More than 80,000 start-ups; but, only 2% focus on climate smart solutions

Bengaluru: As a part of India's Youth 20 initiative, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, in collaboration with the Indus Entrepreneurship Bangalore and Research and Information System for developing countries (RIS), organised a brainstorming session on 'Climate change and disaster risk reduction' at Christ University.

The session was attended by more than 70 young thinkers, entrepreneurs, professionals and scholars. Dr. Pankaj Vashisht, Associate professor, RIS also attended the event. In his opening remarks he talked about the importance of India's G20 presidency and briefed the participants about the Youth 20 engagement group and purpose of the brainstorming exercise. He exuded confidence that brainstorming session will bring out policy recommendations to mitigate the challenge of climate change.

Dr.Vashsiht's opening remarks were followed by a panel discussion involving young achievers and eminent industry leaders. Ganesh Shankar, Founder FluxGen moderated the session. Participating in discussion, Narayan Subramaniam, Chief Technology Officer, AI for Sustainability and Carbon Emission Reduction, pointed out that global temperature is set increase by more than 2 degree and therefore, adaptation is important to mitigate the risk associated with it. He pointed out that technology can help but in the absence of financing, investment in climate smart tech solution has remained inadequate.

Vouching the same sentiments, Lakshmi Santhanam, Founder, Renkube pointed out that India has more than 80,000 start-ups but only 2 percent of them focus on climate smart solutions. Narayanan and Lakshmi lamented that venture capitalists are not keen to finance climate tech startup due to long gestation period and urged that the government should nudge the venture capital funds to invest in start-ups focusing on climate mart solutions. Participating in the discussion, Abhishek Ranjan, Director Brillio, pointed out that change of mindset is pertinent for addressing the climate change related issues. Dr.Indu Murthy, Sector Head for Climate Environment and sustainability, argued that the impact of climate change is not gender neutral as women are going to be more adversely affected and therefore a woman centric approach is required. Shizia Usman, CEO and Founder Upciclo, pointed out that promoting circular economy is key to mitigate risk associated with climate change.