6 days ago
21
As a researcher working on sustainability and labour-intensive sectors such as fashion and textiles, I see every day how climate impacts are intensifying in regions that contributed least to historical emissions (Cop30’s watered-down agreements will do little for an ecosystem at tipping point, 22 November). In India, rising heat, unpredictable rainfall and water scarcity already disrupt cotton cultivation, small weaving clusters and garment production hubs. These communities are expected to adapt and decarbonise, yet they receive almost none of the meaningful support that would make such a transition viable.
The gap between what developing nations require and what is currently offered is not only a financial gap, it is also a structural gap created by unequal development. Treating climate finance as a loan-driven obligation rather than a shared responsibility undermines the very idea of a just transition. Debt cannot be the pathway to climate resilience for the global south.
A credible transition will require grant-based finance, accessible technology and long-term partnerships that build local capacity. Countries like India are already expanding renewable energy far faster than historic emitters did during their industrial rise. What we seek is not charity. We seek fairness consistent with science, history and the Paris agreement. Climate ambition must finally rest on climate justice.
Nirbhay Rana
Gurugram, India
George Monbiot’s opinion piece on climate data (There’s a catastrophic black hole in our climate data – and it’s a gift to deniers, 21 November) echoes what Deepak Varuvel Dennison reveals about artificial intelligence in his long read article (What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’, 18 November): that invaluable data from the world outside the US and English-speaking countries is ignored or marginalised. In this way, vital local knowledge, experience and wisdom gets lost.
As Monbiot emphasises, this skewing of data has enormous consequences for tackling climate change and our overall concept of reality. Unfortunately, we see the same skewing in news coverage reflected in the mainstream media. This hegemony will become ever more pronounced as AI usage expands. It is essential that this distortion of data sourcing is recognised and corrected if we are to retain a meaningful and truly representative concept of reality and are thus able to make effective decisions.
John Green
London
