India must take the global lead on climate change

With Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, India 🇮🇳 needs to lead the Global South in the fight against climate change.

India can credibly assume global climate leadership by doing two things:

1- LEAD BY EXAMPLE … at home
2- REFRAME Climate Change as Climate Opportunities

According to a UN Global Compact Network India study, 50% — yes, 50% ! — of global progress to United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will come from India during this decade.

This means only one thing:

(ONLY) IF INDIA IS SUSTAINABLE, THE WORLD WILL BE SUSTAINABLE

Achieving the SDGs by 2030 will require $3.9 TRILLION to be invested in developing countries each year !

But with an average annual investment of only $1.4 trillion, the investment gap is currently $2.5 trillion a year.

There is no way that developing countries like India can drum up that kind of investment.

Frugal innovation is the art of “doing better with less” mastered by Indians may therefore be the only — and best — option for developing countries like India to achieve the SDGs cost-effectively and on time.

My book “Do Better with Less” coauthored with Jaideep Prabhu and published by Penguin Random House India shows how Indian companies and startups can leverage frugal innovation as a strategic lever to address the UN’s SDGs faster, better, cheaper.

By helping the globe, India can help itself, and by helping itself, India can help the rest of the world.

In his book The Ideal of Human Unity, the Indian yogi and philosopher Sri Aurobindo wrote:

“Today the ideal of human unity is more or less vaguely making its way to the front of our consciousness.

The emergence of an ideal in human thought is always the sign of an intention in Nature, but not always of an intention to accomplish; sometimes it indicates only an attempt which is predestined to temporary failure.”

India must not squander the historic opportunity that Nature has chosen to bestow upon it now: the young Republic must leverage its ancient Vedic wisdom and its jugaad ingenuity to help the world transcend its differences and achieve unity.

It’s time for India to put its belief “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (the whole world is one family) into action — and claim global climate leadership by leading by example at home.