Jaipur Literature Festival 2022 to explore climate change, the crisis within and measures to mitigate

Jaipur: Scheduled from 5th – 14th March 2022, the Jaipur Literature Festival will bring a brilliant line-up of sessions on climate change and environment. As climate change continues to be the centre of multiple debates and policies, the Festival will host an array of diverse speakers covering different angles of the issue.

The rich programme will feature, among others, a session with Bruno Maçães, decorated author, international commentator and advisor to some of the world’s leading companies on geopolitics and technology, who will be exploring the study of an emerging world order that is competitive and driven by the need to adapt and survive in increasingly hostile natural environments. In conversation with former diplomat and author Navtej Sarna, Maçães will discuss book Geopolitics for the End Time: From the Pandemic to the Climate Crisis.

Clean energy is often considered as an investment into the future. This investment must be understood with the focus being shifted on clean and renewable sources of energy is a to a new direction in environmentalism. Rahul Munjal, the Chairman & Managing Director at Hero Future Energies, one of India’s leading Independent Power Producer, is committed to positive environmental impact by increasing the share of renewables. Joining him will be, Amitabh Kant, the CEO of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) and a key driver of initiatives such as Make in India, Startup India, Incredible India and God’s Own Country and academician Siddharth Singh, author of The Great Smog of India. Munjal and Kant will discuss the future of clean energy and climate action. The panel can be caught in conversation with by Srivatsan Iyer.

Simon Mundy, Financial Times journalist and author of Race for Tomorrow: Survival, Innovation and Profit on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis, will speak on the question of what impact a single person can have in the face of the global climate crisis. His talk will feature stories of inspiring individuals from every region of the world, as well as considering the role that each and every one of us can play.

The earth has witnessed five major mass extinction events over the last 500 million years – responsible for the erasure of nearly three-quarters of its species each time. Life on earth has witnessed cataclysmic upheaval and existential threat in the planet’s long geological history, forced to recover, realign and build anew. A series called The Urgency of Borrowed Time will feature Pranay Lal, natural history writer, biochemist and public health advocate who is also author of the celebrated books Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent and Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses. The session will explore the fate of dinosaurs and species sealed by extinction events, and the role of humankind in the surging climate crisis.

Urgency of Borrowed Time will also bring Lakshmi Puri, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and former Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, who has worked extensively in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, negotiations, and as an advocate for human rights and humanitarian action, sustainable development, climate change, gender equality, peace and security. She will be joined by, Shombi Sharp, United Nations Resident Coordinator in India and expert in sustainable development, working towards the country’s Covid-19 response, plans in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and Hans Jacob Frydenlund, Norwegian Ambassador to India, closely involved with the focus on clean and renewable energy. In conversation with Navdeep Suri, the three experts will discuss the importance of multilateralism in structural climate action.

In a session tracing the trajectory of climate change and the struggle for climate justice, Simon Mundy will present an extraordinary story of the people at the front lines of the climate crisis and how the struggle to respond is reshaping the modern world. Politician, economist, historian and writer Jairam Ramesh’s Green Signals: Ecology, Growth, and Democracy in India presents a fascinating debate between economic growth and ecological security and highlights the importance of the environment in a nation’s visions for the future. Mridula Ramesh is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Climate Solution: India’s Climate Change Crisis and What We Can Do About It. In conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jeffrey Gettleman, the experts will discuss climate crisis, the global economy and the people at the centre of it.