 And climate crises are one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today. The term encompasses a range of interconnected issues including global warming, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity and disruptions to ecosystems. The consequences of these crises are far-reaching, affecting everything from food and water security to human health and economic stability. To discuss and understand this pressing issue, today we have with us Dr. Nikhil Kanth, who is the Deputy Director at All India Council for Technical Education, EICTE, under Ministry of Education, Government of India. With over two decades of experience as a government officer, he is known for his contributions in the fields of technical education, academic administration and management and climate crisis. Dr. Kanth is a climate enthusiast, although he has written more than 250 poems on various contemporary issues, about 50 poems written by him on climate crisis in his notable poetry collection in Hindi, Vishwan Nishane Par Hai, have been spreading awareness on this very serious topic. So welcome to the studio and today we would like to have your insights on this huge issue of climate crisis. So to begin with, please let us know, is it for real or is it just a hype? This is really a very pertaining question and that always excites me when someone asks this question and this particularly reminds me that I should rather ask this question to the person who is asking this question to me. So what do you think, in a single line only, I will be comprehensively responding to this particular question. Yes, of course, I mean I can really see things changing around me, definitely. If we are able to affect the extent of the change, or how much it will take in the future, maybe we need an expert to evaluate this. So as far as the expert opinion is concerned, I asked you this question because everyone on this earth is a stakeholder for this particular thing, because this is affecting their own lives, their own's own lives. So in the same situation, first of all, I asked you a question on a stakeholder case. You ask as many people around you as possible and I think everyone will say that climate is not only changing to the extent that it has already changed. So when we are all aware of this, even if we still need an expert opinion, then we probably don't need to convince ourselves. I think there are people in this world who are not ready to accept this and that's why they are still contributing to the global warming and the climate crisis. Yes, exactly. My question that comes out of this is that what exactly is that section of people who think that it is not really that big a matter of concern? And secondly, what areas should we actually note that there is a problem and changes are being made there? Yes. So the expert opinion that you were talking about, the biggest thing that comes out is IPCCI organization, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was made in 1988 and before that, there was a lack of scientific evidence that the people who are new shares or climate change skeptics who were called formally, informally we can call them climate change deniers, climate change contrarians. Because deniers are those who know the facts, but still want to deny it. Because when the facts come, some evidence or scientific evidence comes with it. So scientific evidence is the best thing that is being researched, the world over. It was started by IPCCI by the process of bringing it forward by synthesizing it. And this is why IPCCI was made. In 2019, the synthesis report that they made, you will be aware that in the whole world, 99% of the research papers and the scientists who are doing this kind of research or all those stake holders who are associated with the research or things related to climate crisis, 99% of them are in agreement that climate is changing, not only climate is changing, but the human beings are responsible for the climate change to that much extent that now it has been started to be known as climate crisis or climate emergency. They themselves are aware that climate crisis is a climate emergency, but they have to deny it because they have their own vested interest. What can be of the vested interest? It is either from the industry or from developed countries who are historically responsible for this thing, that they have contributed so much for their development that they are the biggest contributor of the climate crisis. Now they still want either they are at the stage of development, the other developing countries, if they try to reach that level, then they will be doing the same contribution as the developing countries. And then they will try to reach their level. All the stake holders on the global level or all the countries, whatever the conference of parties, you must have heard that a conference of parties took place in December of 2018 in Dubai. Conference of parties is one of the countries of the world, more than 200, there are all the countries of the Union, which is considered as an entire group. If all the countries meet, then there are more than 200 countries. They all get together in an annual event and that annual event is COP, conference of parties. Parties means nation. And COP organizes the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, UNFCC. Now when all the countries get together, then the developing or least developed countries or small island countries have the biggest threat on them. One is to catch the development stages to fulfill the livelihood. Secondly, they have the options of fossil fuels that are easily available. It can be difficult for them to go into renewable energy. So they cannot play with the livelihood of their citizens. They want development. And historically, they are not responsible. If their percentage of contribution is seen historically, then where developed countries are more than 50% or more than that, their contribution is there. These small countries or developing countries are in many numbers. Their contribution is very small, 1%-2%-3% like that. So if these people do not oppose this, even knowing the facts, even in such countries, you can see the United Nations, sorry, United States of America, Australia, Canada, all these countries forcefully try to tell them that climate is not changing. Firstly, climate is not changing at all. Secondly, if climate change is coming to scientific evidence, then the scientists behind it have their vested interests. Or thirdly, if the climate crisis is changing, if the climate is changing, then there is no crisis. If the climate is changing, then the natural reasons behind it are responsible. It is not anthropogenic, it is not human induced. So Dr. Khan, before we move ahead on this, you have seen something very important in the historical perspective. So let us try to understand that. Historically, how do we see this? Because if climate change has occurred, then suddenly it has not happened. It has been an incubation period for a few years, for a few decades, for a few centuries. So according to you, when this change has actually started? And because this is not a modern day phenomenon, it has happened many years ago, we have not recognized it, we are doing it today. So how do we put this entire climate change into a historical perspective? If we look at it this way, our entire history has been going on for lakhs of years. So it has been changing in the climate for lakhs of years, but it has been evolving in an evolutionary way. And it has been happening naturally. The climate crisis and the climate emergency that we have started serving with everyone, the reason behind it is that it has been evolving in an evolutionary way. After the revolution, it has been happening for the last 100 or 100 years. It has started to see the effects of it. We had reached till 1970 or 1980, knowingly. Then there were new shares or new shares. They asked for scientific evidence for these things. So the question you asked in that question, what is its history? When I am talking about historical attribution, I am talking about the contribution of the last 100 or 100 years. There was a climate crisis in the human industry. It was anthropogenic. Whenever we talk about this climate crisis, everything is anthropogenic, human induced. The other natural way that was changing in the climate has been going on for so long that you will get to know that global cooling and global warming has been happening in the history of the earth for lakhs of years. And it has also completed almost the entire world. But it has been going on for lakhs of years. And the balancing factors were in the earth and in the natural way. If it can be responsible for global warming, then it was sulphur dioxide to nullify it. If it is going towards global warming, then it is going towards cooling. So these things were stabilizing. We tried to stop these things artificially in the natural process. We tried to disturb these things. And all the human beings at that time have contributed to this. And we are also contributing to these small things that we will talk about later. So it is very good to know the history or it is good for deniers that these things are going on. But they are going on naturally. They have never been disturbed. We have seen so many kinds of transitions in a very short time. We can't even reach one generation and we see so many transitions. We are feeling this every day. In the morning, in the evening, in the afternoon. We are sitting there and feeling it. So I think the question arises here that what do we think about its identification and mitigation and how do we really identify that these are the problem areas and we need to deal with it swiftly. And when we need to deal with it, how do we deal with it? So how do we handle these things? We can see two types of things in this. One is on a policy level and the other is on an individual level. A lot of work is being done on a policy level. And when work is done on a policy level, how can it be ultimately implemented? Do individuals come in front of it or do a small group of individuals come in front of it? When we think of an individual group, what is our contribution? Positive or negative contribution? Are we contributing towards the climate crisis or are we trying to mitigate or are we trying to advance adaptability or adaptation? We are trying to do that. This can be done on an individual level with which I am usually involved. The second question is on policy making. There are a lot of evidences and a lot of movements behind it in which the policy is faced after all the stakeholder consultation. There is no shortage on that level. Whether it is on the national level, regional level, society level or on the inter-governmental level or on the international level. So you think our policies are sound but the problem is with the implementation side. And there always these things are coming in the way because of the western interest of different pressure groups. And since they need their benefits in the short term, that is why they are not able to understand its long-term impact. We are reaching to the tipping point. Who is the tipping point? For example, in 2015, there was a Paris Climate Agreement and it was a very big change. Because when the Kyoto Protocol came in 1990, at that time every country was given a target to achieve climate mitigation. It was legally binding. Later it came out that you should think proactively and let these things form a pledge from your side and a commitment from your side which was called the NDC. So the country has to give itself a commitment and then in every 5 years the country has to revise it and it will always be better than that. You cannot give a bad commitment to it. You cannot give a bad commitment to it. So while going towards proactivity, when I saw the things, I developed a theory which is called climate strategy proactivity. I thought that the whole world is thinking about this, that you will not be more interested in achieving your targets through other targets. This should be proactivity. You should try to save yourself from it. Helmet is very important for our lives. But we do not want to make it a rule. So how do you contribute proactively and keep your people's lives well? So the Paris climate agreement was that kind of effort. But after that no matter how many commitments the country had, there were political, commercial and social reasons. There were many reasons. I was talking about the tipping point. The most important thing in the Paris climate agreement was that pre-industrial average temperature which is the baseline between 1850 and 1900 was the average temperature. The average temperature is more than 25 degrees. This is a course and it should not be above 2 percent. So this was a benchmark. Because when we talk about the temperature, we do not talk about a particular day or a particular year. We talk about a particular number of years which is normally 20 years. So the average temperature in 20 years is 1.5 degrees from that or 2 degrees which are made by 2 different parameters. What is the harm in breaching that then we will be reaching the tipping point. What will happen in the tipping point is that the consequences will be irreversible. For example, you believe that the ice has melted in the heat but the irreversible consequences are that if it melts, then it will not melt. I am talking about the glacier so after that when glaciers are melting, the sea level is rising at the same time, because of the heat there is a thermal expansion of the water of the sea. Because of this, the coastal area is under threat and when the coastal area is under threat, then we just think that we will resettle the human being from there. But it is not that easy and it is not that easy. Even if we let go of the water, there are many other things like fresh water sources where the salt water was not enough to drink they also made it worse. Apart from this, marine fish life and all these things are getting affected. So all these things are connected and after they are connected when we reach the irreversible consequences, then it will not return. Nature will not give us this much time. So further from what you are saying right now is that policy wise we have achieved a lot and otherwise also efforts are going on in this and there is a very big need for individuals group of individuals or society to come forward to take part in this and work. So it takes me to your opinion so tell me a little about that plus this kind of opinion how can other people start contributing in their own sense? There are two or three things that we talk about group of individuals so let us start with the individual only. Individual means me and this should have started with me and what should have started with me should have started with me. I feel that people are doing their best because everyone does their best for survival. The contribution that they are doing for global warming or climate crisis whether it is bigger or smaller they are not knowing it. I am telling you that you know yourself the most. It is very difficult to lie to yourself and you know your truth that it is true. So you know your efforts the most. When you know these efforts then the best thing is which small practices you are doing on your individual level because your life is good. Let me tell you a few small examples that I am doing at my home or at my family. I did it on an individual basis and then I liked the people at home and they are all with me. There is no air condition in my house in Delhi and in South Delhi there is no air condition. I feel that people need to think about why they need to think about why they should be able to handle these things. People feel that they have affordability. I feel how does this affordability come from? Why can we be happy by doing such things that today's atmosphere and climate is destroying it. I have my own thoughts or whatever people like us think that whenever we are doing these small efforts for ourselves I feel very angry because we are not saving the earth. Earth is in this state and global warming is also in this state. When we say mother earth we can only take it from mother and mother cannot take it. So earth is actually safe and we are safe. When we go to that campaign we say save earth and save ourselves. I have been working on the climate crisis for about 3 decades. I am an enthusiast and a practitioner and I want to go there. I talk about the practitioner and I have told you about the small practices. Secondly, I feel that there are 60, 70, 80 units in my house. I feel that we can reduce it. This is also a strange thing but it is not strange but if we talk about the third waste then you may see it in your own house or in someone else's house. If you really see it then 70, 80, 90% of every house is such a thing that they will never read in their life. They keep those things with the word affordability. So we have done waste creation in such a way that we always try to become the nature of human beings. Because individual human beings have never been out of nature. Nature is creation. But when we freeze we think that we can make it on the mountain but we can make it at home. We have never thought of anything beyond nature. When we talk about artificial intelligence then the human intelligence which was made by nature or any living intelligence which was made by nature is actually natural. It is different that it is happening in our environment but is it artificial or it is natural then the human being is also natural. We have increased the distance of the transition phase and we are still living it but it is happening within the boundary of nature. So basically we need to respect nature and ultimately respect nature try to live with nature rather than trying to get ahead of it or trying to invent things which we think are close to nature but they are not actually. Actually there are many things that we do not want to understand. For example if we talk about the sustainable development then in the full definition of sustainable development that whatever resources you got from the last generation with the full utility in the next generation we will stop with the same quantity and quality that they will complete all their utility and then give the next generation. In the development and culture it has been taught for thousands of years and people have been following it. We still need the Brundtlite Commission in the 1980s and they come out with the same definition because there is no better definition than this. So I think it was not that difficult to understand this but the development started out well and then later on then the development started getting more and more because the development was making it possible to solve all the problems and with every problem it created 10 new problems and later on whatever problems were created it was told again that I can solve them and then with every 10 problems the problems that were created 100 problems were created thousands of problems were created and now the problems are being solved. And now the problems are getting bigger and bigger. So I would like to come here to know about your efforts at Vishwanishana and tell us a little about it so that people can be inspired and try to change their lives. As I was talking about waste creation I told you that in 79% of the houses there are things that they do not need. we don't do waste creation. So, we collected 2-3 things from nature. For example, we collected circular in economy, because nature is the only thing that works in circular way. Whatever is made from it, it will come back. Similarly, we thought, let's do waste creation through economy. So, we collected a circular world, a fancy world in it. It would be great. Because, because of economic and economic activities, a lot of problems were coming to us. We made it a little fancy. Similarly, when we started to get angry with development, we were facing a lot of problems due to development. And all the issues that came as a result of the problem, we didn't have any problem today. Because nature gave us all the problems along with the problem in a natural way. So, in this situation, the term sustainable development, I always think that development can never be sustainable because this is against the very pace of the nature. And the only way development happens, that can be done by nature only. For example, if you do a circular economy, waste creation happens. Nature never does waste creation. And in the same way, sustainable development can only do nature. And it happens in evolutionary way for many years. We also get ready accordingly, by adapting. There is a poem written on Vishnu Nisana, and I have written a full poem on it, which has more than 50 poems. And in every poem, there is a word written on Vishnu Nisana. So, when I started this, first of all, I thought that people knew the concept of sustainable development very well. Still, I needed to get a report of a 700-800 page Brunt Lane Commission. There was not much change in things. We just had to remember a definition. So, there were 2-3 things in my mind, that when we talk about saving, it means that the things that are said wrong, they are understood more. We are. But until I say that we are on Nisana, people think that this Nisana is a poor thing, let it be. So, I followed that concept to pay attention to people in this awareness campaign. On Vishnu Nisana, I came along with this campaign. My first poem, which was written behind it, was that the concept of climate crisis comes into it, and in such words, it is understood. After that, it will be understood quickly, because it knows everything. I just want to tell them through my own way of telling them. I can try to make a little bit of awareness. So, this was the pattern to think in the beginning, and this was the emergence. If you say it, I will talk about your first poem. We are waiting for that to happen. Let us hear out what exactly you have to say through those words. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was my first poem. It was beautiful. First of all, accept my congratulations. This is very wonderfully written and it really brings out the essence of what is happening around us and to what extent it can go wrong. Many congratulations. It is a wonderfully written piece of poetry. Thank you. So, Dr. Nikhil, towards the end, I would like to ask you a question that is happening so much and you are trying to do it. You are also trying to get into this savior mode and try to do their bit. So, what do you see in the future? Where do we stand today? And in the future, do you see any hope? Or do you see that in the coming few years or decades or some period of time, we will be able to fight it out back to normal and do justice to whatever we are doing around us? Yes, when I was coming up, I was happy that you have invited me to speak on this particular thing. I was disappointed with the way things are happening. But I am very much hopeful that together we can, together we will be able to fight effectively in the battle of the climate crisis. And what I have been practicing, everyone is practicing I must admire. But at the same time, there is a need that I have been emphasizing upon the small, small practices that we are doing because other people will also be opening up and they would be discussing the same thing with others and that would all these actions would be coming out as the best practices that everyone can do because if I am doing you will simply think that this is very much doable. If Nikhil Kanth can do, I can also do and whatever Vikasji is doing, then if he shares it with me or some other person if people would think that, okay, Vikasji is doing something that I have not been able to do but this is very much doable because Vikasji is doing in the routine life. I have been emphasizing upon this is the need to understand that it does not mean to save, save ourselves as long as we do not believe in the campaign whatever your name is and waste creation means we are very responsible for that then you have those 5 ways which are called 5Rs I have seen 3 of them that are emphasized on reduce, reuse and recycle Repurpose and Refuse are very less emphasized I believe in Refuse and because it is related to effortability people separate it Refuse is not available in 5Rs so Refuse should be the most important I do not need it, I do Refuse from there you will at least stop contributing in the waste creation and you enjoy when you contribute to make your life better then how much fun is there how much enjoyment is there we feel every day when we are sweating people do not want to let that sweat come out the smell of sweat is there until it comes naturally so thank you so much Dr. Nikhil Khan for joining us today your insights on this topic will definitely benefit one and all and not only that the work you are doing the efforts you are putting I am sure a lot of people will get inspired by that so thank you so much for joining us please are getting connected with the esteemed audience, thank you individuals, communities, businesses and governments all have a role to play in tackling climate crisis whether it is reducing personal carbon footprints, supporting environmentally conscious businesses advocating for policy changes or investing in clean energy initiatives collective effort is essential in confronting the global challenge, we need to wake up and act before it is too late