Climate Solutions That Make Everything Better

Quinn: [00:00:00] Picture a city that beats brutal heat waves with cool tree lined streets, that slashes household energy bills, and cuts carbon pollution by as much as 80%, without waiting for these miracle technologies. That future positive vision is already taking shape in fast growing places like Ahmedabad, India, where community designed cooling plans and demand side innovations are proving that climate action can double as a public health and equity upgrade.

It's co-benefits. You've heard it a thousand times. We're gonna talk about 'em more today. What can you do to help your own city deliver cleaner air, lower costs, and a safer climate? Every week, thousands of people ask us the most important question in the world. What can I do? So every week I turn around and ask someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about the very same question. Across climate change [00:01:00] and global health and AI and Alzheimer's research. I find out why they're doing the work they're doing and what we, you and I, can do to support it, to emulate it, to join their work, to fund it, to find our own way to the front lines of the future.

I'm your host, Quinn Emmett, and my guest today is Dr. Minal Pathak, associate professor at Ahmedabad University and a former senior scientist with the IPCC who helped craft the landmark sixth assessment report. We will explore how people centered, data smart solutions can transform just about any city into a climate resilient wellbeing powerhouse and how you can start pushing your own neighborhood, your own spheres of influence down that path today.

For questions or feedback as always, please email us at questions@importantnotimportant.com.

[00:02:00] Minal, thank you so much for being with us today.

I really appreciate it. Again, I put my children on the school bus 10 minutes ago, so I apologize if I'm a little frazzled here. I don't know if you have children, but for me there's always a buffer between when I send them off for the day and when I'm able to actually think clearly again for a minute.

Minal Pathak: My daughter is 18 and she just came home for a summer break. You'll be surprised at how things change.

Quinn: Yeah.

Minal Pathak: In a few years. I don't know how old your kids are?

Quinn: Yeah, mine are 10, 11, and 12. They think they're 18, but they're not yet. So did she come back a different person? What's the story?

Minal Pathak: I think she's a good kid. I miss when she was younger, but I feel that I like my space now. When you grow older, you want your time, so not missing that part.

Quinn: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny we're definitely in that moment. Our kids are getting older. It seems like they're on, almost like telling a friend today, escape velocity, you know, where you wake up every day and you're like, what, did you get bigger overnight? And things change and they want their privacy and this, and so my wife and I are very sort of, you know, in that moment where we're like [00:03:00] desperate for them to have conversations with us.

And I'm sure that'll be, but I have also heard that you also get to the point, like you said, where you're kind of like, no it's good for them to leave now and you can have some space.

Minal Pathak: I mean, at least I have no problems. It's been good.

Quinn: Well, listen, welcome to the show. I really appreciate your time today. I know it's evening for you, so I don't wanna waste too much of it. Minal, we usually ask a two part question to kind of get us started and you gotta kinda listen carefully 'cause it sounds like the same question, but it's not.

So the first part is why do you, Minal, have to do this job? So if everyone in the world, why you? And the second part is why do you have to do this work? So of all the ways that you Minal could answer the call, everything you could have done could do with your life. Why do you have to do this work? Does that make sense?

Minal Pathak: I think the first part, if you allow me, I can go into a little bit of history. So I have an [00:04:00] undergraduate degree in biochemistry and then I was thinking about a master's in biochemistry and this environmental science advertisement popped up and I told my friend, let's give it a shot. I got in the program and I came back home and told my father, I'm doing environmental science.

It sounds interesting, and my dad said, that's career suicide. People advise there's no jobs in environment in India. And nobody takes that up as a career. I went on to do my PhD and there weren't that many jobs back then I just kept doing my thing just out of passion and out of interest. I was really, you know, diving deeper and deeper from core environmental science issues to issues of energy, security access, and then climate, which is so sexy now, but it wasn't then, and I don't mean it in a bad way.

I think it's just a lot of people think it's a very important job, but we've been doing it for a while. And I think as a woman from the global south, I do bring a much needed voice to the global stage because I'm also [00:05:00] part of the IPCC and therefore I think I do add value and I am suited for the job. That's probably answering your first question. And the second question is just passion.

Quinn: You know, so like you said, you grew up and you got a biochemistry degree and you're gonna get a master's in biochemistry and your, you know, your dad said there's no jobs in this and that. I mean, biochemistry, you know, like anything you can break it down and do, you could have done 50 different things with it.

Why this particular work?

Minal Pathak: Well, I would say this just happened organically. I don't think this was so planned. So unfortunately I don't have a great answer to your question.

Quinn: But that's great though.

Minal Pathak: Yeah, it happened that I really was driven and it happened that there were few options in Ahmedabad. I went to this university where this professor was working on IPCC and I applied there and I got in and that was the turning point for me.

That's how it happened. It was not necessarily planned that I would work on climate change. But if there was, I mean, I could have been, yes, a journalist or maybe a school teacher. But then within this [00:06:00] job I do a few different jobs. I'm also a university professor, so I teach sustainability and then I work with the IPCC, which is almost another job because it's an international UN body and we are influencing global policy.

So I think now I'm not leaving, so not your question really. And I think there's just need for so many people especially in underrepresented regions, to work in these areas, to bring more voices, more knowledge on the global stage, but also in terms of action. And therefore, here I am sticking to what I'm doing.

Quinn: I love that. If you could tell a young woman growing up in a city in India or in the more rural areas, would you have a different answer for them than your dad did for you? About what jobs are available for this work now? Do you feel like you've seen that there's more available or are you still fighting for space?

Minal Pathak: I would definitely not give them this answer. I would tell them not to [00:07:00] limit themselves or think that their ability is limited because they come from a certain background or that they cannot pursue a certain topic or a certain kind of job because of their gender or their background. So that's the first part of my answer. And the second part is, in many ways environment is not a financially rewarding career.

So by the time you make it, you are relatively late, I mean, you could take like for more lucrative jobs, like in management or with the private sector, which definitely pay more than academia and research. But I think it's just far more rewarding to follow your passion than just follow the money because it’s just a side benefit. We are going to talk about co-benefits, I guess. I think money is a co-benefit that comes along, but it's really the satisfaction of being able to change the world.

And it's not just about climate. It could be space, it could be physics, it could be engineering, and all over the world, there are fewer women doing these things, and I feel quite strongly about this. So I would in fact not just give them a different answer. I would push them if I got [00:08:00] the opportunity to say, think beyond what you think you could do.

Quinn: I love that perspective. Well, to be the microphone or the messenger. And we know that the messenger is just as important if not more important than the message these days. Especially to be able to stand in front of young women and say, not only can you yes do this. But in so many different ways. Like you said, from commercial to academia to research, whatever it might be, don't let the money drive you. But again, like you said if you do the right work, it can be a co-benefit, right? Along with everything else. But hopefully it's not what's moving along.

That's kind of what got us to this place in a lot of ways. So, I wanna start again. Just focus for a moment more on sort of your personal spark here. 'cause for all of the global stakes of climate change, which is obviously a thousand different pieces under the same umbrella that are all interwoven.

I like to use the examples of you got co-benefits on one hand and threat multipliers on [00:09:00] the other. Right. And for all of its accompanying impact areas we always tell folks, you know, when they come to us and say, I read that the jet stream is slowing down. What do I do? And we go, well, there's not a lot you can do about that.

But for a lot of folks, the easiest way to understand it is, you know, climate change really is the heat on your back in your city. It's the water you drink, it's all of those things. It's the shade you have or don't have. And you've been in Ahmedabad for a long time. Was there a moment when the city's growth took off and the heat took you to really say I wanna really look at these urban climate solutions and co-benefits involved in that. Was there some journey of yours in the city where you really sort of realized how all the pieces could come together?

Minal Pathak: I wouldn’t say there was one moment, but my formal job was with the planning school and I was in the Department of Planning amdpeople were still talking about air and [00:10:00] water, but I just felt like climate was really an important issue to bring to the table. And then I just did one talk on climate change and it was very well received and we suddenly were flooded with these undergraduate student projects who had a lot of ideas to work on climate and urban climate issues in particular.

And then we started digging deeper and we realized that, you know, how the form of the city is changing and there's so much more work to be done because there was really no research at the city level. I'm talking about a decade ago. We were talking about low carbon plants back then, and at that time it was really a novel idea and now you have all these thousands of urban plans.

So I would say a decade ago it happened to me, but I've started feeling very strongly since the last four or five years when the summers have just really been hot and relentless. First I'm speaking about someone who's been in this city for over two and a half decades now. I'm now telling my husband that this is not a city we would like to retire in. And we should buy a home somewhere because the city is becoming unlivable

And every summer is [00:11:00] worse than the last. And this year, today this is peak summer, mid May is just the worst of summer. And somebody was saying, well, the temperature's not that bad. And it would be, I think, 42 degrees Celsius. Instead of 46 maybe.

Minal Pathak: But now we are seeing this interesting or new phenomena, which is humidity with heat. And that's really terrible. And you know, I live in a city where so many people work in the informal sector. So you have construction workers and vegetable vendors, and they're all out in the street. It's not like an air conditioned house like I have. So, I feel very strongly about it as time is going and there's global inaction. So my own work focuses on yes, urban action, but also individual action.

Quinn: Can we go back for just a moment? So the meat of that speech that launched a thousand ships of students coming to you with climate ideas? You know, again, if it was a decade or so ago, and like you said, there weren't many plans, like what do you feel like was the real spark for them in what you talked about?

Minal Pathak: I probably have to ask them,[00:12:00] but I think for them it was just this exciting idea about, oh, hey, climate's going to happen in the future and its going to happen soon. And we don't know anything about it. We prepared and is our city even looking at it? And I don’t now remember the content of the talk, but I do think that for them it was more like a new area for environmental research rather than climate change per se. And I remember a controversial thing that one of my colleagues said in the planning school that, oh, climate is not happening in my lifetime, so I don’t need to worry about it. And that was the view shared by colleagues within the environmental planning department. And you know, it's happening in his lifetime.

Quinn: Is that colleague, were they your age? Older, younger?

Minal Pathak: Just a little bit older I think maybe five years older or something.

Quinn: Right.

Minal Pathak: But yeah, it's happened in their lifetime and climate change happened much sooner than what we thought. And we were writing all these papers about future business as usual scenarios, and now suddenly the future is the present and it's just escaping. So you just wonder, I just think [00:13:00] that I should be doing this and nothing else and more people should be doing this.

Quinn: Sure. No, I mean, you are right. If you look at these long-term projections for global heating they're pretty on track and people go, oh, they were wrong, or this, or we've had some cold days or hot summers and they weren't right. The projections are pretty spot on within margin for error.

What's different is, you know, we didn't believe that those could be the projections 10 years ago and even five years ago. And now we're realizing oh, not only are they correct, but maybe a little sooner. And like you said, in the global south, especially in cities, but also in rural areas. I mean, we see this in Central America and South America. And I know in parts of northern India too, in the rural areas with subsistence farmers, like it's a nightmare. They will tell you it's happening in their lifetime.

Minal Pathak: And it's not just the direct impacts, right? It's the indirect impacts. It's what's happening to the economy, like agriculture in particular. What's going to happen to agriculture in the next five years? I think the deniers [00:14:00] are not going to make a very good case in this present time.

We had climate skeptics and deniers, but now I don't think they can have a voice.

Quinn: It's a little harder to have a legacy stand on there anymore. So again, because they can feel that impact and if they live in the most air conditioned home, everyone around them still can too. And it's a little bit of the, what is the metaphor, the emperor has no clothes, right? It's a little harder when everyone around you goes, no, it is changing and I can feel it today, you know?

So you started to work quite globally with the IPCC and you've spent quite a bit of time there. And obviously here you know, we just fired everyone involved on our side. But pushing that to the side for a moment, what was it like when you first encountered sort of these global projections and any mitigation plans and scenarios with, like you were saying, the on the [00:15:00] ground reality in Indian cities like yours, where were the gaps? Where were the disconnects, where you were going, this is great, but this is happening, or this is a plan, but this would never work in my city, or, this is an idea I have for my city. An urban climate solution that might be more applicable, transferable, we like to say to more cities throughout the world.

Does that make sense? Like where were the differences?

Minal Pathak: Yeah I mean, I saw a huge disconnect between what we know about global climate change, what we know about the solutions and the speed at which the solutions are being implemented. So I think the gap is not now any longer what the solutions are.

I think this has already been laid out in the last IPCC report, but in numerous reports, even your national assessment in the US, et cetera. And so that to me is the biggest gap, the speed, but also the scale.

So you can think that, okay, electric buses are probably a good idea because they can reduce air [00:16:00] pollution and they're a good mitigation strategy in the long term. But why are we just putting five buses, or 10 buses, or 15 buses in a city when it needs 120 or 200 buses. So we've been celebrating pilots, and I'm not just talking about Indian cities, I'm talking now also global cities. Our pledges have not met the scale at which you need to pledge particularly for countries in the global north, but also in my city.

I do this work in the IPCC, I see these future scenarios of heat, et cetera, growing emissions. And then I drive and I see the city expanding, spilling over more buildings on the periphery, spreading out all private, car-dependent.

Following the American way of life.

Quinn: Oh, everything we did, yeah.

Minal Pathak: Yeah. And I think that's to me, the biggest disconnect that our cities are adding concrete at a rate you cannot imagine. And it's a growing population, so you do need some of that.

Quinn: But we know the ways to do it. We know that the way we did it and we [00:17:00] benefited from and, you know, ruined everything with, is not the way to do it. We know what doesn't work and what doesn't really scale and to use the space well. And what does, and there's so many wonderful examples of places that know how to do it right.

But again, to me like you're saying that the gap is in the speed and the scale. Because it seems like when a city like mine or any mid-size city, and especially in the global North, I feel like, because again, we made so much of this problem that when they trial, like you said, three electric school buses out of a hundred.

That doesn't feel like business as usual to them, that feels like they're making a big leap, right. This pilot when in fact we're well beyond that. Right?

Minal Pathak: We are far from, yeah, we need to go much further and much faster.

Quinn: Right, right.

And I don't know if that's the inertia of doing the same thing for 50 years, which is just replace 'em with gas, replace 'em with gas, that they feel like they're [00:18:00] making this paradigm shift.

Right. By putting a foot in the door when in fact what's required is, like you said an accompanying comprehensive velocity that's very different. And so psychologically, I understand why humans have a hard time with that, why budgets that have been based on the same fundamentals for so long.

And like you said, you know, versions of suburban privatized sprawl are the same. That's why so many cities are so similar. But it doesn't work anymore, right?

Minal Pathak: No. No, and the other way to look at it is that you put three electric buses, but you're still investing in diesel and gas. And I don't want to bring resident Trump in, but the drill, baby drill is suicide globally. Right.

I don't know if you want to go into politics, but you take one step forward and you take several steps back.

Quinn: Yeah.

Minal Pathak: That’s not how we are going to advance climate action.

Quinn: Yep.

Minal Pathak: So you are bringing electricity, clean electricity, and then you are having all these data centers and artificial intelligence that's eating up all the renewable energy.

Quinn: [00:19:00] Oh yeah.

Oh no, it's crazy. Something like, and I'm gonna mangle this, but something like 80% of the US' new data centers that are AI based are going in my state in Virginia, and there's no requirement, 'cause our current governor is a moron, that they be run on clean energy. There's no one fighting for that as many good people because we've got so many other fires to put out as well.

Because it's happened so quickly, talk about velocity. But it's crazy. The water, the power required, it's unreal. And by the way, we can bring politics, Us, Canadian, Indian wherever you want, we can do this, we can talk about Brazil, those matter, right?

We don't get away from that because we focus a lot on trying to be as effective as we can. And that means on the one hand, we don't categorically endorse any particular person, party, et cetera, et cetera, but we will call out good policies and good actors and we will call out the bad ones who are standing in the way because we're not gonna get anything done.

Right. You can be an [00:20:00] idealist all you want but we have to get shit done, right.

Minal Pathak: In terms of hierarchy, you start with individual action, then you go to community action, cities, national. But now it seems almost like picking your leader or calling out your leader or holding them accountable is really a big important part of the solution.

Quinn: Very important.

Minal Pathak: If climate is not an election issue, something is wrong.

Quinn: Yep. Yep.

Minal Pathak: And in India, now I'm going to call out India because I don't know why climate is not an issue when so many people are dying of heat, are experiencing floods and all kinds of climate impacts. I almost think there are major political parties are not even touching on the issues sometimes in subnational elections.

Quinn: Oh yeah. Here too. It's incredible that it's like in the past six months it's gone to like 10th on our list. You know, and you go, but you have to understand it is both being driven by and affecting the other top nine issues you care about. And if not, it will. For instance, in the US, you know, such a huge systemic problem that is [00:21:00] coming, very quickly is the residential and commercial insurance problem with mortgages and renting and all that stuff. And then the reinsurance markets. It is a 10 alarm fire that no one wants to talk about. And you go, but you're worried about property prices and the cost of living and all this stuff, and that's before the disaster even happens, I mean, it's, yeah you do have to and we really do believe in that. So yeah, a hundred percent. It's a big part of it. You can obviously focus on it too much but it matters. I wanna talk a little bit about you've got this new framework. I don't know if you pronounce the acronym GISE at all.

But you talk about goals, interventions, stakeholders, enablers. Let's try to put that in a real example and we can use your city's heat action plan, if that's okay to talk to me about how those pieces really click together. 'cause I love frameworks like these especially when you can really put 'em into action. So talk to me about it.

Minal Pathak: So the heat [00:22:00] action plan is one successful case study that the city, and I think at some level, nationally also we are proud of because it was the first of its kind to look at heat and its solutions. And what I like about this, and I'm jumping from G to S first, which is the stakeholders.

What I like is that it was a bunch of stakeholders including the NRDC based in the US, but also public health institutions in Ahmedabad, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. And all of these actors came together to work out a common, I would say plan, but it was quite iterative. They had many consultations and they came up with this plan, which I think was later replicated to 50 cities and states in India and then in South Asia. It's become like quite a modern plan.

Quinn: 50? Five zero?

Minal Pathak: Five zero, yes.

Quinn: That's awesome. Wow. That's awesome.

Minal Pathak: Yeah. And so almost all major states now have heat action plans, and this is supported by city level heat action plans and now they're getting bolder and better. So [00:23:00] in terms of intervention, and I'll come to the next steps. But the good part about the plan is it's based on an early warning system and how the plan envisages that in case of an extreme heat event there will be a public alert issued to the entire population of the city to try, especially to reach out to the vulnerable, so people living in informal settlements, working outdoors, informing them that today's an irregular day, try to minimize their exposure. And a bunch of awareness pamphlets, brochures, and communication materials were released as part of the heat action plan. And what we know from looking at that plan and its implementation over, I think now quite some time, five years maybe, is that it has reduced heat related mortality in Ahmedabad, which is I think, a big success.

It has reduced morbidity. There is greater awareness about heat and what to do. And so I would say that this GISE and the enablers of course, is that, that it was enabled, I mean, there was a political will to do something about it.

There was funding, [00:24:00] there was organizational support, and that, to me, is a big part of the solution, the enablers.

In fact, it should have come first in our framing. But anyway, so the goal was, yes, of course, to develop a heat plan. But then it was a collaborative effort and that's why it succeeded. So it was also linked to an emergency response service in terms of ambulances and et cetera, what number you can call when it's very hot, et cetera. Now, let me come a little bit to the critique of the plan.

Quinn: Please. Yeah.

Minal Pathak: Is that we have now stopped there and I think an effective heat action plan has to be systemic, and we should have now been able to integrate this with the city's plan. So it stops at the prevention, alert based warning, but what you need is how are our buildings being constructed?

What is the material we are using to build the city? Is it integrated within the urban plan?

Well, it's not. And so I think we need to now move beyond. So it's successful. Yes. We've managed to set up a system that [00:25:00] tells people it's going to be hot, but then how are we going to look at the city in the long term and protect people?

Quinn: Which really requires bringing in a whole new set of stakeholders, right?

Minal Pathak: And raising ambition. Raising ambition is key, right? In all kinds of plans. I mean, where do you stop? And we are talking about the gender issue, but really even in climate, it applies like, why are we limiting it to one success? Let's go beyond.

Quinn: And that's applicable everywhere. Again, like the inertia of business as usual, again, to use a poor phrase like really does have to go out the window. And I understand psychologically and sociologically how that's difficult to throw out but at the same time again like your colleague it's very hard to look around and not go, well, we have to do this better.

You know, when we talk about in the US when someone buys a car they tend to hold onto it for an average of 12 years. And it's the same thing with, you know, a furnace or a heat pump, whatever it might be. If [00:26:00] the shelf life is 10, 12 years, every time someone buys a gas car, you're locking that in for such a long time.

Same thing, especially with building a building, right? And what are we making it of and how are we building it? How many people can fit into a footprint? Look, I know people are just trying to do their jobs and everyone's trying to pay in a world that's increasingly expensive and their families and education and food, which is expensive.

But at some point you have to be the brave one who goes we have to question all of these things. And, you know, as much as I love, I get asked to talk about, you know, sort of these new fangled tech ideas to help climate change and things like that. And some of them could be cool, that's fine.

But we actually have 90% of the answers and the information that we need really to rebuild our entire built environment. But like you said, we need so much more will and then ambition among the stakeholders who are more people than you think to, like you said, [00:27:00] meet and establish these goals and establish what interventions are required, and then who is responsible for them who's gonna source out the better building materials and who's gonna cost them out and how many places can they apply to?

And then go be ambitious with that, you know? And like you said, I mean, it's amazing. You can critique any plan, of course, especially the execution of it. Right. But if something is even somewhat transferable to 50 different cities, it works. It's been proven. And of course there's stuff on the margins, and of course you can critique it, but come on.

Minal Pathak: I think it's a great plan, and I think we just need many more plans that are actually implemented. And what I like about that plan was that not only that it was a good plan on paper, but it actually was implemented. And we have evidence that it has made a positive impact.

So I mean, that critique is only so it pushes my government.

Quinn: So I had this wonderful conversation with a woman who talks about and wrote a book, she writes about multi-solving and so we really talked a lot [00:28:00] about co-benefits.

And again, the opposite of that. So I did a little challenge with her that we both really enjoyed. And I think you and I could do a version of that here, which is to take your framework, right? And that has been successful across the cities people come to us and they say, what can I do?

Right? And it's always this Venn diagram. And a lot of people talk about a version of this, which is, what are you interested in? What are you good at? What do we need help with? And I'll give you 50 different things. We're trying to give people agency to say Hey, you have marketing skills, you have accounting skills, you're an architect.

Whatever it is, you can contribute in some way. So let's take the successes of your heat action plan and your framework and apply it to something like, let's talk about water in India, right? Water accessibility. What are ways we could, again, just kind of freewheeling here, to turn more normally passive residents into co-designers you know, as the city grows and becomes [00:29:00] more dense well, some areas are more dense and some areas are more spread out.

How do we apply that to something like water accessibility, which obviously becomes more difficult, but more important too, like you said, in mid-May when it's 42 to 46 degrees.

Minal Pathak: So I mean, I will give a more general answer and then we may get to water as well.

Quinn: Yeah,

Minal Pathak: I think people can sometimes come and tell me, what can I do? You know, it's all the higher levels of government. I just don’t have enough power and influence. And that's not true at all.

So there is agency with every individual in the choices we make. And so I think the first step for an individual is not to consume, and I know that sounds very controversial especially in my context, but generally people don't want to make that choice that, do you really need that new house or that new shirt, a new whatever?

Right? That's the first step. The next step is your immediate sphere of influence, that can be your immediate family, children, spouse, et cetera. So whether it's water or solid waste, it's like I'm going to conserve [00:30:00] water because water is a precious commodity. Let's talk within the house about how we are going to change what waste we are disposing or how we are disposing of it.

Can we start composting can we get the kids involved, right?

Yeah, we've tried that in the house actually putting these captions on the fridge when my daughter was growing up. I mean she’s just generally an environmentally sensitive individual because of these passive fun quotes we had when she was growing up. The next sphere we have is in our organizations. Whether we work at a school, university, small business, establishment industry. That is really significant because like for example, we have tried at Ahmedabad University to look at water conservation. So we have rainwater recharge and this time when it rains, somebody said, oh, why is this not drying up soon?

Our recharge wells are working. And so when you have a recharge, well you're automatically raising awareness of other individuals within the organization. So we have a small shuttle for shared transport. We are trying to reduce food [00:31:00] waste in our cafeteria. So that's the next sphere of influence, your organization. If you're leading that organization, you have more influence.

And then finally, it's at the larger level, right? That how do you influence beyond just an individual action. And like I said, just call out and we were working on this publication. It will be out in a while. On luxury emissions.

That's something that we really haven't looked at enough in the sense we know it's happening. But in this world where water is a scarce resource or where materials are rare or where energy is also not accessible to so many people in the world, how do some people end up consuming like two orders of magnitude beyond the average?,

Quinn: Once someone has explained to you what your spheres of influence are. No matter who you are, where you are, and what you do, and what your skills are, what you care about, it's very difficult to unsee them.

Right? It's very difficult to look around and be like, I could impact kids. I could impact this team. I could impact my office, [00:32:00] like you do.

Minal Pathak: You can't get away with the excuse that I don't know what to do today. I go on with my day because I don't know what else I can do. No, that's a ridiculous answer for somebody who's living in this world at this time. And this paper, because it was an academic paper, we were wondering, and so there's this literature around naming and shaming. We were not sure I mean, you know, shaming has its own psychological consequences.

Quinn: Sure.

Minal Pathak: Should you call out to a person on social media? And what impacts would it have? And maybe that's not a good idea. But then does that also mean that some celebrity gets to just fly around the world in their private jet every week? And should they not be held accountable?

Quinn: Sure.

Minal Pathak: And we are talking about like 20 billion as in the world who control so much of wealth and investment. So as an individual also where you invest, everyone invests, right? They have small shareholding, sometimes people don't think of investments as their way to influence, but every time you buy a product, you are making a choice about a company.

I would say as an individual, people should understand what their choices mean. What are the implications? What is the [00:33:00] company's sort of goal or idea around the environment or sustainability? Do we understand what our choices imply in terms of resources or water or land footprint? So it can be a small thing like changing my diet. What I eat today, also where I get my food from. How is it made? What am I going to do with the waste? So there's many things to do. And I would just say that let's not be very pessimistic. There are so many solutions and there are solutions for everyone everywhere.

Quinn: There really are. And those extend to all those different co-benefits, you know? So again, an example I love to use is the electric school buses version, Which are expensive and you have to build a charging infrastructure for them, and they're new and you have to learn how to maintain them.

I get all of that. However, there's basically one in every neighborhood in the United States just to start, right? So most of 'em are diesel. They're very loud. So electric school buses reduce [00:34:00] noise pollution. Electric school buses clean the air of that local community, right immediately. And we know that there's a difference between emissions, which are usually carbon or methane. Carbon lasts a lot longer, is a little less intense. Methane, very intense and shouldn't last quite as long. Again, we know how to deal with those. And then there's your localized pollution, which I know so many Indian cities deal with, just like so many US cities used to.

And it sounds like we're going to again. And when you replace a source with a cleaner version, almost immediately you start to see the effects of that. And so now you've got, because we understand that people in the school bus are affected just as much as people outside of it. You've got not only healthier students, you've got a healthier bus driver who can come to work more, which means they can , have a better standard of living, which means they don't have as many healthcare costs and it's the same for their children whose parents now don't have to stay home to take care of sick kids [00:35:00] and their grades are better, et cetera, et cetera. The co-benefits are, you know, there's a long tail that you can argue with, but there's very irrefutable core co-benefits to a lot of things like this.

And it's the same like you said with, and I know a lot of your IPCC work really worked on personal lifestyle choices and consumption. I totally understand and empathize with people who feel like their choices are a drop in the ocean, but we are very social creatures and we've proven that over and over.

And, you know, movements only start in one way. We call it compound action here, right? It's actions over time and across people and it really does add up. And often that is the place where you can start within those spheres of influence. So, yeah, let's talk about water for a sec, if you don't mind.

I know I keep coming back to it, but again, I really feel like it is among the most ignored things. Everyone feels the heat, but in the US it's both more accessible than people could ever imagine if they stepped outside the US once. It's cheaper than you could ever imagine. But also we're very eager to just turn [00:36:00] people's water off if they haven't paid their bills once or whatever it might be, or argue about what to protect and this and that.

So in a city like yours, like where can someone start to have, again, starting with their most intimate sphere of influence, where can they start to make better choices about water and have more agency over how water is consumed and protected and enabled for more people?

Minal Pathak: Yeah, you are right about water. It's not something that people are thinking about as much as other issues including in Indian cities. So the definition of water access for India is 135 liters per person per day.

Quinn: Okay.

Minal Pathak: Which is not enough obviously. A lot of our cities are now getting water sources from the hinterland and further away because the water needs are increasing. So within my sphere of influence, I would say water conservation at home, at least not waste water with long showers.

Like in India, you just cannot afford those and somewhere, I read that a Beatles song is four minutes, and if you manage [00:37:00] to fit in your shower within a Beatles song, then you're doing okay.

Quinn: Yeah.

Minal Pathak: That’s just a fun fact. But I went to Surrey once for an IPCC meeting. This very fancy resort had all these bathtubs. And at the end of the meeting, some people said, oh, I'm gonna go into a bath. And I just felt don't you feel guilty about, you know, all the water in a bathtub?

Should bathtubs be banned? I'm sure this is all sounding really ridiculous and very controversial.

Quinn: No, one, it shouldn't be controversial. Everything should be on the table. And again, I understand why some people who don't understand water accessibility and affordability and all that wouldn't know. But if you do know at all the issues that we're already facing in so many places that would not be a crazy thought to you.

Minal Pathak: I mean even choosing your bath fixtures that conserve water. In your house to save water. I mean basically less water wastage is the first step.

Quinn: Sure.

Minal Pathak: I also think these are luxury consumptions of water. I think one interesting thing that's happening is all these golf courses coming up, obviously looking at the west [00:38:00] and where in this arid desert region would you put a golf course and which, you know, it's a benefit that very few people enjoy and I think that, yeah, you should just not have lawns and you should not have golf courses. And to me, lawns kill water access and availability. It became a quite controversial thing that I said at a friend's place. And I said like, why would you have a lawn just put a mini forest there? And they said, why would you not? And it's like, what would my little lawn do? But how much water and fertilizer do lawns need? So I would say that my immediate response would be that let's get rid of the bus stops and the lawns and all these water guzzling activities. But I think a lot of good things are also happening that cities are now requiring new buildings to put up rainwater harvesting systems. So we are at a city scale trying to conserve, but one thing that may be of interest to the listeners would be that the paved surfaces that when you put concrete in cities, it lets the water run off. And so you're [00:39:00] not doing well with the water you are receiving. Right? So one of the ways is to de-concretize cities. An interesting initiative that I saw was called Rainproof Amsterdam. They were this small organization that's encouraging citizens to sort of take the tires out of the garden. There's more soft surfaces that can contain water, but you also have now these porous tyres and bricks.

And so if you are building new houses you should definitely look at some of these new solutions. They're not necessarily tech, but they architecture planning solutions that work from an individual house scale to a society and a neighborhood scale. So yeah.

Quinn: I think that's great. It's again it feels like you have the same drug I do, which is you can kind of do this all day, right? It's like improvisation. Gimme a word. And I'll just go off on the tangent when I used to have a social life, my wife would say, you know, I'd be the fun one at the party because someone would mention something and be like, oh, well here's the, you know, you can do this.

Minal Pathak: Make you very popular. And I can imagine why you're saying that you used to have a social life, because then people who [00:40:00] speak their mind are often not necessarily popular in conventional social circles. But no, but climate kind of issue where you just can't. And I think it's just I don't know how to make people more guilty about climate.

I don't know guilt or shame or what kind of emotion can help people to act. Is it like you know, sometimes it's just a positive thing that I did, that I made this choice and I feel good about it. I took the bus instead of driving and today fewer well milligrams, grams of carbon dioxide, but also didn't contribute to air pollution. Yeah, but whatever works for individuals I think we should be able to.

Quinn: So I wanna again, come back to your heat action plan, versions of it, in 50 different cities, which means there's definitely some core elements that you and these other places have identified are transferable, right? I don't wanna say lowest common denominator but pieces that work in a variety of places. 'cause even if a city has the same population, the smallest [00:41:00] differentiation in geography or freshwater access or ocean access or whatever it might be, arable land, whatever can change things. But you're starting to really prove this out. So I wanna start with, we try to really encourage people to go to city council meetings and school board meetings and in the US we have these public utility commission meetings that only people who hate clean energy go to.

What is, or have you identified with housing or air quality or heat or whatever, is there a single argument that you have found is most transferable that can get a mayor or a transportation chief or a sustainability officer if they exist? That can get them feeling like they have agency on that, that can get them on board with this plan when you're going to a new city.

What do you find is like most influential? Is it the economics?

Minal Pathak: I think definitely, cost is an important factor.

If it's a huge investment, there is always hesitation on where this will come [00:42:00] from. But I think sometimes just making a strong case for its implementation is also works in the sense that if you can show that this does not require a lot of resources, not just financial but technical capacity. That we will be able to implement this.

You know, cool roofs for example. One of the elements of the heat action plan is cool roofs. Just paint the roofs white. And you know, it just reduces the temperature indoors and people need less air conditioning, better thermal comfort, et cetera. And cool roofs is such a low cost. You just need to build awareness among people who are building that housing. The informal settlements. So I think cost is one important factor. What else? I think co- benefits work sometimes for transport interventions. They do like to hear about reductions in air pollution because air pollution is a big issue and it just resurfaces around October when, you know, pollution peaks in India when it's winter. And so if you can show that this will potentially reduce so much air quality, air pollution emissions, then that also makes a good case.

Quinn: [00:43:00] Okay. I love that. I mean, again, you want to go to these as idealists, you want places, right? And argue this will be better for the world. It's that it's, we know that's not gonna get it done. You know, you really have to apply it in really the most pragmatic, practical way. So, again, so now I am a mayor or a transportation chief, or a council member, whatever.

What are, again, for a city like I have here or where yours are, you know, let's say under a half a million people. What are three moves that I could take as someone like a board of supervisors, whatever it might be, to start to really seed a GISE style climate project? What are sort of the first three things that feel like should come to start getting one of these incorporated into our city?

Minal Pathak: First of all, define a goal.

So your goal is maybe, let's say low emissions transport system or mobility, I don't even want to call it [00:44:00] transport. You want a low emissions mobility.

Quinn: Okay. Yep.

Minal Pathak: Because people wanna move. They don't care about all these other things that we are talking about. For most people, mobility is about going from one place to another, dropping children at school or going to work or whatever. So you want to make sure everyone has mobility that's affordable. So if that's your goal, okay, so you want to achieve this goal, but not at very high emissions. So you don't want everybody driving around in cars. So you wanna have mobility that's clean.

That's your next step. So you've now defined your goal. Now you go find all your stakeholders. What do they see the plan look like right? So not just like mayors and city officials and transport team, but get like somebody from community organizations. Get citizens, make it open, right? Get university. I mean, one of the problems we are having is not enough interaction with academia. So the academic research is going in its own direction and policy actions are going in another, not necessarily always the case, but more often than not, I would say, at least in my context. So you've [00:45:00] got all these stakeholders on board, now you start outlining the plan. For a half a million city, I would not put in a fancy metro because it would just be too expensive.

Quinn: Sure.

Minal Pathak: Okay. So define what your options are and for each of these options, work out what might be the best option that gives people the last mile connectivity. Because what happens often in public transport system is that from your home to the bus stop, sometimes if the distance is larger, people will just not take it.

No matter if you have the best buses, people won't take it. So what's the option that gives you the highest mobility? What does it cost and where will you get the funding from?

But I would also support a public transit network. I wouldn't call it transit, maybe bus systems, for half a million I think you can still keep the city compact with a good, maybe electric bus service, maybe even mini buses, but also support it with bicycling and walking. And the last piece, which a lot of cities have not done, is to get people out of cars. So that's where we haven't been able to do much, right. I've been to like a [00:46:00] city called Alburg in Denmark, small city. And you have like really good buses. You can walk and cycle almost everywhere. And yet you see so many cars on the road and you wonder why are people driving? Because it's just cheap to drive, cheap to park, land is available.

Quinn: Yep.

Minal Pathak: So why are we not just hiking up parking charges, making them so steep that people just will get on the bus.

Quinn: Yep. And you know, we run into so many of those issues here where we have so purposefully and comprehensively built towns and cities and counties for cars over the past 60, 70 years that if we go, okay, like you said, Hey, we build a bunch of electric trolleys, right? Again, it doesn't have to be underground for a city under half a million people, much less smaller.

People will still go, okay, but it's still cheap to drive and to park. Great. You hike those prices up and people go, okay, but now it's too expensive for me to come downtown because yes, you have these [00:47:00] electric trolleys or whatever it might be, but they don't actually come anywhere near my house, right?

So you need more of them going further out to more places. But they also need to be reliable, right? They need to be frequent. The schedule needs to be predictable. And I can see how to someone with very limited funding in a city, you know, that's based on income taxes or property taxes, whatever their budget is, and they're trying to do all the other stuff too, right?

Run their city. I understand how that feels overwhelming. And you go I'm sorry we can't do it. But when you really get into the co-benefits of all that, healthier people, cleaner air, fewer cars on the road, people being hit by cars, like all these different things, more people will move here because it's just an easier place to live.

You really start to see where the wind is. You really start to see the economics out of it, right? But you need people, again, you need plans, which is why I love action plans that continue to prove themselves at least the core elements of it. Because once they [00:48:00] do in so many places, in a larger variety of places, it becomes really hard for someone in a particular city to go that wouldn't work here.

And you go, oh, but it does, we've already shown that you know, you are not special.

Minal Pathak: One of the things we are looking at in the forthcoming IPCC report, which will come out in 2027 is looking at solutions by type of cities and regions. So it's not like just, oh, this is a large city only they did it, but no, it's happened in large, medium and small cities across states, across economic levels. So it's a really strong, electric vehicles and so many of these, you know, made it like, people are saying, BRT has worked in a lot of cities, Metro is working. So there is less hesitation in implementing some of these.

I would say the more we do, the more we can and then the more we will.

Quinn: Yeah, a hundred percent. It becomes exciting. And again you get to go to places. You know, it's like telling people if you are able to walk more, look, it just works. In a thousand different ways. It applies to every part of your life. You sleep, [00:49:00] you talk about co-benefits. You eat healthier, you sleep better, your heart works better, like all these different things.

And I understand it's hard to get outta your chair if you're able to. But every time you do, it adds up and it works for everybody. Cities will meet this, it's hard to say 1.5 degree challenge at this point, but let's be ambitious. Cities will meet this challenge if most of them do what? What is really, I don't wanna say one thing, but if we're really talking at scale and we know realistically there's only so much funding and so much ambition and so much agency among stakeholders and interested parties, like how do we feel like most cities are gonna be really working towards this? If they're doing what? What's really gonna make a difference?

Minal Pathak: I would say integrated strategies. So combined solutions. Not in silos, that deliver multiple objectives. So whether it's economic roads, so green jobs, clean air, [00:50:00] good health, so integrated in terms of sectors, integrated in terms of achieving multiple objectives and I would say the last piece of this is compact urban form. That's supported by walking, public transi,t and clean energy. Yeah the compact urban form to me is really a strong part. I mean it would save land but also make cities more sustainable. So compact urban farm, sustainable production and consumption, and clean energy. That would be my top three.

Quinn: I again, we have all of the information, you know, we really do.

Minal Pathak: There’s no excuse not to act.

Quinn: There, there really isn't, this is not a conversation about how do we decarbonize heavy steel and stuff like that. Which by the way, we're making progress on this is the stuff we really know how to do.

They're gonna affect the most people, the most ecosystems, the most air, the most water. And especially when like you said, co-benefits, man, doing 'em in an integrated, purposeful way, it just cascades down the chain. Right? And there's things that improve you wouldn't even think that would improve.

And you look back and you go like, how did we [00:51:00] live like this? What? This was such an inefficient way to do it.

Minal Pathak: I think that a climate conversation can be pessimistic. There's just so much you can do. Aren't you charged enough? Aren't people who are listening to this charged enough to go and say, let me think about all the things that I could do, but I haven't done, and let me just start now.

Quinn: It really is a better way of ,forget that climate change is even happening, that global heating is even happening. These fundamental pieces are a overall better, happier, healthier way to live. And I mean, you know, in the US it's whatever the number is, so many people are sick with so many different things that they don't have to be with.

And it costs so much and it's so hard and it makes end of life so difficult. We don't have to do that. There are choices and so much of 'em are corporate incentives and things like this, but we can actually do a better way. And wouldn't that feel good?

Minal Pathak: I mean the argument we always use that it's really not about climate. I mean, and now come back to Indian [00:52:00] cities, that you build better buildings, not for climate. You build better buildings because you are building these for the next hundred years.

Quinn: Yeah.

Minal Pathak: And you don’t want people to face this extreme heat, you make better cities so that people live a better quality of life.

There's less air pollution and people can walk to where they want to get to. You can serve it better with public transport, so you make sustainable cities, not because of climate, but because it's good development and often good development is a good climate solution.

Quinn: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Fixed it. Done. We're done. This has been so wonderful. You're a hero. Where can our listeners follow your work? Website, online, whatever.

Minal Pathak: Yes, I’m on the Ahmedabad University website. I'm on LinkedIn. And it's not just about my work. Follow the science and there's enough good stuff happening. So let's not behave like ostriches. Let's understand that we live in a planet and that's in urgent need of care, let's do our bit.[00:53:00]

Quinn: I love it. I love how much you've put your work into use to say, well, let's go do the thing. Let's go try it out. Let's make sure it works. Let's adapt it, let's iterate, let's make it work in more places. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And yeah we'll talk more soon.