Climate change “hitting us from various different angles,”: Nirmala Sitharaman

Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister, said here on Saturday that climate change is now “hitting us in everyday life” from various angles.

“Climate is now hitting us from various different angles, hitting us in everyday life,” Sitharaman said during a panel discussion at a World Bank-organised event on “Making it Personal: How Behavioral Change Can Tackle Climate Change”.

The Union Finance Minister on being asked how India implements the LiFE agenda, said, through “repeated persuasion, repeated speaking about and speaking about issues which you think are commonplace, but repeated speaking by people who hold positions, by people who are responsible, by people who can really catch eyeballs.”

“That’s where and that is why I think most advertising campaigns for very mundane things catch hold of top icons to support the idea,” Sitharaman said.

The Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) initiative, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aims to encourage the adoption of sustainable lifestyles in India and around the world in order to address the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change.

The LiFE initiative intends to use the power of social networks to influence social norms concerning climate change. It intends to establish and nurture a global network of individuals known as ‘Pro-Planet People’ (P3) who are committed to adopting and promoting environmentally friendly lifestyles.

The Finance Minister said: “You need to have more people talking about it, more influential people talking about it.”

Sitharaman also spoke extensively on DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) on Friday, emphasising how India has contributed to targeted, quick, efficient, and inclusive service delivery through innovative methods over the last few years.

Speaking as a Keynote Speaker at the IMF’s “India’s Digital Public Infrastructure – Stacking Up the Benefits” event in Washington on how the public and private sectors can collaborate on DPI, Sitharaman stated that, given the current macroeconomic and pandemic-related challenges, examples readily available demonstrate the DPI’s potential to benefit both the public and private sectors.

“As we are dealing with multiple challenges in macroeconomics and pandemic-related ones. available instances show that the potential of DPI to contribute to both public and private sectors is both enormous and can transform the development trajectory of the country even under difficult times. In India, during the last couple of years, we have seen how DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) can contribute to targeted quick and efficient and inclusive service delivery through innovative methods,” the Union Finance Minister said during her keynote address.