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India’s Development
Trajectory W e are in a time space of historic proportions. The decisions we make today will
have high order impact on the world our children and their children will
inherit. Traditionally, decisions taken by policy makers, planners and
practitioners such as the kind of buildings to construct, transportation
systems to promote, kind of land use and how and what kind of food to
grow are taken in a reactive and at best in a responsive approach. A
reactive approach such as building additional fly-over bridges in small
cities because of growing traffic congestion takes into account what has
already happened in a given context with respect to demography,
work-place changes etc. A responsive approach considers trends of change
and attempts to ‘respond’ to what may happen, if conditions continue to
shift in a particular direction. The problem with the former approach is
that it bases decision making on what is known of the past and not
adequately on changes yet to come. The latter approach, better suited to
policy making still suffers from an acceptance of current trends that
themselves may be a result of wrong decisions taken in the past. In
neither case are the approaches questioning the ‘principles’ of past
decision making and interventions that will rectify or direct future
development in a desirable direction and sustainable for our future
generations.
Climate change, the single largest cross-sectoral, transnational dynamic change process has brought to fore the need to relook and rethink the basis of decision making. This is crucial for development benefits to be equitable, sustained and benefit ‘all’. The global community has been engaged since over three decades in negotiations and debates around actions to mitigate climate change and reduce carbon foot prints so as to maintain global temperatures within levels that can continue to nurture life as we know it. In this debate, India, as many other developing and emerging economies, has rightfully demanded a fair share of the carbon space to grow and develop such that ‘all’ of its people are able to prosper and live dignified lives. Now, ‘all’ of our people is a huge number. Current technologies, consumption trends, growth patterns, certainly do not help the planet recover from ill heath that it has gone into. On the other side of the coin – looking at development priorities for ‘all’, even if we de-prioritise global environmental concerns for a couple of decades more to focus on development issues, we will still not be able to achieve even the basic minimum level of human development for ‘all’ through current practices. Clearly, we need to relook at ‘how’ to approach development such that the dynamic and many hitherto unknown challenges do not derail development gains accrued so far while at the same time our actions actually help reorient the direction of current trends of development. Let us look at the current trend of urbanisation and possible approaches that may direct these trends to a more sustainable direction for both people and the planet. It is predicted that by 2030, 50% of India will be living in cities. Basically 50% of India will be working to earn livelihoods from sectors that are not directly dependent on land and forests. Should this mean that new human settlements continue to be planned and grow as they have been so far, albeit at a greater pace to cater to rapid urbanisation? This question can be answered by probably answering some other fundamental questions: What kinds of human settlements can satisfy the needs of a larger population not directly working off the land? What densities of settlement can ensure economic and management efficiencies of provision of basic infrastructure? What technologies and level of consumption in a human settlement will ensure that there is no waste or pollution or emissions to ensure a net zero or net positive society and one that has a symbiotic relationship with the land from where it draws its resources? How can the human settlement encourage cultural diversity, economic equity resilience and social cohesion by its very form and structure and how can such a settlement be designed to respond to changes - natural and unforeseen. If we start with ‘terms of reference’ such as these, we will be able to define urban guidelines, technologies, management systems, financial and market mechanisms, governance systems that are needed to promote climate smart urban settlements. The new settlements will probably be smaller, more compact, better net-worked, with closed loop energy water and waste systems, designed in dynamic response to changes in weather patterns, better prepared to deal with sudden natural events. In this manner, we will be able to direct investments towards redevelopment of present and emergence of new human settlements that are both human and planet friendly. q Zeenat Niazi
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