My tryst with Himalayas and Climate Change

#sustainability, #climatechange, #environment, #annapurnabasecamp, #himalayas, #pollution, #reuse, #recycle, #reduce,#circulareconomy #Nepal, #Nepaltourism, #gretathurnberg

Last month myself, my wife Vani Narayanan and other friends from my running group in Mumbai, experienced the beauty and freshness of the Himalayas by trekking up to the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). Over a period of 8 days- 5 days to climb up till ABC and 3 days to climb down, our enthusiastic team scaled an elevation of 4,100m and trekked close to 100kms with steep climbs up along narrow, rocky and muddy but pristine paths laced with breath-taking views of the Himalayas with stunning views of the various peaks like the Annapurna, Macchapuchare and Himchuli. The journey started from Pokhara (Elevation: 1,400m)- Ghandruk (1,940m) – Chumrong (2,040m)- Bamboo (2,190m) -Deurali (3,280m) and finally Annapurna Base Camp (4,100m).

 A breathtaking experience in the mountains....

The trudge in the mountains were inundated with various walks through clouds and splashes along mountain streams with spring fresh water and being treated to the various fresh local cuisines along the way.

For most of us used to staying in 5-star hotels across the world we had overnight stays in various tea houses with minimalistic facilities like cramped rooms for 3 people, common bathrooms, Rs. 200 paid hot shower, no TV, no free WIFI, limited mobile connectivity etc.

As we could carry only limited items due to weight restrictions all of us learnt the values of minimalistic living like reusing clothes for several days, washing and drying clothes overnight under mattresses and sleeping bags, reuse plastic covers, one shower per day, sharing our battery packs for charging our cameras as charging mobiles, etc. was a paid affair, etc. Importantly, instead of buying all our trekking material many of us borrowed from our ever-helping trekking friends’ networks - like bags, jackets, etc. or leased it from a mountaineering shop.

..Laced with some eye opening and humbling experiences

We all huffed and puffed carrying our 5-6 kg day packs along the route but our bags weighing about 10-12kgs were carried by the local porters who could carry about 2 bags each and walk at such a pace that they would reach the destinations well before we all did! Another eye-opening experience that we saw was that all material like some food material, fuel, construction material to the people, houses at the top of the mountains were carried by the local porters with many sights during our trek of these porters carrying LPG cylinders, steel rods, house doors weighing up to 20 kgs on their backs.

A humbling experience indeed for all of us who are used to all facilities and luxuries in life but, yet we complain about many things!! 

Global events in the background

As we were lost in the natural beauty of the Himalayas, at the he same time many events with sustainability and environment issues as the core occurred in the world. The UN climate conference debated the effects of climate change, marked By Greta Thurnberg` s emotional outburst, in which the usual issues of developed vs developing nations clashed with no clear solutions. The Indian government announced a roadmap to weed out single use plastic by 2022 to address the plastics pollutions issue and closer home we Mumbaikars saw the horrible spectacle of trees being cut down in Aarey forest – one of the lungs of Mumbai- overnight to make way for a metro rail shed.

Can mountain people preach climate change?

Obviously, the debate will go on to balance the needs of development to meet the ever-growing needs of people as against the menace due to the unbridled development leading to environmental issues, pollution, etc. which can affect the long-term sustainable development. I reflected to our learnings from the Himalayas trek to check whether these learnings can be applied to our “luxurious” day to day life styles.

Can the sustainability concepts, on which the life style of the people living in the mountains like Himalayas are based, and which our team embraced during the ABC trek – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle be embedded in the mind sets of the people across the world address the climate change and environmental issues?

My gut feel says yes!

What can we people do?

The recent backlash in support of environmental and sustainability issues indicates that this process might have started. Instead of having clothes for many single usage occasions can we all live with clothes just for our utility use and limited other usages and borrow clothes for special occasions? Many of us who spend all our working days in air-conditioned offices, cars, etc. – can we use our clothes more than once before washing and hence saving water usage, soap, power, etc.? Sharing platforms like Uber, Lyft and Ola have shown that we don’t need to own cars to commute. Recycled clothing, even for active sportswear, have been proved to be very similar to clothing made from virgin material from a utility and design perspective. Usage of recycled plastics in roads have proved to be very effective to lay durable roads.

Economic theories driving this change in consumer behavior?

Milton Friedman, the guru of consumption economics, propounded his Nobel Award winning theory of consumption economics in the 1970`s which drove the booming economies of the western world. However, the latest theories of “Sustainability” and “Circular Economy” propagate the perils of unabashed consumerism on the economies and hence highlight prudent consumerism. In short, these concepts highlight that the goods made are resent back to their roots for sustainable solutions and hence leave lesser footprints. If we use the same items more times, reuse and recycle like the people living in mountains do it would lead to a prudent usage of virgin material and hence prudent usage of water, power, fuels, etc. and hence lesser environmental issues and pollution issues and hence lesser climate change issues!

Thus, every policy maker dealing with climate change and environmental issues need to look up to people living in inclement conditions like the people in mountains and look up to them to address the environment issues. Hence at the next UN climate change summit, instead of listening to emotional and content less speeches like the one made by Greta Thurnberg, the organizers would be better off by inviting mountaineers and people living in mountains to speak!!!

Hail Mountains!! Hail Himalayas!!

Modi 2.0 first budget: Paralleling China`s miraculous growth path

The latest budget presented by the new Modi government has set a very ambitious target for the Indian economy - reach a US $5 trillion GDP figure from the present US$ 2.7 trillion. If the present government targets to achieve this figure by the end of their term in 2024, as proposed, it would mean a real annual GDP growth of a staggering 13%!!!

China growth path, even though not openly admitted by the Indian government, obviously is one of the drivers for this budget. As the saying goes “If you can’t lick them join them “. China`s investment led development model with focus on mega factories, infrastructure, easy access to credit from financial institutions and attracting global investments which was backed by a strong government policy making machinery is evident as one of the key motivators of the Indian government`s initiatives.

Let’s look at some of the intent-based proposals in the budget which are very similar to what China did:

1.    Growth in fixed investment - Mega factories are being encouraged, very similar to the mega SEZ`s that powered China, to boost investment as well as create jobs that will in turn boost consumption. This initiative is also in tune with the “Make in India” initiative of the Prime Minister. However, this initiative is highly dependent upon the private investments which have been facing issues like land acquisition, high interest rates and poor infrastructure issues. External investors, who are being wooed, are still skeptical about investments especially when the global economic front is looking increasingly fragile.

2.    Infrastructure Development - The Indian government wants to give a massive boost to infrastructure - railway sector, roads, ports, airports and power and newly created water distribution. The railway infrastructure, which needs about Rs 50,000Cr, is proposed to be boosted with PPP`s the effectiveness of which however is still under a cloud.  Credit flow from the financial institutions, which are reeling from the excesses post 2009 crisis and the present NBFC crisis, is one of the key determinants for the success of the PPP initiative.

3.    Cheaper credit - China fueled its growth by making its banks lend indiscriminately to the borrowers leading to the wobbly banking sector very similar to what India is also facing now. Hence to bring down the interest rates the government proposes external borrowing by taking advantage of low and negative interest rates in many countries which will help the government to fund its projects at low rates.

4.    Focus on sustainability and green initiatives - Something that China missed and hence paying for its sins with its pollution problems in many cities. The Indian government is incentivizing Electric Vehicles (EV`s) which apart from giving push to the languishing car manufacturing industry will also address the sustainability issues. The government has also proposed a social exchange under SEBI which will address social development issues – something which will ensure a “equitable development” of the society.

5.    Focus on MSME and SME - These sectors are India`s answers to job creation and drive growth especially in the manufacturing sector. The government needs to address the issues of credit flow, labor movement before these sectors can boom.

Challenges that will be faced....

China based on the above model powered itself to the world`s second largest economy by following the above model from the 1980`s which bore fruit from the 2000`s. The Modi government similarly has laid the path for India becoming a $5 trillion economy by taking many cues from China. However, the point to be noted is that China took at least 10-15 years, during which it built its base like infrastructure, before it became a fast-growing economy. Secondly, China was ruthless in implementation of its objectives for which one of the major reasons was the single party rule. India will have its challenges as it’s a full-fledged democracy.

Long time back I came across a saying when I was working with a top-notch consultancy firm – “All strategy documents are a piece of toilet paper unless implemented properly”. The Modi government hence may take cue from it and focus on proper implementation and ground level reach of all its proposals. The ruling party has a majority in the Lower House - Lok Sabha and moving towards one in the Upper House – Rajya Sabha and hence if it has the will, can take India to its cherished dream of $5 trillion economy!

Hope for the best.

“Smart Cities” initiative - Will it drive the economic growth of India?

As a part of my various geographical movements in my growing up years and career, 3 cities where I lived, have influenced my thoughts about economic development by developing cities and upgrading their infrastructure viz. Nagpur and Surat in India and Shenzhen in China.

I did my schooling in Nagpur in the 80`s. Nagpur at that time was considered an easy-going Tier-2/3 city and was mainly known for its oranges and the scorching summer. From the late 90`s and in the 2000`s thanks to the initiatives taken to upgrade the infrastructure and basic amenities, Nagpur today is one of the bustling cities in India with companies like Boeing setting up their base in the city. 

Surat in mid-90`s, was hit a plague, and considered one of the filthiest cities in India. Again, thanks to the clean up initiatives and infrastructure build up, Surat is one of the cleanest and most livable cities in India which has augmented its highly competitive textile and diamond industries. 

Shenzhen in China was a fishing village in the 60`s and upgraded to a city infrastructure to parallel Hong Kong. Today Shenzhen is one of the global hubs for technological innovation in the world and houses some of China`s premier telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE.

Well-developed city clusters drive growth through agglomeration effects...

All the major nations have several cities through which the growth has been driven. China has several cities, apart from Beijing and Shanghai, the economies of which are as big as many nations. 

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, is a major bustling city which hosted the G-20 summit in 2016 while Shenzhen`s story is well known. The USA too has several cities which are global hubs and in fact all the major cities in the USA are good enough to host the Olympics! Economists refer to these benefits of city hubs as the effects of “agglomeration” which talks about the economic and social benefits of being in a cluster e.g. savings from common facilities like suppliers, common service providers, etc. City hubs also prove to sources of innovation due to the agglomeration effect like in the case of Bengaluru in India and Manchester for textile business in the 19th century. It has been seen that cities form and grow to exploit economies of agglomeration.

However, there are also negative effects of the agglomeration as once beyond a size the city hubs face issues like overpopulation, congestion, inadequate infrastructure, etc. A typical example is Mumbai which for the past so many years has seen traffic snarls, overpopulation leading to congestion and breakdown of infrastructure in monsoons. 

Benefits of city clusters are numerous…

Hence the solution for a country like India is to have many city/ urban clusters across the country. 

The major benefits would be:

• Exploitation of the potential of the country from across and from the hinterland, 

• Less congestion in the cities 

• Mobility of people and facilities across these clusters and consequentially the country will have 

        many engines of growth which will propel the country`s development in a balanced way. 

Amongst global top 10 nations, India`s statistics are different…

Interestingly, amongst the top 10 countries in the world by GDP, India has the lowest proportion of urban population, as per World Bank figures. India`s figures at 33% compares abysmally low to China at 57% which has a similar population as that of India. 

All other major countries have an urban population of more than 75% with Japan topping the list at 91%. Another interesting fact is that the top 10 cities in India account for only 12% of the GDP while the similar statistic for China and USA stands at 24% and 34% respectively. This clearly shows the focus on building numerous city and urban clusters has powered the economic development of China and USA hence has reaped the benefits of “agglomeration”. 

 Another interesting piece of statistic is that the top 10 cities in USA and China account for 7.1% and 8.4% of the population while in India the similar figure is 5.5%! This is even though all top Indian cities are seemingly overcrowded as in Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc.!

Is there an opportunity for India? 

India`s masses live majorly in the tier-2, tier -3 and below towns and villages. Imagine the boost that the Indian economy can get by having different city hubs across the country which can harness the potential of the Indian hinterland. A city like Nagpur can harness the potential of nearby areas in the Vidarbha which else will have to reach out places like Pune or Mumbai. 

The “Smart City” initiative is an important initiative for India…

The Indian government`s “Smart City” initiative which was launched in 2016 aims to do the same. This initiative under a central flagship scheme allocated about US$ 14bn in the 2016 budget under which cities must compete to get the funding. In different rounds of voting about 100 cities have been identified under this scheme and SPV`s will be formed, with strict guidelines, headed by a CEO. 

The basis objective is to have a better access to basic facilities and core infrastructure to the citizens.

The success of the “Smart City” initiative is an important step in India`s equal and overall development. Imagine in the next 10 years we have about 10 cities which can vie to organize important events like the Olympics, Asian Games, global conferences, etc.!! Imagine people opting to work in places like Raipur, Lucknow, etc. as compared to Mumbai and Delhi now. 

“Smart City’ initiative if it succeeds will take India`s economic growth to a different level!!