New economy, old habits

The world is fast-tracking the transition to a green economy.

It is moving towards renewables, like solar and wind, to replace coal and gas in energy systems; towards electric vehicles to replace oil for transportation; and towards hydrogen to replace fossil fuels in industry and energy. These are the three big changes expected to drive reduction in emission in a world that is fast heating up, and with hugely consequential weather disasters.

There is no doubt that the world needs to move with speed and at scale. But what will be the business model that we take to the new green world? I ask this as there are inherent problems with the old model of resource utilisation and its social and environmental fallouts.

Take the issue of mineral extraction be it coal, iron ore, or aluminium. The mining of these raw materials, needed for energy and industry, I have led to massive environmental fallouts. In India, as we have painfully found out, this mineral wealth is often in forests, wildlife habitats, and, of course, tribal homes. This is why we say this resource curse is about rich lands and poor people. The fact also is that to get to the minerals we need for the economy, we have had to cut forests and displace local communities that had lived in this habitat. The tragedy of this extractive and revenue-generating economic model has been that the people who live on these lands have hardly benefited from the resources.