Decentralise for Net Zero Bengaluru

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) recently committed to the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, which aims to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial age levels by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide. BBMP also stated that it aims to make Bengaluru “carbon neutral” by 2050. This means that by 2050, the human-caused CO2 emissions in Bengaluru would be equal to that taken out from the atmosphere through steps such as restoring ecosystems like forests and wetlands that capture carbon.

The announcement makes Bengaluru the first city in India to explicitly commit to the Paris Agreement and announce a carbon neutrality target. While the move is welcome, we must ask if the plan will be formulated and implemented in an equitable and inclusive manner. This is necessary in light of India’s recent experience with climate action, where afforestation projects and mega solar parks with questionable ecological impacts are being promoted to meet national climate action commitments under the Paris Agreement. The expansion of ‘Big Solar’, particularly, is also causing considerable social impacts in some cases. For instance, in Pavagada, Karnataka, where the setting up of solar projects has disrupted traditional pastoral livelihoods.

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Looking at the recent history of environmental governance efforts like lake rejuvenation and waste management in Karnataka can indicate how inclusive and equitable Bengaluru’s climate plan could be, as these sectors might feature prominently in the proposed climate action plan. Lakes, when functioning optimally, can act as key agents of carbon capture. When not, they can even become sources of GHGs. The waste sector is also a contributor to GHG emissions. According to GHG Platform India, this sector had contributed about 4% of India’s total GHG emissions in 2015.

Around a decade ago, civil society groups mounted heavy resistance against the privatisation of lakes being done on the pretext of limited government resources to restore and maintain lakes. While the companies would have benefitted by collecting revenue from creating beautified lakes and marketing them as tourist spots, traditionally dependent communities like fisherfolk would have been completely denied access to the lakes. Further, rejuvenation proposals, including measures like concretising lake foreshores and promoting boating and other water-sport activities, which would severely impact lake biodiversity.

The High Court of Karnataka, acting upon public interest litigation initiated by the Environment Support Group questioning such privatisation, took into account the state government’s undertaking to not privatise any more lakes, as recommended by the court-appointed Expert Committee headed by Justice N K Patil. The committee had recommended that corporate involvement in lake rejuvenation be limited to contributing funds under corporate social responsibility, and corporates not be allowed to commercially exploit lake commons.

However, contrary to its previous undertaking, the government has over the past two years given a fresh push to privatisation efforts, once again attracting judicial and public scrutiny. Agreements have been entered into with different corporates outsourcing core governmental functions of lake maintenance. In one instance, the corporate is given the right to remove “obstacles” posed by people exercising traditional rights of use and access of the lake, like the fisherfolk mentioned above. This model of privatisation is being extended to rejuvenation of lake rajakaluves (storm drains) too, as recent tenders floated by the government indicate.

How do we design inclusive and representative decision-making processes that effectively test the environmental and social impacts of environmental solutions? Take the case of urban waste management in Karnataka, being monitored by the High Court since 2012. Last year, the court directed the state government to finalise the solid waste management policy for Karnataka, as required by law. Many civil society groups and organisations, trade unions, and collectives of waste workers worked with the state government and municipalities to evolve an environmentally and socially progressive working draft of the policy. Even so, the final solid waste management policy approved by the state government dropped climate and public health-friendly proposals from the working draft, like banning incineration-based waste-to-energy conversion. In fact, the first waste-to-energy plant in Karnataka has already been set up at Bidadi, near Bengaluru. Emissions from incineration are a potential public health disaster, and transportation of waste over vast distances for burning increases the carbon footprint of waste management.

Similarly, specific proposals in the working draft to empower waste workers have been omitted -- for instance, those allowing informal waste workers to run local waste treatment plants. This would have also increased job security by doing away with contractual and casual employment.

As long as decision-making processes are centralised, the balance of power will always be skewed against citizens who live through the impacts of decisions. What we need instead is a rejuvenation of local governance, based on decentralised democracy as envisaged in the Constitution. For cities, this is intended to be achieved through Ward Committees that distribute micro-level governance amongst corporators and members of the public.

This decentralised approach will be useful in integrating climate resilience approaches into city planning and governance. For example, efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change need to cater to the varying needs of different areas and diverse communities in the city, since the effects of climate change on them, and their capacity to respond, will vary. A centralised governance model cannot respond in granular detail to such needs. However, recent moves that take power further away from people, such as the creation of corporate bodies for smart city planning and waste management, indicate that climate action initiatives, too, may fall prey to a centralised, corporatised governance model. Achieving inclusive and decentralised governance will therefore require a pushback from civil society, and wide engagement across communities against such initiatives.

The writer is a lawyer working with Environment Support Group, a policy research and advocacy initiative