Questioner: Namaste. I'm Samrat. I've been living in New York for 20 years. I switched from engineering to education about 14 years ago and I've since been working as an educator with a special focus on climate education and advocacy. I have an NGO as well that works on environmental justice issues. My question today pertains to the situation that is a nightmare for all the environmentalists here in the US.
Donald Trump is once again president of the most powerful nation of the world. He represents an existential threat to pluralistic democracies. But additionally, I feel that his administration is a unique and unprecedented danger to our global climate goals. He's for the second time in history withdrawn the US from the Paris climate accords.
And in just the first few days of his presidency, he has signed a series of executive orders clearly meant to years of hard one progress in the US on climate issues. Now I have a lot of thoughts on this as an environmentalist but I'm very keen to hear your insight into this situation. How do you see this issue from the global perspective especially from the vantage point of climate vulnerable nations like India?
Acharya Prashant: You see that's the ego at play. It does not consider anyone or anything bigger than its own petty interests. America first. We have gold under our feet. Let's dig it out. Let's burn it. Let's export it. Let's make America great again. Why must we bother about the vulnerable state of countries like India? Why? Give me a reason. There is no reason.
I stand for white supremacy. I stand for the global leadership of the American nation. Have I been elected to take care of the entire world? No. I'm for this limited number of people and I have to take care of their desires in the limited way that they express themselves. Have I been elected to educate them? No. I've not even been elected. I have been appointed to do what they feel doing like. I stand behind them actually following their trail. They lead the way. That's it. Simple. Nothing more than that.
Think of the person. We don't have that in the US, but we still have those things in India. The DG sets, the diesel generator sets, using vintage technology eight decades old that put the ubiquitous sound in Indian weddings. You don't find them in in the metros anymore but you go to smaller towns or villages where power cuts are more frequent and public awareness is much lower.
And this fellow is emitting as much smoke and carbon as he possibly can. And how does it matter to him that what he is emitting is something that others are going to breathe. Why must it matter to Trump that Americans constitute only 4% of the global population but are responsible for 25% of the excess CO2 we have in the atmosphere. Why must it matter to me? You see my DG set is supplying electricity to my own house and my own house is all that I am concerned about. My field of concern does not exist beyond my limited acquaintances. That's happening everywhere.
It's about the ego. It's about the fundamental human tendency to be animalistic. Just that this tendency can be challenged and overcome. And ideally only those who challenge and overcome this animalistic tendency should be occupying the spots of power in the world. We have people of all kinds. Not all deserve to be at the driver's seat, especially not at positions where they have tremendous resources and power and capacity to destroy the world.
The average American already emits 14 plus tons of carbon dioxide annually. Think of the average Indian 1/7 of that. Less than that. Less than 1/7. Even the global average is around four tons and the global average includes America and Europe and Japan and the other members of the global north.
And still, the average is no more than 4 point something tons, metric tons per annum. Why must that be a concern to me? If it is cold, I want to burn gas and oil and China has been such a headache. I'm running trade deficits, huge trade deficits. So why should I not export gas and get some surplus?
Myopic thought, self-centered behavior that you find in every household. That's what is being played out at a much grander scale. That's all. National energy emergency. Wow. We'll dig Alaska out. Then the architect is not to be left untouched. Stop the subsidies given to green renewable energies like wind. Withdraw the subsidies. Don't incentivize EVs rather promote diesel and petrol vehicles because we have enough of those things.
And as you said withdraw first thing. Just as you assume the presidency, withdraw from all possible climate agreements. Not that you were anywhere doing a great job as a nation in terms of meeting your climate obligations.
Questioner: That's right.
Acharya Prashant: Suspend the $360 billion that the previous administration had committed to green energy and meeting the Paris goals. Not that we are anyway meeting the Paris goals.
Questioner: That's right. Even that wasn't sufficient. It wouldn't have met our goals.
Acharya Prashant: It wouldn't have met our goals. In some sense, it is ironical that probably the withdrawal of the US isn't going to make much of a difference because the national deliverables—even if we met them fully that would have amounted to only around a 2.6% reduction compared to the 2010 levels. Whereas the agreement stipulates a 44% reduction and if you don't have a 44% reduction and net zero by 2050 then you cannot stay within the 1.5° centigrade limit.
And the 1.5° numbers is not something popping up from nowhere. Beyond 1.5° we know that uncontrollable feedback cycles get activated and then there is no limit to temperature rise. Once those cycles get activated, then you may even come to a net zero situation and yet find the temperature continuously rising because a vicious cycle is now in action and that does not depend on human activity anymore.
So far, we say the whole thing is anthropogenic. We say we did it and so we can undo it. The threat is that the matter is slipping out of our hands now. Yes, we did it. We initiated it. But the monster is assuming a life of its own now. And that life begins at 1.5°.
But you see at the cost of being nasty, let me say when you are nearing 80, you anyway don't have much of a future to look at. And when you know it's your second term, you know there is no term possible as per the US constitution.
So, you can do a lot of stupid and very dangerous things and be never accountable for that. You won't be around to pay the price. I just hope that other nations don't reciprocate in kind. I just hope that just as the previous withdrawal was rescinded, the same thing would happen even after let's say four years though that would obviously be too late.
Questioner: Right. I mean in the US there is a response. We created the US climate alliance which was a bipartisan alliance of states and governors who wanted to meet the Paris climate goals. So I think it's funny because more than half of Americans actually want real climate action, and yet more than half will vote for someone who will not give us climate action.
Acharya Prashant: Right. Climate action.
Questioner: It's a bizarre situation.
Acharya Prashant: Right. I don't know the name of the gentleman who in the course of the campaign equipped that you know anyway we are not going to pay much of a price for the climate results that unfold. White would turn green and that would give us more pleasant weather and more land to cultivate and build upon. It's countries like India that are going to really pay the price.
Another matter that Trump has a large fan base even in India.
Questioner: That's very bizarre. His closeness to the Indian government and the fan base that I heard that somebody built a temple in India or something for Trump or they were worshiping at a temple.
Acharya Prashant: Very likely. Very likely. I don't know of that, but likely. You see, and the ones who are admiring him in all possible ways, the irony is that these would be the ones most severely affected by the climate tragedies coming upon us.
Questioner: That's right.
Acharya Prashant: We have a population where 60-65% of us as Indians are still dependent on agriculture in some way. US the number is 2%. You include all agro-related industry, it is 5%. In India, it is 65%.
And our irrigation is all natural. We depend on the monsoons and the monsoons depend on a very delicate balance of temperature between the sea and the land. If the right pressure differential is not there, you will either have excessive rain or no rain at all.
Similarly, our rivers, they're not rainfed. Our rivers are glacial and the glaciers are all shrinking. Initially, we'll have situations where the rivers would be flooded and the adjoining planes would suffer and as the glaciers withdraw we would be losing our rivers.
We would be losing the rain at least the rain patterns, and we would be losing the perennial supply of water in the form of our rivers- the Himalayan rivers and yet we are not waking up. When it comes to the absolute numbers that are going to be affected, India is going to be the number one sufferer in the world.
And yet there is so much apathy, just indifference. You talk to ten people here about climate change and two or three of them would say, ‘You know, it does not matter to us. One of the special ones might even say it's a hoax.’
Questioner: That's right. Yeah. And it's I find the same apathy in American Indians here. Like in the environmental movement most of the people that I work with are not Indians and it's very bizarre to me because as Indians we should really be working on this.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The Indian subcontinent, if one goes through the reports and one does not really need to be trained in science to understand those reports. The whole thing is pretty obvious. The Indian subcontinent is going to be the worst sufferer. One of the reasons is its unique geography. Then there is poverty and then there is the population load.
These three things combined and under the impact of the climate crisis, we'll have a huge humanitarian disaster unfolding in front of us. Mass migrations are possible. Mass migrations.
Questioner: That's right.
Acharya Prashant: One can one can only work harder to disseminate information and raise awareness. And that's what we are doing and will continue to do.
Questioner: And thank you. It's in dark times like this, I think it's your teachings that give me the strength to continue doing the work that I'm doing.
Acharya Prashant: I'm glad. I'm glad. Thank you.