The Climate Challenge India portal is now two weeks in the running. For the week of 29th June to 6th July, we profile the Sierra Club, America’s oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, which has recently announced its ‘Green Energy and Green Livelihoods Achievement Award‘ India winners.
 |
GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN LIVELIHOOD ACHEIVEMENT AWARD 2009 |
|
The Sierra Club has launched its first ever ‘Green Energy and Green Livelihoods Achievement Award’ for India. This new award aims to recognize community-led initiatives to promote green economic development, green energy innovators, renewable energy alternatives and organizational leadership in a grassroots environmental campaign. The award represents Sierra Club’s growing interest in building international partnerships to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. This year, two organizations share the award. Ecosphere Spiti, an organization working in Himachal Pradesh to create sustainable livelihoods linked to conservation and ecotourism, and the Barefoot College in Rajasthan that applies practical, traditional knowledge and community-owned sustainable technology to reach the poorest residents of the state. The award Recommendations Board included a number of well-known figures such as Bittu Sahgal, Mihir Bhatt, Nandita Das, and also CSM’s Malini Mehra. Each award winner will receive a $40,000 prize, and the Awards Ceremony will be held at the Ravindra Natya Mandir auditorium in Mumbai on Thursday, 30th July 2009. Award receives tremendous response The Sierra Club says the response to the award initiative has been extremely positive. From NGOs, to business leaders and government officials, they say that everyone seems to recognize that the world is dealing with a global threat that requires organizations to work differently, and collaborate like never before. They say “To successfully arrest climate change, it is important to build international coalitions – so that together we can make sure that leaders in government and business make decisions that are right for building long-term, environmentally sustainable economic growth.” Stephen Mills, Director of Sierra Club’s International Programme says, ‘We learned in this process just how strong and vibrant Indian civil society is. Every single person we contacted gave us valuable advice on what our role as a U.S. based organization should and should not be in India. We are especially grateful though, to our award Nominators who took time to submit nominations, and to our Recommendation Board members who volunteered their own time to evaluate the achievements of our nominees. This was not an easy task. Every single one of our nominees is worthy of recognition’. |
How can membership to the CCI platform contribute to what the Sierra Club is doing?
CSM partner Sierra Club says: “For more than 100 years the members of the Sierra Club have harnessed public demand for conservation and for reducing natural resource consumption in the United States. But neither America nor India can win the battle against climate change alone. We must share resources and do this together. This is why the CCI platform is so important. It provides the opportunity for a host of organizations around the world to collaborate and to demand in unison that our leaders take action to address climate change”. |
Climate Change, the Sierra Club and India
Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report on the economic impact of climate change predicted that greenhouse gas emissions, if unchecked, would cause global temperatures to rise by 2-3 degrees centigrade in the next 50 years.
Director of the Sierra Club International Programme Stephen Mills says ‘climate change is going to affect not just India, but all of humanity. It is an issue so overwhelming, so potentially devastating in consequence, that nothing less than civilization on our planet is under threat’.
In addition to diminishing India’s agricultural output, severe climate change would likely lead to more – and more devastating – natural disasters, as well as increased deaths due to higher occurrence of diseases, apart from severely affecting the country’s 7,500 kilometer-long coastline, the Himalayan glaciers, water security and the monsoons.
The big players must contribute in key ways
The Sierra Club believes that the crisis of global warming cannot be addressed adequately by the United States alone, and without effective solutions from India and China. India is one of the largest developing countries that currently need, and will require in the future, enormous supplies of energy to fuel economic development. India is also among the many emerging economies that bear little historical responsibility for creating the climate crisis, but will contribute a fair share of emissions in the future.
Hope and the serial effect
In light of this, it is hoped that success stories of grassroots leadership in green economic development from one part of India may benefit and inspire the work of struggling environmental advocates in another, and in the long run, help reduce carbon output and promote clean energy. It is also hoped that this initiative will help focus public attention on successful community organizations that are helping India leapfrog to clean energy technologies while also creating green livelihoods.
The Sierra Club hopes that the award will serve as an entry point for a series of strategic partnerships with like-minded Indian organizations, and build bridges between the U.S. and India, in order to promote solutions for climate change.
In these partnerships, the Sierra Club and Indian NGOs will collaborate to identify high leverage, scalable opportunities to accelerate India’s leapfrog strategies.
Forward Look
Sierra Club’s goal in India is to promote green economic development and where invited, to support the good work that is already being done in the country by the variety of impressive organizations, like CSM.
The Sierra Club plans a Mumbai-based “Center for Green Livelihoods” – a physical and on-line space for information on the implications of climate change in India, which will serve as a meeting point for civil society organizations, green business, and social welfare advocates.
They also hope to convene key change agents from civil society – teachers, business and social entrepreneurs, labor and community activists – to harness India’s democratic energies to overcome these barriers. One of the first big initiatives is likely to be a big conference on green jobs and green livelihoods, much like those held in the United States (visit www.greenjobsconference.org for more information).
Through these initiatives, they hope to build new relationships in India. These will better support and represent the causes and concerns on their colleagues in India, and work with organizations to conduct regional educational programs on the impact of global warming in South Asia. The goal is to enlist the support and involvement of non-resident Indians and American indiophiles in order to “green” international energy solutions.
AWARD FUNCTION DETAILS: The Chief Guest will be Dr. B.L. Mungekar, a former member of the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Mr. Jamshyd Godrej of Godrej and Boyce Mfg. will be the Guest of Honor representing the business community. CNN/IBN Environmental Editor Bahar Dutt will be the guest emcee. The event is open to the public. To attend, please contact FTC Events Ph.: +91 22.2282.5108, email: events@fravashiworld.com.
Leave a Reply