A lot of talk regarding the USAID funding pause as good people, projects and communities will face a hit. Having worked on an USAID project for a year, the people who work on these projects are on a regional scale and some of the cutting edge action research is performed.

As we reflect on alternatives to the grant based approach, this is a revealing nugget on the western imperatives of aid from Amitav Ghosh’s stunning work, Wild Fictions.

The architecture of climate action is biased towards the global, while impact of climate change is rooted in the local context. The way the architecture is configured, determines whether the local deserves to be on the priority of climate action.

Carbon offsets are useful as commodification is a precursor to modular architecture, which are traded as stocks in a bourse. Low friction is imperative for scale. Carbon markets work well at high volumes, thus national and regional scale architectures will thrive. Carbon offset projects such as NbS which have scale will attract large capital investments rather than a cook stove project.

For local impact, we need a different offset type, which social impact bonds need to meet carbon offsets. There is scope for financial inclusion there.

As a Southeast Asianist, it gives me great joy and hope to see Bapak Prabowo at Bahari Sons, the iconic bookstore in Khan Market in Delhi, which is the best of the best. The Indonesian President is visiting India.

Great fare at Foo at Jio World Drive in Mumbai with a special CNY Menu.

The desert was out of Master Chef!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The era of defragmentation of the responsible/sustainable/impact/category is here. Solar and Wind are back to being energy access rather than ‘climate’, as net zero was part fiction pedaled as climate aspiration. Nuclear and coal provide the base load power for AI and Data centers, and with increasing energy demand, we will see more of these including American Oil enter the market.

As we return to oil exploration and coal-based power again, there needs to be better ways to ensure the communities have equity in the new (or old?) era of energy. And the sustainability that we have come to recognize since the Paris Accord requires a broader understanding of the issues of the global majority.

Notes from the speech – ‘Drill Baby Drill’ is the message from President Trump’s opening address after inauguration.

Big Oil is back, and the Inflation Reduction Act is dead, and the EV mandate is killed. This is the tectonic shift in climate policy from today. A lot of thinking needed to pivot the climate geographies in the Trump Era.

For the sustainability folks, DEI is dead. EVs also get a jolt as ICEV manufacturing makes a comeback in the United States for jobs. Migration is big on the agenda, as Mexico and Panama were at the receiving end of some harsh words.

The Gulf states have the most to cheer, and petroleum jobs will be back on the market again. Decarbonisation is headed for a screeching halt.

US as a superpower is clear with ambitions for Mars. The 27 minutes were clean, a statement of strength and signals a return to great power politics. These are times of a great pivot especially for sustainability professionals who only thought in frameworks. The real ESG, now officially dead where the G was geopolitics. Raw, brute power has no parallels.

The carbon frameworks’ data mapping impulse is reminiscent of the colonial origins of knowledge extraction. ESG and sustainability data at the organizational scale are blood tests equivalent to the organization’s human health. The stress on climate action is on building a baseline rather than immediate attention on the frontlines of extreme events such as the Kelantan Flooding. The key facet of the post-Paris Climate Action dispensation has been the decoupling of local and regional public health imperatives with climate measures. It has curiously been about risk in the financial sense, and how it impacts corporate value creation. The community element needs to be reinfused and brought back to the conversation. There is an inherent Eurocentric politics that is embedded in the way frameworks are written. The climate frameworks are cleverly wrapped up as politically neutral. Which they are not.

Penang Kopio in a Tiong Bahru Bakery Mug, in my apartment in Mumbai. Thinking Straits Settlements imaginaries in an Arab Bombay.

At Balwas Restaurant in Marine Lines

Serendipitously met a bunch of Omanis in a south Bombay restaurant. The lovely gentleman spoke Arabic and served me Gahwa. Such an honor.

A young man studied in the same university my father taught. The conversation taught me about how intertwined Bombay and Muscat are.

A good way to mark the 5th Ascension Day of HM The Sultan.