier?

The divide between the global North and South is still very large. Thirty years ago, when I was writing my PhD thesis, the situation was very different in that the developing world was much poorer and there were clear-cut differences. The rich countries were demotivated by the US decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and then the recession hit and basically, they did not do very much to drastically reduce their emissions. But then with liberalisation, China, India, and other countries began to follow in the footsteps of the rich countries and their emissions began to rise.

We have reached a situation now that we have passed 1 degree Celsius and may easily pass 1.5 degrees and move towards 2.7 degrees unless everyone changes their behaviour. The rich countries need to radically change, but they are heavily locked into a fossil-fuel economy. The poorer countries may be able to bypass such a lock-in if they are cleverer in their design of cities and the energy infrastructure. But it does need deep thinking.

The problem is that if no one takes action, many countries and especially India will face huge climate-related problems of drought, high temperatures, and floods, all of which will affect the agricultural base in India but also industry and services as well as the well-being of the people. We cannot afford to be pessimistic about country choices – otherwise, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Can you explain what it means to “modernise without Westernising”, a solution for combating climate change crises suggested by you and others?

I think it is critical to develop context-related solutions for countries. Modelling production and consumption patterns based on Western ways will aggravate many problems and will not solve the enduring problems of poverty and inequality. The question is how can India modernise and ensure the well-being of all people, without massively compromising on its natural resources and emitting high levels of air pollutants.

For example, it makes more sense to invest in a proper and much more extended public transport system which encourages people to get out of their cars and use these systems. But this also means that such a public transport system must be usable by senior citizens and must be attractive to all. Another example is perhaps developing and marketing Indian vegetarian cuisine as healthy and environmentally friendly to reduce the need for meat and fish consumption.

New investments in energy should focus on renewables but also on extensive demand-side management. This will also improve air quality and reduce the number of air pollution-related illnesses. Focusing on quality versus quantity is also critical. But it is up to people within a specific context to think about the bigger picture and how to develop their ideas regarding how to live happily and healthily in a country.

Do we often forget that energy is not power and that phasing out fossil fuels in an equitable manner is far more difficult than we think it is? After all, most modern equipment that we use is linked to fossil fuels and derived products. 

Phasing out fossil fuels is hugely difficult. The global fossil-fuel industry and those dependent on it may be valued anywhere between 16 trillion dollars to 300 trillion dollars depending on how you calculate it. This is a massive percentage of global GDP. So, this is very difficult to do, and that is why the discussion about this has been continuously postponed. And now we are all locked into a fossil-fuel economy we cannot get out of.

But the impacts of climate change are even more devastating. Forest fires and extreme weather events are reported every day in some parts of the world. Tens of millions of people are exposed to very high wet bulb temperatures and this can be mortal. How will our farmers be able to work if the temperatures are so high? How will plants grow if the evaporation rate is high and the groundwater levels are falling? We really need to address this problem before it becomes completely irreversible.

And so, we must think about a fossil fuel-free future and see how to back-cast from it. It is a difficult problem, but we need to face it. And one should not forget that the fossil-fuel companies make massive profits – and they should be the ones leading the change, but they are unlikely to do so if we do not force them.

How do we tackle migrations caused by climate change? Are world leaders taking stock of the situation properly? What are your biggest worries about these kinds of migrations?

Migrations are already taking place for several reasons – sometimes this is exacerbated by environmental challenges – such as lack of productive land, availability of water, temperatures and so on. Most migrations occur within a region or country and so the bulk of the problems concerning migrations are currently faced by the global South.

But migrations to the Western world have led to major reactions – with the former US president building a wall to keep migrants out and the EU is also struggling to develop a humane migration policy. We need to avoid involuntary migration – we need to ensure that people are not pushed out of their homes and contexts through the irresponsible use of resources and sinks.

What are your thoughts on the Great Reset proposal by the World Economic Forum (WEF)?

I think it is remarkable that the World Economic Forum is thinking about a Great Reset. I gave a plenary talk https://www.weforum.org/videos/davos-am23-leading-the-charge-through-earths-new-normal-english at Davos earlier this year, together with Johan Rockstrom, on safe and just earth system boundaries. This talk is based on a paper https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06083-8 that has just been published in Nature. At Davos, there appeared to be a willingness to accept that the global economic systems need to change and many actors are engaged. But I think, instead of waiting for the global system to change, India should be thinking of how to change the economic system to meet its own needs and to ensure that it stays within its own Earth system boundaries.

Of course, we can become very rich by taking all the groundwater out and using it for production processes – but this will massively affect the future of agriculture, cities, and nature and this will become irreversible if we don’t take action fast.

There has been a growing tendency to mock climate-change activists by a section of people who deny such a phenomenon. But do you agree that using private jets to hold climate change summits is counter-productive?

I think these are two different questions. There is a growing group of sceptics who deny the science of climate change and use social media to create confusion regarding the science. This is a very worrying phenomenon – as freedom of speech and freedom of communication do not include the freedom to spread misinformation.

On the other side, there is the issue of international travel to address climate change. I think that on the one hand, we do need people to come together to build relationships and to understand each other’s perspectives – and this needs face-to-face confrontation.

On the other hand, it seems crazy that some people want to only travel in private jets to such places – for example to Davos. I think one needs to seriously consider when travel is essential for the goal to be achieved and when online platforms do just as well.

What do you think are the steps that India should take to join the global efforts to fight climate change? Are we in the right direction?

I have been researching climate change for more than 30 years. Indian negotiators, policymakers, NGOs and scientists have been very active throughout this period. I regret that the choices made in India have led to greater fossil-fuel dependence than in 1990. To some extent, this was justified by the argument that the West is continuing to use fossil fuels. But India is such a large country that changing direction is very difficult.

I think India needs to look at the water, climate, and biodiversity problems comprehensively to see how best to design cities and neighbourhoods, and how best to engage the best of Indian brains to enable a better life for all without further destroying the environment and consequently our health.  If you become richer and can afford a home in Delhi, but the air becomes more putrid that you have to buy air purifiers for each room, or if you get water in the tap but have to buy water purifiers to clean the water; or if you have a car, but spend hours in a traffic jam – then you may have money in the bank but you also spend more.

And if you cannot afford the air and water purifiers, the air conditioners, or if you cannot afford a home, you are exposed to all kinds of illnesses. Why don’t we take the costs of inaction into account in our assessment of how to live? I don’t have any simple answers. But I think we have to collectively work towards addressing the difficult questions. Avoiding them is not a choice. Joyeeta Gupta

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