Henriette Faergemann is currently the Environment, Climate and Energy Counsellor in the European Union Delegation to India. She is currently running a team of eight people who are trying to establish cooperation between the EU and India in all these areas.
Kunal: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Henriette. Particularly what all areas are you covering in this partnership between India and the EU?
Henrietta: So, the very first thing we started working on was the ‘India EU Water Partnership [IEWP]’, which we developed in order to try and observe how we could collaborate between European Union and India on cleaning the Ganga and also dealing with other similar water-related challenges in India. If I could speak a little more about it, the idea is, that in Europe we have a very well thought legislation called the Water Framework Directive. The idea behind this legislation is to allow countries to share the same river. We work together comprehensively and holistically and try to integrate all different kinds of aspects of how we manage these rivers. For instance, the river Danube covers most of the European mainland and has 10-12 countries that are involved in its river basin. In order to maintain this river effectively, they need to collaborate. A similar situation prevails in India. The rivers are shared between different states and there’s a huge benefit for these states in working together on the river. This was one area that we saw for Europe and India to work together and benefit mutually.
Secondly, we have the ‘EU-India Clean Energy and Climate Partnership’ which aims to bring together the clean and renewable energy agendas of India and Europe along with the climate change agenda which is more global. The purpose of this partnership is to evaluate how these national programs add up to support the international agendas for fighting climate change.
The third partnership we’ve agreed on is, ‘Smart and Sustainable Urbanization’. There has been a lot of talk about smart cities. At first, we were a little bit concerned as it was important to us that the cities were sustainable rather than smart. It is the European concept that we try to have sustainable and livable cities, and then, of course, we use smart technology to make that work even better. We developed this partnership to support the smart city mission and the whole urbanization agenda of India.
Next, we have the ‘Resource Efficiency Initiative’. It’s a bit of a smaller enterprise. It’s part of a global initiative trying to bring resource efficiency higher on the political agenda, including at the G20 level. In India, close to 60-80 percent of the housing stocks remain to be built and hence, India will require a lot of resources. We want to see how this can be done sustainably with minimum damage to the environment. The idea is to bring our economic model from a linear model where you put resources in one end and get waste out on the other end to a circular model where resources are continuously reused and recycled and materials are designed in a way that they can be properly dismantled and reused and such that the durability is longer. We ensure that we really minimize the resource consumption throughout the life cycle of the products.
Another initiative we’ve had is the EU India Air Quality Initiative. It is common knowledge that northern India and especially Delhi battles extensively with certain climatic and geographic conditions. But even air quality needs to be managed in a holistic way. Delhi itself will never be able to do something unless it can collaborate with other states surrounding it. It doesn’t help to have one particular policy on cars, for example, if you don’t have at the same time another policy on, say, construction. You have to look at all the factors that contribute to air quality or air pollution. The methodologies used in Europe are, that we make an inventory of all these issues and challenges that affect the air quality in the city and then look at the possible solutions to these problems. We try to analyze the situation before implementation. We’ve tried out this methodology in three different Indian cities to learn how this would be applicable here and what the challenges in using it here are. We had some very interesting results and now we are trying to scale up this initiative so that it can cover a larger number of Indian cities.
Kunal: While taking forward any policy initiative, how do you convert European technologies to match Indian realities because something that might suit Europe might not suit India at all?
Henrietta: We do it through our research and innovation. We’ve had a large number of projects where we have been focusing on making European technologies more applicable here. I mean, for example, one of the things that is often talked about a lot is that India wants waste-to-energy solutions to deal with the waste problems but also to then gain some free energy. In a way, this is very complicated as the waste composition here is not the same as in Europe or as elsewhere in the world. So none of the technologies are really that suitable and I think that not so many projects have actually worked so far.
So that’s an area where we are not sure if the solution has already been found yet but at least it’s something that we are working together on to see. If we want this as a solution (which I’m not sure we do) then how would we have to amend the technologies? What could be done so that this was really fitted for India? Another issue is the price factor. In India, it is very important that the solutions are cheap and European solutions are not often very cheap. I mean we go far more for quality than for price competition. We try to be competitive on the price as well. But for us, it’s always difficult to compete only on price.
So that means that, first of all, what would be a good price was not the only factor that was looked at when buying a solution that would be helpful for us. But also I think it would maybe be beneficial for India in the long term to look at some kind of relation between quality and price, and not only find the cheaper solutions. Then the second thing is that, of course, this allows European companies to actually partner with Indian companies and to produce things here and thereby contribute to the Indian industry and other policies. This is something I think our businesses are very interested in. We’ve just had a delegation of about 80 businesses in the area of clean energy and what we saw was that in two-three days they were here, they had over 500 business-to-business meetings. And we can see a very big interest from our companies to partner with Indian companies and try to really make these adaptive solutions work in growing economies such as India.
Kunal: What are the most common myths surrounding pollution and environment conservation in India?
Henrietta: Coming back a little to what I said earlier, we want to try and avoid having ad hoc solutions.
We’ve already been discussing about air pollution. We all know that last year and the year before, the pollution spiked in Delhi, for example around Diwali. And then this led to the ban of Diwali crackers. Undoubtedly Diwali crackers contribute to the pollution and we could see that very clearly. But it is also very important to understand that this is one day a year! This is not the other 364 days of the year. It may not be a myth but actually, now I do hear many people, even very well-informed people saying that Diwali creates pollution but it’s not the main cause of the pollution. It only happens to occur at a time when climatic conditions are unfavourable, when staple burn in Haryana and Punjab at the same time and where generally there is no wind circulation. So a lot of things happen at the same time. Therefore, pollution doesn’t go away. And I think if we attack just one of these issues and kind of make the myth that this is what is creating the problem, then we are not doing it any favors. Similarly, when it comes to river pollution, we have some voices saying that the idols that are dumped in the water, puja ceremonies, leaves and all of that are leading to this pollution. Of course, this is indeed a great part of the pollution. But if you look at a river like the Ganga, there are a lot of different sources of pollution. You have urban waste water coming from all the cities from the mouth of the river until the delta. All of this is untreated wastewater from huge populations. So that’s the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. It is more or less similar to the type of pollution that you get from idols, leaves and flowers. But then you have other types of factors like chemicals. There are areas where there is a lot of industrial pollution, industrial wastewater which is not treated. This has different effects on rivers. Organic pollution which comprises of nitrogen and phosphorus comes from agriculture. Pesticides, chemical pollution comes from agriculture as well. But again, if you form a myth that it is only because you’re dumping idols or flowers in river, then you’re not doing any service because ultimately you are leaving 90 percent of the pollution or 100 percent of the chemical pollution out of the picture. That’s not the way to go forward.
Kunal: What are some ways in which the average citizen can influence public policy in India regarding environment conservation in general and climate change in particular?
Henrietta: I think the first requirement for the public to influence anything is that they have knowledge and awareness. That’s why I think any policy that supports making more knowledge available to citizens is something very positive. We now have dashboards across the city that show the air quality and you can actually access data on it online. Similarly, there is some data, for example on the pollution of rivers, but it’s not coherently and consistently there.
This is something that we highly appreciate and would support. I mean, all this information and data becomes available to the public so that they can understand what the challenges are. In Europe, we have a very strong public participation in all our legislation. Every piece of legislation, every policy that comes out is required to be sent out for public hearing so that there is an adequate amount of information accessible for the public to take a qualified stand. There is a process in which there is a dedicated time for the public to make comments and there’s a dedicated way of taking these comments onboard to make sure that not only private people but also different groups of people are included. For example, when it comes to sharing of water between different stakeholders, of course the agriculture people will feel that they should have more water than the urban people, and the industrial people will feel something else. So, once the policies and laws are put out in the public domain and all these stakeholder groups get the chance to express their views and to explain themselves, it ultimately leads to a more balanced piece of legislation before it’s even adopted.
That’s another thing that I think can be extremely important. Of course, the public cannot do that if these requirements are not there. It is ultimately up to the government to make sure that these opportunities are there. And I think they are there in certain contexts, but again it’s something that will gradually need to be strengthened. India is a democracy and people have the right to express their views. According to me people must demand things to be taken seriously. To livehere in Delhi in this kind of air quality or in other cities in India with such kind of air quality is not something that anybody would want for themselves or their children. This issue needs to be raised and I think ultimately people have the obligation to voice these kinds of concerns. I understand that many people are also having many other concerns. And this may not be the first thing on their agenda, but I think people like you can really help spread this awareness, not necessarily in a confrontational way but in a collaborative way. In Europe we also have a very strong tradition of civil society and NGOs and both are seen as watchdogs to make sure that the government is doing what it’s supposed to do, but also as collaborators. They have a lot of knowledge, they have a lot of networks, and they have ideas for how to actually make this happen. A good collaboration between civil society and the government is something that I think can also be stimulated as a fruitful partnership not only as an us-against-them relationship. That’s something that we would very much support.
Kunal: How has the European Union’s relationship with civil society and NGOs in India been to strengthen their work in the areas that we are discussing right now such as climate change, environmental protection and urbanization?
Henrietta: Over the years we had a lot of collaboration with different civil society organizations, with think tanks and different groups. We’ve supported them under our development corporation programs. We’ve helped them develop their capacity, helped them develop their line of documentations and all these kinds of things. I would say, almost our entire project has some kind of civil society component. We’re very much trying to integrate this in everything that we do so in these partnerships that I’ve been working on and have mentioned so far. We try to bring in civil society actors as partners in this, as are our allies, and as the ones who can help us find solutions.
Kunal: A lot has been reported regarding the regressive approach of the Trump administration in the US towards climate change. What impact has this had on the global initiative to counter climate change and what can India do to avoid making the same mistakes?
Henrietta: Yes, I think we were all a little bit sad and disappointed about this development. But what has resulted as far as I can see is that the rest of the world has really pulled together and demonstrated that for us this is not an optional thing to do. This is not something that we choose to do on the good days and avoid the next day. I think both, the European Union and India and all the other major stakeholders have actually come together to show that we are serious about tackling climate change in a proper manner. We were very happy that India immediately announced that it stands by its commitment; the European Union did the same and the others as well. Of course it will give additional burden to the rest of the world if such a large economy as the US pulls out, but what also seems to be happening in the US is that the action on ground is actually still ongoing. It might be that politically they are certain of the announcement, but renewable energy is still being implemented. The majority of the states are still very serious about their energy and climate commitments. So, it’s also our feeling that it might not be as detrimental as it looked.
Kunal: Thank you so much for giving us your time. It was a pleasure talking to you about all the important work that has been happening between the European Union and India in regard to climate change, urbanization and all the other critical issues.
Kunal is a Delhi based lawyer & policy analyst and has been working in the social sector since the last seven years. He is the Founder of ITISARAS and currently presides as the Chairman of the Governing Body of the organisation.