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Why Climate Action in India Needs Culture to Succeed
Key takeaways
- Climate and development conferences tend to reproduce one-way hierarchies instead of real collaboration.
- Panels tend to constrain informal exchanges and collective problem-solving.
- Spaces built around equality, conversation, and experimentation can create stronger collaborations in the climate space.
- The success of informal “climate mixers” in Mumbai and Bengaluru suggests a growing hunger for third spaces outside institutional formats.
If you work in the development sector, particularly in the climate or environment space, you have almost certainly attended a panel discussion in the last 30 days.
Conferences and panels have begun to feel like the development sector’s equivalent of a wedding season. You see the same familiar faces every time, exchange pleasantries, drink tea, hit the buffet counters, and then do it all again next weekend at a different venue. I know this fatigue-inducing routine well; I’m guilty of organising a few of these events myself and have participated in many more.
If you’re a panelist with something interesting to say, you might even be approached by a few curious folk who want to pick your brain. This isn’t without reason. We are all doing critical work and want to talk about it, but the format has come to feel a bit hollow and transactional. I was invited to your wedding, so now I must return the favour with a shagun ka lifafa and implore you to attend my own shaadi… Sorry, I meant conference.
The power structure
There’s an implicit hierarchy to panels. Being an audience member feels like sitting in a durbar, hearing a small group of chosen ones espouse their agendas. The only way to push back, contribute, or even compliment is by fighting for the microphone at the end, or mustering the courage to approach your chosen expert for a quick chat (if they do not make an Irish exit).
Most of these gatherings are branded successes. Experts spoke, people heard, tea and biscuits were had, event over. If you weren’t offered a chance to make your voice heard, too bad. Go home and write a long LinkedIn post about it.
The missing “third space”
The problem with this format is that discourse only flows in one direction. It’s a classroom, not a canteen.
This hit me in February during Mumbai Climate Week, where over three days there were multiple panels with hundreds of speakers talking to thousands of attendees. Historically significant, but something was clearly missing. A third space for climate folks, outside of offices and conference halls, where we could converse freely, without an agenda. A where everyone is both an expert and an amateur and the operative principle is to learn from one another and perhaps build something together.
That’s how the idea of a Climate Mixer was born.
On day 2 of the climate week, we put together an event at a pub within walking distance of the glass-fronted convention centre (which is, in fact, also a wedding venue). I was expecting 50 to 60 people to show up. 150 did. Barely any standing room, but nobody was complaining. We kicked off the evening with some stand-up comedy about climate change, a quick take from a communications study, a spotlight on a young volunteer-run climate publishing agency, and a goosebump-inducing performance by Prakash Bhoir ji, an Adivasi folk singer from Aarey Colony. After that, it was open season. Walk up to anyone, talk about your work, pitch an idea, find a collaborator. I’ve since worked on two projects with people I met for the first time that evening.
The second mixer followed in Bangalore on May 21 at Indiranagar Social in Bengaluru, on a rainy evening. 85 people. Conversation was light, there was music and games, and faces other than the usual suspects.
Based on feedback from both the mixers, we’re thinking of making this a regular thing and adding more cities. We also know we can’t do all of this alone, so in the true spirit of decentralisation, we’ll be looking for organisations and individuals who want to host one in their city. We’re happy to share a statement of purpose to get them started.
Panels, webinars, and conferences have their place. But crazy ideas and unlikely collaborations are born in spaces where everyone’s an equal, where there’s no pressure to perform expertise, and the only agenda is to find others who share your values.
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