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When extreme weather events strike, who picks up the cheque? With the more devastating effects of climate change disproportionately hitting the Global South, Climate Curious asks the question “What does climate justice look like, and how much will it cost?” Enter climate justice advocate, Harjeet Singh, and his work with The Loss and Damage Fund. A mechanism designed to redistribute money from polluters to the survivors of extreme weather events. From helping communities with loss of life, biodiversity, homes, and land, Harjeet shares how this mechanism can rebalance the scales and make sure that polluters are actually paying for their emissions.
Check out Harjeet’s recent TED Countdown talk: The real cost of not adapting to climate change,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb_3Vtlziuk
Satat Sampada Climate Foundation – https://www.instagram.com/satatsampadaclimate
Fill The Fund campaign – https://www.instagram.com/fill_the_fund/
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction
00:38 Special guest: Harjeet Singh
02:03 Harjeet’s work and initiatives
04:42 Understanding climate justice
08:21 The Loss and Damage Fund
12:24 Challenges and future of climate finance
16:09 Community centric recovery
16:24 Governance and accountability
17:28 Global North and South dynamics
18:04 Success stories and progress
20:28 Barriers to progress
22:15 Financial and non-financial support
25:30 Advice for climate justice advocates
30:18 Conclusion
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Harjeet Singh: We need stronger governance systems and accountability systems at all levels. Developed. Countries are responsible for providing money at scale and developing countries should spend that money properly. For that it reaches whom it is intended for.
[00:00:13] Ben Hurst: This
[00:00:14] Harjeet Singh: is Climate [00:00:15]
[00:00:15] Ben Hurst: Curious. The podcast for people who are bored, scared.
[00:00:18] Ben Hurst: All confused by climate change.
[00:00:20] Maryam Pasha: I’m Marion Pasha, the director and curator at Telex London, and the co-host of this podcast alongside the amazing Ben.
[00:00:26] Ben Hurst: Hi, I’m Ben Hurst, activist and [00:00:30] advocate exploring what positive masculinities can look like and self-confessed climate normie.
[00:00:38] Special guest: Harjeet Singh
[00:00:38] Ben Hurst: Haji, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It’s, we are in Nairobi, which is [00:00:45] crazy. Crazy to me. I dunno if it’s crazy to you. This is a wild experience. Um, and you’ve got your talk coming up tomorrow afternoon. That’s right. How are you feeling? Excited. Good. Good. I’m glad. Very excited. Um, can you [00:01:00] give us a sneak peek of what you’re gonna be talking about?
[00:01:03] Ben Hurst: You don’t have to tell us all the detail, but what’s the theme and how are you feeling?
[00:01:07] Harjeet Singh: Sure. First of all, thank you so much, Ben, for having me in this, uh, conversation. It’s my pleasure. Uh, so I’ll talk about adaptation for [00:01:15] various reasons. Mm-hmm. One, the world needs it much more, uh, than the kind of attention we have given it.
[00:01:21] Harjeet Singh: And, uh, and I’m also trying to bring some hope back. In the kind of climate chaos that we see all around us. Mm-hmm. So I’m gonna talk about some practical [00:01:30] examples and the initiatives that people have taken at various levels from community to cities to the policy level. So it’s really to inspire people and engage them in the adaptation conversation and say that all of us can do it.
[00:01:43] Ben Hurst: Oh, the ad [00:01:45] adaptation conversation is, is a, that’s a big conversation and this is always the, I should never ask this question about what you’re gonna talk about. ’cause now I’m like, oh, tell me more about that. But we are not gonna do that. If you wanna know more, listen to the talk. When it’s out, when it’s live, which it might be live at [00:02:00] the time that this recording comes out, we’ll see.
[00:02:02] Ben Hurst: Okay. But um.
[00:02:03] Harjeet’s work and initiatives
[00:02:03] Ben Hurst: Speaking of initiatives, you are the director at Sadar. Samala. That’s right, yes. That’s what you got it, right? Yes. Yes. Pronunciation’s very important. Um, would you tell us, uh, a little bit about what, what that is and what work it is that you are, you are doing with the foundation?
[00:02:23] Harjeet Singh: Sure. Um, so I’ll talk about this initiative that actually started in 2016.
[00:02:27] Harjeet Singh: Mm-hmm. I’m sure we all. Uh, or many of [00:02:30] us celebrated a Paris Agreement in 2015. I did not. Yeah. I, I’m like, mm-hmm. I, I guess so, because some of us knew that the direction is right, but not the ambition. Right. I’m not a policy person. [00:02:45] I’ve been a practitioner working on the ground, but climate crisis pushed me to engage much more in the policy rooms and, you know, conference rooms and hallways.
[00:02:54] Harjeet Singh: But I always realized that I can’t continue with this very important policy [00:03:00] advocacy work unless and until I continue with my. Connect with the ground.
[00:03:05] Ben Hurst: Okay.
[00:03:06] Harjeet Singh: I came back from Paris and my wife who has been working with the, uh, urban poor also felt a similar situation when you get to see the [00:03:15] exodus from rural areas and nothing is stopping.
[00:03:18] Harjeet Singh: Mm. And climate crisis, of course, one of the major factors in the agrarian crisis that we see in India. We just put our heads together and said we have to do something. How small the initiative is. We have to go back to the roots, [00:03:30] start addressing the problems that people are facing in rural areas, and connect that with the concerns that people in the urban areas have.
[00:03:36] Harjeet Singh: That was the birth of ada, uh, in 2016. And, uh, focusing much more on sustainable agriculture and [00:03:45] going back to agro ecology, uh, but also doing a lot more policy engagement and that journey continued and. Another organization that I then co-founded is, uh, Sadat Sampa Climate Foundation, so that we can continue to work on the ground with [00:04:00] farmers and with communities on ground, but also engage at the, at the policy level.
[00:04:04] Harjeet Singh: So that’s the whole spectrum of these two organizations that I’m part of.
[00:04:07] Ben Hurst: Okay. So Sadat Sampa is. Policy and the foundation is working on the ground with, [00:04:15] no, just the other way around. Okay. The found, the foundation is doing the policy work. Exactly. And the organization is working on the, the ground with, it’s like a social
[00:04:21] Harjeet Singh: impact organization, like an enterprise.
[00:04:23] Harjeet Singh: Working with farmers. Working with consumers. So you require a different setup. To enable that. Whereas the [00:04:30] foundation, which is doing much more policy engagement, uh, work, of course we’ll continue connecting with the work on ground. You can’t just, you know, do what? You can’t do them siloed. You can’t do them, them in isolation.
[00:04:40] Harjeet Singh: Both are connected.
[00:04:40] Ben Hurst: Right. Okay. Okay.
[00:04:42] Understanding climate justice
[00:04:42] Ben Hurst: So we talk a lot on this podcast about climate justice and I. I’m like, I don’t come from a climate background. I don’t really know what I’m talking about at all. But I do ask good questions because I’m very inquisitive and I think climate justice is one of those phrases that is kind of bandied around a little bit.
[00:04:58] Ben Hurst: We throw it about, [00:05:00] but what does that mean? And specifically, what does climate justice mean in the context of people in the global south? What are we talking about when we’re talking about climate justice?
[00:05:08] Harjeet Singh: I’m so happy you’re asking this question, Ben, because I told you we, we do, we do see the. Climate justice [00:05:15] on placards.
[00:05:15] Harjeet Singh: Lot more, uh, than what we saw 10 years ago, which is great. We heard much more on climate action than climate justice, and the justice word is really important for the global south. What do we actually mean by justice? For us, it’s about equity and [00:05:30] it’s about the fair share of action that countries have to take, and it’s also about human rights, particularly of people who are facing the climate crisis as we speak.
[00:05:38] Harjeet Singh: So why climate justice? Because we know. The climate crisis that we are facing today is a result [00:05:45] of bunch of countries and corporations who took much more than the fair share of atmospheric space, polluted it heavily. Their industrialization was built on that pollution. That has caused the crisis in the first [00:06:00] place, whereas majority of people in the global south are suffering from these climate impacts.
[00:06:06] Harjeet Singh: So for us, it’s about justice, it’s about reparations, it’s about making sure that countries and corporations who have [00:06:15] done most in causing the problem have to do much more. Than what they’re doing now in fixing the crisis and supporting developing countries and vulnerable communities in dealing with the impacts.
[00:06:28] Ben Hurst: Mm. So how, like, how do people, [00:06:30] because that to me sounds like the right idea. It sounds like a, a brilliant idea that there should be some form of reparations given to, uh, people who have been disenfranchised or, uh, disproportionately affected by the, the actions of really quite a small bunch of large [00:06:45] polluters.
[00:06:46] Ben Hurst: In practice, what does that actually look like? Is there, is there, are there initiatives that are. Up and running at the moment that are like starting to put that kind of movement towards reparations into practice. Is that, is it taken a physical form?
[00:06:59] Harjeet Singh: [00:07:00] Yeah, it has. If you look at reparations in general, be beyond climate, we are talking about reparations against the, the atrocities that have been done on indigenous people, for example.
[00:07:10] Harjeet Singh: Look at the. Racism and slavery. Mm-hmm. You know, we do talk about reparations in that [00:07:15] context. When we talk about climate, it’s about recognizing the historical responsibility. Mm-hmm. It’s about holding the polluters to account. It’s about asking them to do more, uh, and particularly move away from fossil fuels, which is the core cause of the, of the problem.
[00:07:28] Harjeet Singh: Right. And [00:07:30] support, adaptation and dealing with loss and damage. So. The challenge is that in the UN climate space, you know, U-N-F-C-C-C, as we call it, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the term reparation, its a mouthful. Acronym. Yeah. [00:07:45] The, the term reparations or compensation will never land.
[00:07:49] Harjeet Singh: Right. As as an as an official lingo, why? Because everything is agreed by consensus. One country can veto. Okay. Right. Whereas when we talk about [00:08:00] the way we are approaching climate action or the way we implement climate justice, the spirit of reparations and compensation has to be at the heart of it. Okay?
[00:08:08] Harjeet Singh: And that’s what connected us with our fight for climate finance. Or loss and damage mechanism [00:08:15] that we have set up. Mm-hmm. It’s about people who have caused the harm, have to provide money
[00:08:19] Ben Hurst: to repair it. Okay.
[00:08:21] The Loss and Damage Fund
[00:08:21] Ben Hurst: So I’ve heard about this loss and damage mechanism loss. And is it It’s a fund. It’s a fund, yes.
[00:08:27] Ben Hurst: Okay. And. It started at [00:08:30] COP 27. Was it? That’s where it was. Agreed. Was it you, was it you that that did it? Yeah. Or that’s a big difference. I was, I was for, you can’t say I won’t, I shouldn’t
[00:08:38] Harjeet Singh: take the entire claim, but there’s no doubt that, uh, I have been, uh, fighting for it since 2010. Okay. When [00:08:45] this was almost a non-issue among the civil society and majority of governments.
[00:08:49] Harjeet Singh: The credit should actually go to the. Small island states. It was 1991 when ATU on behalf of the small island states group called Aosis, [00:09:00] actually brought that up, not exactly the same phrase, but said we need to start dealing with sea level rise. Because for them it has always been an existential issue.
[00:09:08] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:10] Harjeet Singh: But it did not survive in that framework. You remember the mouthful? Yeah. [00:09:15] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was agreed in 1992. But the conversation continued albeit very, very slowly. Mm-hmm. And then it picked up momentum. Two decades later. So of course from civil society side, I have been, uh, involved [00:09:30] right at the core and working with, with movements to push for that issue.
[00:09:33] Harjeet Singh: And eventually we got that first agreement, as you said, Ben at Cop 27 in Sharmel, she Egypt. Okay. That was a historic moment because I was gonna,
[00:09:41] Ben Hurst: right. I, ’cause this doesn’t sound like the type of thing that. All of [00:09:45] the countries in the world Exactly. Would wanna agree to doing. Right. Like it sounds like a pretty big thing that you’ve managed to achieve there or you in community with other people have managed to achieve.
[00:09:56] Ben Hurst: Can you break down for me a little bit about what the, the loss and damage fund is [00:10:00] and how it functions and what that looks like? Sure.
[00:10:03] Harjeet Singh: Uh. And I must also say why we talk about loss and damage because the whole world is generally, um, very conversant about reducing greenhouse gas emissions or protecting forest.
[00:10:13] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. Decarbonizing that. Yeah, [00:10:15] decarbonization. So those things belong to a phrase called mitigation. Okay. Which means you’re actually mitigating the risk. Right. Then the second part is adaptation, which means that there is some impact that is always going to be there because we have got some kind [00:10:30] of.
[00:10:30] Harjeet Singh: Temperature rise locked in. In fact, now we are living in a 1.6 degree warm world. I’m talking about the concept way back in 1990s. Mm-hmm. So even then, some amount of warming was locked in. So we knew that some impacts are gonna be there, but we, we thought if we will be able to adapt [00:10:45] to those impacts. So adaptation something that picked up much more around 2001.
[00:10:49] Harjeet Singh: Okay. Uh, comprehensively. So mitigation, adaptation, and then, and then you realize that there are some. Unavoidable or unavoidable [00:11:00] and irreversible impacts. Okay. For which you need to actually help communities recover from. Right. What happens when I lose? So if you say, I’m giving you money to retrofit your home so that your home doesn’t get impacted by floods.
[00:11:12] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. Or cyclones. Thank you. That’s [00:11:15] adaptation. I appreciate that. Yeah. But what happens when I lose my home? When I lose my farm? Right. Right. When there’s a loss of life, loss of biodiversity. Right. Loss of land. It’s gone permanently. That’s not adaptation. That’s addressing [00:11:30] loss and damage. Yeah. And there was nothing in the UN climate system.
[00:11:34] Harjeet Singh: That’s why we had to fight for it for 30 years. And eventually we got that agreement, uh uh at COP 27. So that’s why you need this fund, which is now [00:11:45] kind of a third pillar of climate action to help people recover from climate impacts.
[00:11:49] Ben Hurst: And COP 27 was. What year was that? That was
[00:11:52] Harjeet Singh: 2022.
[00:11:53] Ben Hurst: So until 2022, when people were losing their land, losing their homes, losing loved ones, [00:12:00] people were losing life.
[00:12:01] Ben Hurst: There was no, no financial support for any of those people. 30 years. That is crazy. That’s bad. I would, I would say support
[00:12:09] Harjeet Singh: was there, but as the, as the humanitarian action. Yeah. Which is more like solidarity. Yeah. Uh, that [00:12:15] comes from people like you and me and from cooperation from governments. Okay. It was not based on responsibility and obligation and let say one more thing why it is important.
[00:12:24] Challenges and future of climate finance
[00:12:24] Harjeet Singh: 90% of disasters that we are facing in the world are weather related. Getting [00:12:30] intensified by climate. Others are geophysical like, you know, earthquakes and, and, uh, connected to tsunamis or, or, you know, other kinds of epidemic and so on. So climate is a major chunk. Which is connected to all the disasters that we are facing right
[00:12:43] Ben Hurst: now.
[00:12:44] Ben Hurst: So that’s why [00:12:45] it’s important. This is incredible. So I was in, uh, on Safari in Lake Nasha, I think it’s called the other day. And it, I saw, I think this is maybe the first time I’d ever seen anything like this, where it was, we are looking at a lake and there were all of these like tree trunks, [00:13:00] they’re tree trunks pointing up out of the water.
[00:13:02] Ben Hurst: And they’d said that because of climate change, um. The water level was rising and so the, the lake was just increasing in size, but you could see tops of buildings coming out of this lake. Obviously there were like loads of hippos and animals in [00:13:15] the, but I think that was the first time I’d ever seen face-to-face actual displacement, like actual destruction that’s caused by climate crisis rather than just seeing it on the television or on social media.
[00:13:25] Ben Hurst: So it’s incredible that we’ve got this fund now that people can, uh, do [00:13:30] they apply for it? How does that work? Or it’s distributed based on the damages that are, that are seen. But what needs to happen to make sure that that’s being used responsibly and effectively? Like how do, are there frameworks around that?
[00:13:43] Ben Hurst: Is there, is there an acronym for the framework [00:13:45] around how it’s used?
[00:13:46] Harjeet Singh: It’s a good question. Very good question. So first of all, the name of the fund now is Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
[00:13:52] Ben Hurst: Okay.
[00:13:52] Harjeet Singh: And it is now, it has been provided the legal identity by the Philippines and it’s hosted temporarily by the World [00:14:00] Bank.
[00:14:00] Harjeet Singh: And we have had. Five board meetings so far. Uh, the sixth one is happening in the, in the Philippines. So what has happened that we have been able to set up the secretariat, which is really important to get, get things going. Mm-hmm. The fund. Now [00:14:15] has commitments of about $768 million, which, which happened at COP 28 in Dubai.
[00:14:23] Harjeet Singh: Mm-hmm. But the hard part is that barely or less than half has actually reached [00:14:30] the bank account and we are still waiting for that money to real, to be realized. There’s a much bigger challenge. This amount is a drop in the ocean. Right, because that sounds like a lot because Exactly. It sounds like Exactly.
[00:14:42] Harjeet Singh: Not a much. The estimates are we need close to [00:14:45] $400 billion. Oh, wow. $400 billion annually in developing countries alone. Now, from that perspective, it’s important that we now have an institution.
[00:14:53] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Uh,
[00:14:54] Harjeet Singh: we are now working on setting up systems and policies and all those things. There was an agreement [00:15:00] at the last board meeting, uh, in Barbados that we are setting aside $250 million as a startup program so that we are not waiting for the other money to come in.
[00:15:09] Harjeet Singh: Let’s start and start helping people because it’s urgent. People are, it’s happening now. Yeah. People are suffering. So [00:15:15] the fund is in motion. So let me for, uh, for your audience to put, give three keywords for people to remember, uh, easily. What are the core issues with the loss and damage fund scale speed.
[00:15:26] Harjeet Singh: And access.
[00:15:27] Ben Hurst: Okay.
[00:15:28] Harjeet Singh: Right. So we need to make [00:15:30] sure that it reaches the right scale. As I said, the gap is not even a billion dollar to $400 billion annually. Right. Speed. When people are affected, they need money now to recover from those impacts. D means [00:15:45] more poverty, more inequality, more displacement, more migration.
[00:15:49] Harjeet Singh: Right, right. Uh, we can’t afford that. Third is access. Governments should have a direct access to the fund. Because if you look at the current financial system, the kind of conditionalities [00:16:00] that are put to the kind of arm testing that happens between the multilateral banking system and countries developing countries, I’m talking about, right.
[00:16:07] Harjeet Singh: Oh, it’s, it’s horrible. They’re never gonna see that money.
[00:16:09] Community centric recovery
[00:16:09] Harjeet Singh: So we, we need access to governments for. The large, uh, infrastructure work, but also to communities because communities must be at the center of this recovery that we are seeing or needs to happen. And that’s why community access is important.
[00:16:24] Harjeet Singh: Yeah.
[00:16:24] Governance and accountability
[00:16:24] Harjeet Singh: And then of course around it, we need stronger governance systems and accountability systems at all levels developed. Countries are responsible for providing money at scale. Mm-hmm. And developing countries should spend that money properly for that it reaches. Whom it is intended for.
[00:16:37] Ben Hurst: I like talking to you now.
[00:16:38] Ben Hurst: I like talking to you because you make, you make really complicated things. Sound very simple. So I feel like I [00:16:45] understand what you are saying. We are talking about the, the scale of how much money is needed, the speed that it’s rolled out, and people having access to that and people being governments and communities.
[00:16:57] Ben Hurst: Wonderful. That’s complicated. [00:17:00] That’s a lot of things to, to sort out in a, in a pretty quick period of time. ’cause in my mind I’m thinking, well, if the governments can get access to that money, then who decides where the money goes? Or especially if there’s not enough money already, who decides how that money is [00:17:15] distributed fairly, but maybe another conversation for another day.
[00:17:17] Ben Hurst: I don’t know. Um, so. You, but that’s the heart of the issue. I’m now being discuss by the
[00:17:22] Harjeet Singh: secretariat, so you’re spot on.
[00:17:24] Ben Hurst: Okay. Right. And I’m not the secretariat, so I don’t need to, I don’t need to worry about that bit.
[00:17:28] Global North and South dynamics
[00:17:28] Ben Hurst: But your work has got you in the middle of these conversations between what I’m assuming now is the global North and the global south.
[00:17:34] Ben Hurst: Yeah. And so I’m wondering. Are there success stories? Like what’s going well in regards to this, that kind of communication? Because I think we’re talking about a pathway of communication that has [00:17:45] for a long time being very broken. Yeah. You mentioned that first cop with the islands in Vanuatu. Yep. 1991.
[00:17:52] Ben Hurst: And from what I understand of that, they were just being completely ignored. Right? And every time they were asking for something, it was being vetoed and people were saying [00:18:00] no. So how, how is that like channel of communication working at the moment?
[00:18:04] Success stories and progress
[00:18:04] Ben Hurst: Is that. Going Well, it has been,
[00:18:07] Harjeet Singh: uh, okay. Good thing first.
[00:18:08] Harjeet Singh: Okay. Yeah.
[00:18:10] Ben Hurst: Well, they Ash, it’s, yeah.
[00:18:11] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. It’s much better than, than what we faced, you [00:18:15] know, during those first 30 years after getting the, uh, convention, uh, to the extent that, uh, rich countries were deliberately trying to muddy the waters by saying, oh, there’s nothing called loss and damage. It’s adaptation.
[00:18:26] Harjeet Singh: I explained. Right, right, right. How loss and damage is different from adaptation.
[00:18:29] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:18:29] Harjeet Singh: [00:18:30] No, we should talk about, uh, how we can do, uh, mitigation more and adaptation more. Or let’s not talk about it. Why? Because they always connected that, and it is connected with reparations and compensation. Mm-hmm. But we were also working in the collaborative spirit.
[00:18:42] Harjeet Singh: We said, you agree to a [00:18:45] mechanism, you provide resources. We will not bring up the aspect of reparations and compensations in the, in the legal. Terms customers. Yeah. Morally it is about reparations. Yeah, it is about compensation. Right. And uh, because of all those reasons, because they were really fearing of unlimited liability, [00:19:00] they actually did not allow that conversation to happen.
[00:19:02] Harjeet Singh: Okay. After we got that at COP 27, things have changed. We have seen how developed countries have engaged much more constructively as part of the transitional committee, which [00:19:15] led to the fund after a year. And even during the front board meetings, I see a different mood. Uh, it should be and must be much, much better.
[00:19:23] Harjeet Singh: Mm-hmm. As I said, because we still have a massive scale problem, but it is a success, success of [00:19:30] multilateralism to recognize, and of course civil society played a very important role to set that bar. I put pressure on governments working very closely with media, and a big thanks to the, um, media that actually brought that up and social media that helped [00:19:45] us make that a big issue at COP 27.
[00:19:47] Harjeet Singh: And the pressure continues and, uh, now we see that there’s a. Fairly constructive way of setting up the secretariat and developing these policies. Exactly. The question you asked Ben, who gets the money first? What are the trigger [00:20:00] mechanisms? All that is happening right now. Okay.
[00:20:02] Ben Hurst: So so we we are seeing progress.
[00:20:04] Ben Hurst: Yeah. We’re seeing, we have seen progress. This is really interesting for me because I, I’m still trying to make my mind up. I know very little, but I’m still trying to decide whether cop is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know if it actually works well there. There’s always good cop [00:20:15] and bad cop. Right, right.
[00:20:16] Ben Hurst: Good cop, bad cop. Yeah. Is a good way of, is a good way of thinking of it. Um, so in terms of the barriers to progress, you said that stuff needs to change more quickly, more things need to happen.
[00:20:28] Barriers to progress
[00:20:28] Ben Hurst: What are the barriers to that progress that we are seeing right now?
[00:20:32] Harjeet Singh: Trust deficit still remains okay, because what developed countries did in the first 30 years, the way they’re still trying to see that fund remains a tiny fund, which it’s there because there was a huge demand, but doesn’t reach [00:20:45] that level so that they don’t have to put that kind of money.
[00:20:47] Harjeet Singh: And sometimes bringing in those policy aspects, which are going to become conditionalities and will not allow the direct access for both countries and communities. So I think that and rich countries have to step up, uh, to bridge that deficit. Okay. [00:21:00] So trust is a big, trust is a, is a, is a, is a big thing.
[00:21:03] Harjeet Singh: And then of course, the scale of money that needs to be mobilized. And this is where we have a lot of, uh, alternatives and solutions that, that we mentioned start tax, the fossil fuel industry. Why are [00:21:15] you not doing that? It’s the fossil fuel industry that’s responsible for the crisis. Yeah. If we’re talking about reparations.
[00:21:20] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. So we Exactly. We have climate damages tax. We, you can put a levy on the extraction and actually make them pay. Mm-hmm. That’s what we really, uh, have to do. You can put a. Tiny tax on [00:21:30] the financial transactions. You can raise billions of dollars. You can shift the fossil fuel subsidies. Mm-hmm. Which are in trillions of dollars.
[00:21:37] Harjeet Singh: Right. And, uh, it’s about money going from wrong places to the right places so money can be generated, which is a. [00:21:45] Looks like a challenge. It’s actually not. What we need is a political will. Right. Uh, so that we can fill that fund to that, to that level.
[00:21:51] Ben Hurst: And those kinds of taxes, I, I imagine serve as number one a, a direct route to that money for the reparations, but also as a, a, a [00:22:00] deterrent.
[00:22:00] Ben Hurst: Right. To fossil fuel companies Exactly. To try and dissuade them from continuing. Exactly. Okay. I get that. This makes a lot of sense. I’m having such a nice time. I love it when I understand what people are talking about. Um, alright, so I want to think for a [00:22:15] second.
[00:22:15] Financial and non-financial support
[00:22:15] Ben Hurst: We’re talking a lot about financial aid for communities that are experiencing harm.
[00:22:20] Ben Hurst: Um, and I’m wondering. Outside of that financial age, what else are the, the most critical forms of support that can be provided for those [00:22:30] communities? I’m sure everything in some way links to, to finances, right? ’cause you have to have finances to give things to people. Yeah. But what else does that kind of stuff look like?
[00:22:39] Harjeet Singh: So first of all, we need to start looking at, uh, the kind of damage that’s happening, which can be [00:22:45] monetized. Not everything can. Be, uh, done in that manner that you put a dollar value, uh, loss of life. Of course there is an economics link to that person who we lost. Yeah. But then you cannot replace, you know, the, the emotions and the role of that person.
[00:22:58] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. Right. Loss of [00:23:00] biodiversity, loss of cultural sites. Mm-hmm. Lot of religious sites. Mm-hmm. So you can’t replace that with money, but of course you still need financial system to help that. Recover. Yeah. Right. Uh, to provide some support to families who can visit [00:23:15] those sites again. Uh, and that would require money.
[00:23:17] Harjeet Singh: Yeah. Right. Uh, some kind of grieving mental health is a massive issue.
[00:23:21] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:23:22] Harjeet Singh: If you lose all those things, uh, your home, your livelihoods, and, uh, your dear ones, your. Burial sites, [00:23:30] you need to also provide psycho psychosocial support. Yeah. So we can’t even imagine at this moment, how much are we missing in terms of a comprehensive response to what people are facing, uh, in the form of climate crisis.
[00:23:41] Harjeet Singh: Mm-hmm. So it has to go way beyond. And we are [00:23:45] actually trying to talk about some of these so-called, it’s a bad term, called non-economic loss and damage, but we characterize it that as social cultural loss and damage and ecological Right. Loss and damage, that’s, that’s happening. The other aspect, which.
[00:23:59] Harjeet Singh: We really want the [00:24:00] world to give, uh, attention to is there are some new challenges that we are facing and global community is not ready. Mm. Sea level rise. Mm-hmm. Glacier melt, oceans are turning far more acidic. Mm-hmm. Which is going to affect the marine life and livelihoods of people who depend on seas [00:24:15] and, and oceans.
[00:24:16] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:17] Harjeet Singh: Migration, massive issue. We are not ready for it. Mm-hmm. So we, the world has to come together to find those solutions
[00:24:24] Ben Hurst: collectively. So these, these are, we are dealing with problems here that are not things that can be solved, [00:24:30] uh, by just throwing money exactly at people or throwing money at communities.
[00:24:33] Ben Hurst: It’s gonna have to be some kind of collaborative effort Absolutely. To work with people to understand what those needs are and that, that, that. Cultural heritage loss is such an interesting point, right? ’cause how do you re [00:24:45] exactly how do you replace someone’s religious site? How do you replace the loss of a person’s life or the loss of a a, a biodiverse environment?
[00:24:53] Ben Hurst: And when people, especially when climate migration is gonna be increasing and people are gonna be moving from one place to another and [00:25:00] settling in new lands, it’s gonna be very, very difficult. But. I love the fact that we are thinking about it. I mean, I think that’s true. It feels positive. That’s true. It feels, it feels like it’s, uh, better led
[00:25:11] Harjeet Singh: than ever.
[00:25:11] Ben Hurst: Yeah. And may, I guess, doing the best you can [00:25:15] to turn something that is inherently negative into something that can be positive by at least providing people with the support that they need after the fact when those things have happened. This is a, this is such an interesting conversation for me. I, I guess.[00:25:30]
[00:25:30] Advice for climate justice advocates
[00:25:30] Ben Hurst: To bring us to a close, and maybe to wrap up the conversation here, I’m thinking about for, for the people who are listening at home for, for our listeners on the Climate Curious Podcast, what advice would you give to people who are in the global North? [00:25:45] Lots of our listeners are people who live in cities, people who are not.
[00:25:48] Ben Hurst: Often coming face to face with some of these changes. We know even that is starting to change. We’ve seen fires in LA and all of these kinds of natural disasters that are starting to encroach on the cities that we live in. But [00:26:00] in terms of, uh, giving advice to people who want to push for climate justice, but maybe are not sure what that looks like in their context, what would you say are some good steps or maybe the best steps that people can start to take towards that kind of climate justice?
[00:26:14] Ben Hurst: So, Ben, first of
[00:26:14] Harjeet Singh: [00:26:15] all, a big thank you. And kudos to young people in the global north. Mm-hmm. People in Japan, to Germany, to Australia, to uk, uh, to even the United States and Canada. These young people went way [00:26:30] beyond their comfort zone mm-hmm. And started demanding climate justice. Mm-hmm. Uh, if I’m honest.
[00:26:35] Harjeet Singh: Initially they didn’t know what climate justice is, right. They just, they, they wanted it, they were holding those placards, which was an important message. Yeah. And now, because I do work a lot with young people, [00:26:45] and I do a lot of sessions and interact with them, including on the concept of reparations.
[00:26:49] Harjeet Singh: Mm-hmm. They, they are internalizing it. And the fights that we are fighting is not between global North and global South. Mm-hmm. It’s about, initially we used to say 1% versus [00:27:00] 99%. Now it’s about 0.1% versus 99.9%. People in the global north are also suffering. Yeah. I remember the phrase when all these wars are hitting us, that people in the UK and, and the west.
[00:27:14] Harjeet Singh: [00:27:15] Had to choose between heating and eating. Mm. Look at the energy crisis. Yeah. So we are, we are in this together. Yeah. No doubt that the global north governments and the corporations that come from that part of the world are most responsible for the crisis, [00:27:30] not those individual people. We are with them. We are together in this crisis.
[00:27:34] Harjeet Singh: What I really want them to do is to understand climate justice. Even further. Mm-hmm. Because the kind of historical injustices that we are referring to, it’s not just about carbon [00:27:45] molecule, it’s also linked to decolonization that happened. Right. That racism, uh, that we have seen over centuries. Mm-hmm.
[00:27:51] Harjeet Singh: Right. The apartheid that we see, still see in our, in our societies, the wars that are going on, it’s all connected. It’s the same system. So how do [00:28:00] we look at it as a systemic issue, not just. Uh, a manifestation that we see in the form of climate crisis or biodiversity crisis. Mm-hmm. It’s a systemic problem and it’s, it’s about historical injustice.
[00:28:11] Harjeet Singh: Understanding that, communicating that with people in [00:28:15] the global north and holding their governments and corporations to account that you not only have to fix that system back home because they’re also suffering from that system. Mm-hmm. Uh, the economic system and the whole financial system. That’s very much part of it.
[00:28:29] Harjeet Singh: [00:28:30] How to also transfer that wealth and resources to developing countries so that they can take climate action. Mm-hmm. One more thing, which, uh, I, I always remind people, even if you clean your home in the global north, the fact is majority of emissions are [00:28:45] now. Coming from the global south, about two third.
[00:28:47] Harjeet Singh: Why? ’cause large population is there. Mm-hmm. And they’re now beginning to industrialize. Mm-hmm. It is in your esteemed self-interest to help developing countries to also turn green. Mm-hmm. And clean. [00:29:00] Right? So, one, it’s your moral responsibility. Second, it’s your own self-interest. Look at this world as one because climate is one.
[00:29:10] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm. Um, and an important message, I was gonna say an important message for the listeners, but an [00:29:15] important message for me. I think even just in understanding, number one, how things are connected. Um, and number two, understanding. The historical imperative or understand the historical impact of how all of these systems have functioned.
[00:29:29] Ben Hurst: We’re talking about [00:29:30] systems of racism, systems of classism, systems of sexism, things that have existed for long times and are quite deeply, I would say, embedded in the ways that we. Think, and even in the new systems that we’re trying to build, we see these things showing up again and rearing their ugly heads again.
[00:29:44] Ben Hurst: They’re calling
[00:29:44] Harjeet Singh: it new [00:29:45] colonialism, right? Right. Yeah. In the name of, uh, greening, we are seeing new ways of extracting. Mm-hmm. And, and now again, we are going back to Africa and Latin America and, and other parts where we see those, uh, so-called critical mineral. So we don’t want that [00:30:00] neocolonialism, uh, to, to come back within in full force.
[00:30:03] Harjeet Singh: So we need to challenge that and we need support from the global North and having that partnership. Uh, between global South and global North, we are all in this together.
[00:30:11] Ben Hurst: Yeah. So a deep unlearning and an understanding that we’re [00:30:15] all connected. We’re all fighting the same fight. We’re all in it together.
[00:30:18] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:18] Conclusion
[00:30:18] Ben Hurst: Harjeet, man, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. Honestly, I, I can’t, the listeners will know that when things make sense to me, I hold onto, I’m like, oh, this is. Refreshing. I love understanding things, but thank you so much for, for coming and sitting with us and for sharing your perspective, sharing your expertise, um, and also for being incredibly encouraging.
[00:30:42] Ben Hurst: I think it’s one of the things that we miss a lot [00:30:45] is that there are positives that we can find and there’s. Progress that’s being made. And there’s things for us to celebrate as much as we also have to hold the right groups, the right people accountable, um, and ourselves in lots of ways accountable for some of the harms that being done.
[00:30:59] Ben Hurst: But I [00:31:00] really, really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thank you
[00:31:01] Harjeet Singh: so much for having me. And I must say I’m an internal eternal optimist. Uh, and I do have deep faith in humanity and our, our collective wisdom and what we can do, uh, in this world. So thank you for having me. [00:31:15]
[00:31:15] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week.
[00:31:17] Maryam Pasha: We really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode.
[00:31:19] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases.
[00:31:27] Ben Hurst: While you’re at it, please leave a rating and [00:31:30] a review.
[00:31:30] Maryam Pasha: Now, let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[00:31:33] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:31:36] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:31:37] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:31:39] Maryam Pasha: communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[00:31:42] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:31:45] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:31:46] Ben Hurst: and Maryam Pasha,
[00:31:48] Ben Hurst: and remember, stay curious.
