$6mn raised in charity to tackle climate crisis
INDIA IS THE THIRD LARGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL CARBON EMISSIONS, BUT RECEIVES ONLY 5% OF ANNUAL GLOBAL CHARITY
NEW DELHI: Charitable funding to tackle the climate crisis is picking up pace slowly in the country, according to the India Climate Collaborative (ICC), which has raised $6 million since it was incubated by the Tata Trusts in 2020.
India is the third largest contributor to global carbon emissions, but receives only 5% of annual global charity to mitigate the effects of climate change, the collaborative said in its annual report published on February 22.
Less than 2% of global charity is dedicated to mitigation, according to the US-based ClimateWorks Foundation, cited by ICC. Annual average foundation support for mitigation globally in 2015-19 was $1,100 million, out of which only $55 million was for India, the ICC report said.
Individual donations to top 10 philanthropic causes in India in 2020 was around $1,485 million, out of which the climate cause got only $114 million, according to ICC, which was established in January 2020 by industrialists and philanthropists, including Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Rohini Nilekani, Aditi and Rishad Premji, Nadir Godrej, Vidya Shah, and Hemendra Kothari.
“Domestically, cumulative philanthropic spending on climate and adjacent sectors stands at around $300 million. To put the deficit in context, Cyclone Amphan, a tropical cyclone that impacted eastern India in May 2020, alone caused an economic loss of about $14 billion,” ICC said in its report. As much as 47% of the donations by family philanthropies in India went to education in 2020, followed by 27% to health care, according to an analysis by Bain and Co, a consultancy.
Annual climate finance flows in
India rose to $579 billion on average over 2017 and 2018, representing a $116 billion (25%) increase from 2015 and 2016. However, philanthropic grant-making is governed by preset strategies that last for 3-5 years and is therefore picking up pace very slowly. ICC found.
“The interesting thing about India is that there is no climate denialism. More and more private funders are waking up to the crisis and realising that they need to fund it,” said Shloka Nath, acting chief executive the collaborative. “ICC’s own domestic donor base has increased sixfold, from two to 12, in just two years.” To be sure, India’s financial needs for climate adaptation may be several times higher than the grant-based funding that is coming through.
To cite just one instance, claims worth ₹1,705.52 crore for natural disasters that occurred in 2020-21 remain outstanding, according to the annual report of India’s Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. Of this, insurance claims worth ₹1,235.77 crore remain outstanding for Cyclone Amphan alone.
“Climate funding is increasing in India and this is good news. It is clearly a need, given increasing impacts and the vulnerability of countries like India, as we have seen from the latest science,” said Harjeet Singh, senior adviser at Climate Action Network International, a collective of non-profits.