 Hi, welcome everyone to this session and particular welcome to Shruti, really pleased that you're able to join us today. I'm going to briefly introduce you Shruti before we get into the conversation, which I'm really looking forward to. So Shruti is a professor of the professor of history and politics here at Cambridge and her work focuses on modern and contemporary India and global political thought. She's also co-director of the Global Humanities Initiative here at Cambridge and in that capacity works with seven universities in the global south with a focus there on the creation of new curriculum, new capabilities. She's also a regular commentator on Indian and global politics internationally and does that for the FT, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg and a whole range of Indian media. On top of that, she undertakes advisory work and consultancy. She works with governments, financial institutions and think tanks. And last but by no means least, she's a senior associate with us here at the Institute and contrary to our attributes and that capacity to a number of our programs and convening activities. And the first thing I want to ask just back to your biography, your role here at Cambridge, given your professor of history and politics, I'm interested in how you see the academic disciplines of history and of politics as being relevant to international negotiations on climate change. Well, thank you Lindsay, it's a real privilege and honor to actually be in conversation with you to put it very simply, the kind of optimism that the world collectively had around globalization. And now no longer seems to be so sure footed partly that's about the change in politics globally with the rise of neo nationalism, but importantly, I think post the financial crisis of 2008 in the West, and the rise of China, you also got the other Asian economies, particularly in which grew at a, you know, very fast pace in the early, early decades of this century. And all of this to say that these countries now have acquired a greater say in in those global negotiations and the version of that actually in Paris, when particularly the Indian Indian delegation had succeeded in speaking about climate justice. And I think economy is central to it, because energy consumption and so on is very high now in places like China and because those countries and with billions of people living there to say that they cannot they do not have a right to prosperity, or to development finally to just say that in terms of my dual kind of disciplinary anchoring in history and politics. What is also clear is to me, particularly because I work in the realm of ideas, among other things, is that there is a very sophisticated set of ideas policies and indeed politics in places like India around environmentalism, and, and capabilities. And that's the first thing I can bring to the table here is that these societies and these policies have a very long history around the environment and human negotiation of the environment. And I think we need to kind of start attending to that a little bit. I think the dimensions that we really need to think about and consider that perhaps we have become more prominent or more significant than in the past we've been underserved in terms of the level of attention that they've had. But I'm keen to unpack that a little more and understand what that might mean for those of us who are working in support of progress. Are you optimistic, are you optimistic that in the context of these shifts that we are going to be able to make progress to achieve global goals and particularly global climate goals, recognizing that it will require global collaboration to achieve them. It's a very hard question. The optimism lies and the challenge also lies in how we are able to craft new, new discussions in, you know, incubate new ideas, which are actually also pragmatic, which can also, you know, be operationalized scaled up. It's in the air that most of the countries are a quite introverted in their own politics and when they are externally relating to each other. There's a fair amount of conflict and there's a fair amount of lack of understanding, if I can put it like that. You know, to not sort of beat around the bush. The question around sort of, you know, at the one level is are we living in a so called new bipolarity. Is there an American so called Western liberal international way of doing things and is there another way, which is either called multi polarity, or it's called the China led world, or you can say another world which is sort of global south oriented the ex colonized countries which are rising powers with China at the other end. So are we looking at a bipolarity, a multi polarity for all these discussions and a kind of very competitive economics fear. It is producing this paradox that where we are more in dialogue with each other. But perhaps there is more also friction conflict and also, you know, we're not being able to understand. So I think the challenge is going to be to create a certain set of like minimal goals, things that are very contextually specific for instance, in coming from India, the question of climate change is now we can unpack it a little bit more is increasingly going to have to be tied up with questions of not just economic development of which we know a fair bit, but also to food security and changes in the pattern and that's a phenomenon that is also common to say other African contexts and and indeed Latin America. I mean it is interesting that with the, you know, you've had a kind of slightly positive change a leading voice in say Brazil, the Brazilian leadership has come in favor of, you know, the protection of its environment, as a key issue. So I think the mistake, the fundamental mistake really, I think, without being too critical of the preceding discussions in global discussions. The mistake has been made that somehow these global goals, whether you know whether they are developmental goals or environmental goals can be set up from the West, and can somehow just be implemented elsewhere. I think that model is completely over, both in terms of just the power dynamics, but also a shift in discourses where political leaderships and also the populations of those countries are no longer willing to take these so called lectures from the West. So I think we need something more creative, something less antagonistic, but at the same time, something which, which emerges from these very vast societies, which are actually now the engines of global growth as well. Thank you a huge amount in there. And so I'm hearing that in practical terms, there's a need to move beyond Western framed approaches so more inclusive, less Western led approaches that are really linked to real world realities for many of the countries and quite tangible about what that means. And as you said, linked to some of the national international imperatives that governments are having to navigate. So I'm interested in practical terms of if there are things that you think that individuals as part of I'm going to call it a movement. Who should be doing differently. There's a kind of consciousness emerging consciousness amongst the young in particularly in the student body, which means that these sorts of, but this this kind of very important constituency, not simply the younger generations in India or China thinking about the environment, but how actually those societies have coped with or not coped with with it. And it would be that how do you now construct new institutional paradigms and narratives. So not simply that well, you know, I personally should not be eating meat because it's bad for the environment, which is all good or I should be recycling more. So there's a kind of kind of very individuated kind of response to environmental crisis in the West. Whereas actually if you look at the history of environmentalism in India, which is long standing, whether it is around big dams in the late 19 in the 1990s. For instance, or in the late 60s around forestry, like, you know, India of course has a very long history of civil disobedience thanks to Gandhi. So it has always taken the form of civil disobedience mass movements, yet there's another level, which I think is more relatable to CISL, which would be actually policy, policy thinking that has emerged in India around energy revolution. And as I said, it didn't come from nowhere. This idea of climate justice came from a long series of kind of embedded institutional practices in India which could then take to Paris and could become a global thing. Institutionally, I think, particularly something like your own, you know, CISL, which, you know, can network these very precise new console older and newer constellations of policy building. And here I actually think one of the ways to do it would be to triangulate the global south global south south dialogue. So for instance, you know, work that CISL does with South Africa. And how can that be linked up and how can these societies learn from each other with South Asia or India. So I see actually the work in two ways, one to kind of shift the narrative through, through a kind of creative exchange of policy and ideas across the global south, which then are not directed by the West as it were but CISL can convene it, CISL can find the strategic partnerships that will allow this to kind of scale up. Thank you. So you talked about some of the infrastructure or, you know, you talked about globalization, you talked about some of the multilateral infrastructure and what we might need in future. You also talked about the importance of narrative and encourage and looking at what language is being used in other economies. Is there any other narratives that you find that are really unhelpful and you think of getting in the way and that we need to let go of or perhaps not rely too heavily on. This is difficult and I don't want to sound judgy. The fact that there is a highly individuated language around environmental politics climate change consumers restraint that is emerging here. Absolutely fine no problem. That doesn't match on at all in a place like India, and which does not therefore mean that people are not doing this or the fact that there is no politics. Quite the opposite. There's a lot of politics around in around climate justice, as I said around ideas of food security around actually pollution, you know, air pollution in mega cities. You know, places like India have very different challenges at the moment. So let me just sort of say like, this is winter. You know, North India is particularly Delhi is engulfed with smog, you would have seen right. And this is not to say that people don't have a kind of consciousness around it how can you not you're living that toxic air. And this, but then this, it would not simply be about saying, well, people should not be using cars, how are you supposed to get around, you know, get around that city. So I think what is then required is because that smog is related to agriculture production in the north, the burning of stubble. There is a way in which a new discourse is emerging that perhaps the North Indian farmer should now not be producing paddy. It should not be you know it should move to Melettes or it should move to a different agrarian agrarian practice. So those things are emerging from those countries itself. And, and plus, there's a real issue of scale, and which I think you know we're not quite sensitive to in terms of the scale of the problem or the scale of the challenge itself. And I think the purists puritanism puritanism would have to go in terms of making simply climate as the ultimate thing, but actually to see how these three or four or five things are competing with each other, and producing a new set of policies and we are seeing that in India, you're seeing the emergence opening of coal mines, some not many, but, but you're also seeing this huge investment, eye watering amount of investment in solar energy. In terms of air pollution, I mean I've always been struck how recent it was that London was had very dirty air, I mean it's still not perfect. So what could places like London provide in terms of policy expertise. How is it that a political consensus was arrived at in Britain. So I think those sorts of conversations would be very, I think helpful and interesting. And I would say impactful. Absolutely. And specifically on that point we've had a number of government municipality delegations of leaders from a number of countries in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia come to us for what they've called London smart programs. How can they learn from what it took to achieve that cleaning up of the admittedly a huge amount still more to be done and not a thing that we by any means cracked. So I want to move from the kind of the diagnosis and commentary and that laying out the big context and come specifically then to COP 28 and move instead to prediction. So I want to ask you what you think the outcomes do you think we're likely to see from this forthcoming call. So I think, let me contextualize one thing I think the G 20 in India. So what is this parallel set of multilateral conversations going on. And I think it's really interesting that four major global South countries are were are convening the G 20 in succession. So it started with Indonesia, then India, then Brazil, and then South Africa in two years it'll be in South Africa. And the way in which that dialogue is getting it's getting a kind of institutional structure but it's also getting a momentum and where these countries have like really set the tone for for negotiation that this cannot simply be about Europe or it cannot simply be about you know, moving national as it were carbon one country to another or jurisdictions that you know, I mean the challenge around net zero, for instance, a that it has occupied a very central place in the discussions of COP. So what you see from the global South, the challenge is that when you have a net zero policy which says it will be met in 2070, which is an in there that's the claim. That's the kind of pledge, then there's a real problem of immediacy, or even the real problem of kind of, you know, making something actionable, giving it the urgency. So for me the success would be how debates around net zero energy transition are tied in more firmly with, as I said, development, and also justice around these. So that would be one touchstone the second touchstone would be whether the global south speaks in unison, or which which it did in in Paris, which is why it was a success relative. And, and thirdly, how receptive are as it were the, the leading economies like America is especially and the European Union are on these these these dialogues is the cop story, going to now match up with the G 20 story where the where as it emerging economies have had a bigger say than ever before. And so that's, that's for me the touchstone. And I don't mean simply China or I don't mean simply in there, but more connected global south Brazil, South Africa, particularly. I'm keen to turn now to the role of business and financial institutions. As you know, CISL works with business with finance with government around how we can support those institutions so that they're at core activities contributing to more sustainable outcomes And I know that your work is increasingly working with business and finance sector. And within this context in which you've outlined with very significant regional national interests and effectively what I'm hearing is that debates around climate change are becoming central to international politics trade negotiations and so on. I've seen a lack of government leadership over recent years on climate change we've seen commitments but not necessarily leadership and there's been a lot of focus there for on private sector to step up and show leadership because they have a vested interest in getting to a stable climate and thriving economies and so on. But in the context you've outlined I'm interested in what you now see as a role of business and financial institutions. Should they be stepping up and stepping into lead or is it on nation states on national governments now back in the driving seat given how politicized some of these these issues are But certainly in the West it's get a fair amount of discussion around climate emergency. And so I think there the work of the private sector can be productively used because it's you know they are driving much of the world economy. In the last 10 years you national governments have kind of, you know, reclaimed, I would say a little bit more power that they had begun to if not lose, but we're sharing with the world of business and finance in the early stages like earlier globalization. I think leadership of the young needs to be nurtured for sure. In India I mean just to bring it back, you have a very strong network of civil society action, very long standing civil society groups. These are mostly homegrown. They are not necessarily internationally funded. How do we learn from them and what are the challenges they are facing in terms of not just politics but say emerging disasters emerging climate emergencies. I think the baseline would have to be that the business world will have to see an incentive in it for them. And that would have to be, I said, you know, innovation led and but also I think a greater, a greater dialogue between politics and business, because at the moment you're getting like a kicking off the ball between the two sectors. And then you bring a third element as I said, off the politicians, which so I think joined up thinking with joined up sectors are very limited experience but that I was quite struck by profit incentive, which means that the work around energy transition will be very challenging. I mean, being a realist, I think the moral language doesn't work. And that's where I think the work of governments is important because it's the governments that can also create structures of incentive. I'm keen to move on to talk about the role that individuals and individual leaders within our network can play. I think individual capacities and individual leadership is incredibly important. And yet, what has happened is that we are, there's a scarcity of it. I can see that, you know, why politicians would be reticent because, you know, they need to win an election every five years. I mean, they're very accountable. It's a high risk job they are in, right? Is there any way in which we can begin to convince individual leaders who do not need to kind of work with such tight high risk stakes, and then they can be able to work with political leaders. I do think it's a matter of time framing of net zero to 2070 means that the immediacy is lost. The same problem is the opposite for politicians because they're in an immediate political cycle. They are not able to think of the midterm. And I think universities which have this, you know, unique position to think about the immediate and the long term can start bridging this gap between something which is so future oriented and something which is more immediate. And I therefore do think individual leaders but institutions like CSL incredibly important. I mean, you know, India's had major environmental leaders in the past and I can think of them some very inspiring women some inspiring older men, some of them are no longer leaders. But, you know, I don't see comparable. I don't see a comparable political comparable leadership emerging. And what is it that we can do to generate engender it, I think. Thank you. So you've talked about, given some examples of youth leadership, you've talked about the context within which leaders are operating that some of the constraining or enabling conditions and the journey of having to win votes on a regular level, being somewhat challenging there, and talked about a particular, I suppose, capability, the ability to both to be able to tell us there's right to horse at once that succeed in the short term but be navigating to a long term as a thing that effectively does many to do, given that we're a leadership institute and all of our workers in some way working to inspire support enable leaders. I'm interesting whether you think there are any other examples of capabilities or insights that the leaders should be nurturing themselves within their teams within this very influence to add to that sense of balancing managing both the short term long term is anything else that you encourage leaders to be nurturing. You know, I think what is desperately required is a kind of shift from this competitive story which has now become very ingrained that the West has consumed, it's now the turn of Asia to consume. For a rich versus poor or rising power story now needs a new framework for for for actually the sake of humanity to succeed. And this would obviously mean a certain relinquishing of very major frameworks of thinking in the West, and to simply think of those places as, you know, competitors or, you know, or antagonists or even pupils, you know that you know what. So I think, for me, the greatest challenges that having diagnosed that this is the this is the resetting the quiet. It can't be real leadership without new ideas. How do we kind of reset it. And for that I think, again, I mean not to sort of fly the flag of the university once more but I think that's where intellectual work intellectual leadership will will will produce will help produce the new political leadership. Yeah. Thank you. So back to the university and your role within that your day job as a historian with strong interest in politics. Are there any lessons from history that you would encourage us to take about how we can enable international collaboration on the scale we need to see for the urgency of the challenges the interconnected challenges that we're facing. Are there any lessons we can draw from history to inform us for the future. So what we are living in is unprecedented. You know, so I think there are, there are certain lessons to learn. Okay, so let me give the example of what happened to India's amazing forests in the 19th century, the story of empire is also the story of an environment, because in this forest it was kind of, you know, you know, depleted, precisely for the emerging global network around railways, and the most important work on environmental history actually, you know, 30 40 years ago came out of India, you know, and talking about that of course today we talk in terms of decolonization, but I think that my, my, my worry or my caution would be that how to prevent a colonization of the planet again, or colonization of vast numbers of people, whether they are by a small conglomerate. So I think the, the story of empire has come back in every way. And the lesson would be that how not to repeat that, and how to then make sure that there's an equitable, more just human Thank you very much. You provided us with a huge amount of food for thought and amazing building out a whole range of dimensions. We, and the organizations and individuals that we're working with are really being thoughtful about as we prepare for engage with COP, the COP has only one dimension of a huge landscape that we really need to engage with and some really powerful insights there, particularly around the need to really shift some of our world views, mindsets and be open to and be nurturing new ideas and new thinking. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Lindsay.