Joining the Dots

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Understanding how climate change is changing our lives is often a matter of joining the dots. On Friday I met an interesting group of climate change activists from the Climate Action Network - people from a number of organisations working from the international level to the grassroots.

Suman Dasgupta from 'Wada Na Todo Abhiyan' [http://www.wadanatodo.net/] told me about a fascinating initiative - the All India People's Manifesto - which had developed a 10-point development charter for over 300 parliamentary constituencies in the run-up to the general election. Suman said that climate change had been mentioned in only a handful of these constituencies as a development priority.

I'm not surprised. Climate change is too often considered as a purely 'environmental' challenge or the subject of endless inconclusive international negotiations - not as something with fundamental implications for India's development. But look through the list of what the aam aadmi all over India have defined as their key demands: safe drinking water, electrification, effective transport systems, health, food security and nutrition, rural livelihoods and access to natural resources. Climate change cuts across how all of these demands can be met.

So, as snjykholi rightly pointed out in a comment on my first blog, we need to communicate that the climate is indeed changing again and again in India - using as many different channels of communication as necessary. One way in which the British High Commission and British Council have been trying to do this is through the UK Environmental Film Fellowships (UKEFF) [http://www.britishcouncil.org/india-projects-lcf-ukeff.htm].

Now in its fourth year, the UKEFF provides funding, and mentoring from legendary filmmaker Mike Pandey, to young Indian film-makers to tell 12-minute stories of climate impacts and solutions.

We launched the 2009 films on World Environment Day. The Discovery Channel will screen them for the first time from 8 pm on Thursday, 25 June. In The Final Tide, Vikram Mishra and Praveen Singh show how sea level rise threatens the land, lives and livelihoods of those living in coastal regions.

The Mumbai floods in 2005 gave us just a glimpse of the devastation that coastal flooding can cause. In India's Climate Fever, Arjun Pandey shows how climate change will harm human health, as warmer climates allow the spread of diseases like malaria to new regions and exacerbate the causes of malnutrition. In both films, it is India's poor who are the most vulnerable.

The other two films also tell a positive story about how individuals, communities and governments are making positive changes to improve lives while demonstrating this can be done in a low carbon way. In Don't Rubbish It, Chandrasekhar Reddy explores opportunities to reduce the methane emissions which every city generates from dump sites and landfills. These emissions, which currently contribute to global warming, have the potential to be converted to energy by simply reducing, reusing and recycling waste.

Finally, in The Changemakers (my personal favourite), Gurmeet Sapal showcases how small bio-gas plants have brought about a revolution in the lives of rural women in Karnataka by reducing their dependence on traditional cooking fuels. This simple technology provides one option to deliver clean energy to the poor, while bringing co-benefits for health and productivity.

Do watch the films and let me know what you think. You can also watch the films from previous years on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/user/BritishCouncilIndia].

And if you're a budding filmmaker, we'll be announcing the launch of the 2010 fellowships soon. So watch this space!