Uploaded September 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Abstract: Equity and justice are key principles that inform discussions and negotiations on various elements of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation. However, while these principles are central to developing country positions in the multilateral negotiations on climate change, it is important to examine the role they play in the academic literature on the subject.
For example, consider the recent reports of the 6th Assessment cycle of the IPCC. On the face of it the narrative of “climate resilient development” which is a central theme in the reports seems to encompass a whole range of principles and approaches that foreground equity and climate justice. However, when it comes to quantifiable results from modelling studies that are supposed to convey concrete ways to achieve climate resilient development, one finds a serious lack of equity considerations; the global modelled scenarios that inform a major part of the IPCC assessment, are based on "least cost assumptions” and do not consider "global equity, environmental justice or intraregional income distribution". However, it is these results that are the focus of academic, political, and civil society outreach of the IPCC, and are often quoted in sensational media headlines after the reports are released.
Elements that are important for the Global South (such as public finance for climate action) get very little attention.
This talk will explore the implications of such academic approaches for climate policy, the reasons for their overwhelming presence in the scientific literature, and the way to bridge the gap between paying lip service to equity and actually operationalising it.
Speaker: Dr. Tejal Kanitkar (twitter.com/KanitkarT) is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India. Her work integrates perspectives from the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences, to understand the interconnected aspects of energy production and access, environmental impacts, and socio-economic development. In particular, she works on ways to operationalize equity and justice in the era of acute environmental crises, including, of course, the climate crisis.
Introduction (00:00)
Talk (01:54)
Q&A (50:58)
Abstract: Equity and justice are key principles that inform discussions and negotiations on various elements of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation. However, while these principles are central to developing country positions in the multilateral negotiations on climate change, it is important to examine the role they play in the academic literature on the subject.
For example, consider the recent reports of the 6th Assessment cycle of the IPCC. On the face of it the narrative of “climate resilient development” which is a central theme in the reports seems to encompass a whole range of principles and approaches that foreground equity and climate justice. However, when it comes to quantifiable results from modelling studies that are supposed to convey concrete ways to achieve climate resilient development, one finds a serious lack of equity considerations; the global modelled scenarios that inform a major part of the IPCC assessment, are based on "least cost assumptions” and do not consider "global equity, environmental justice or intraregional income distribution". However, it is these results that are the focus of academic, political, and civil society outreach of the IPCC, and are often quoted in sensational media headlines after the reports are released.
Elements that are important for the Global South (such as public finance for climate action) get very little attention.
This talk will explore the implications of such academic approaches for climate policy, the reasons for their overwhelming presence in the scientific literature, and the way to bridge the gap between paying lip service to equity and actually operationalising it.
Speaker: Dr. Tejal Kanitkar (twitter.com/KanitkarT) is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India. Her work integrates perspectives from the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences, to understand the interconnected aspects of energy production and access, environmental impacts, and socio-economic development. In particular, she works on ways to operationalize equity and justice in the era of acute environmental crises, including, of course, the climate crisis.
Introduction (00:00)
Talk (01:54)
Q&A (50:58)
