The Story of India

India is the most populous nation on Earth, with the fastest growing major economy and a landscape shaped by both traditional respect for nature and rapid urbanisation. The way that India responds to the climate crisis will influence and inspire the rest of the world.

• India is one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, home to around 8% of recorded species.
• Per capita energy consumption is just one third of the global average. However, given the large population, this makes India the third largest national greenhouse gas emitter.
• Historically, India has contributed just 4.8% of the greenhouse gas emissions which have caused the global temperature increase from 1850-2019 (compared to countries like the US at 17%).
• India is the world’s third largest producer of renewable energy, and has huge growth potential.
• So far, India’s renewable energy efforts have played a vital role in reducing the country’s carbon emissions by 33% in 14 years.

How climate change is shaping India

• Rising temperatures are causing heatwaves, which are increasing in intensity and frequency. Paired with consequences such as melting glaciers, reduced crop productivity and wildfires, rising temperatures continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of people across the country.
• Droughts, increasing monsoon unpredictability and water pollution are resulting in water scarcity.
• Air pollution is a major issue, particularly in cities – more than 60 of the world’s most polluted cities are in India.
• Forest loss is causing increased vulnerability to extreme weather events – 19% of tree cover in India has been lost in the last 20 years. Yet at the same time India has a huge number of community led nature restoration and tree-planting schemes.
• Biodiversity loss in the country is also increasing. Within the four most biodiverse parts of India (the Himalayas, Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, and Sundaland) 90% of the area has been lost, and at least 25 of the species in these hotspots have gone extinct.
• Sea level rise in the coming years will make big cities such as Kolkata and Mumbai more vulnerable to cyclones and flooding.

Planet India campaign

Planet India is a first-of-its-kind visual storytelling campaign celebrating India’s grassroots solutions to the climate and nature crisis. The campaign set out to capitalise on India’s historic G20 Presidency to share stories of optimism and innovation from the country’s climate innovators. Each story created follows the principle of jugaad, a Hindi word for thinking outside the box to find low-cost solutions to high impact problems.

The campaign was created in collaboration with world-leading filmmakers for impact, Studio Silverback, and one of India’s largest storytelling and creator economy platforms, PlucTV, together with local filmmakers and experts. The campaign blended online and offline storytelling to reach over 400 million people in its first two weeks, with content showcased at high-profile events and on India’s leading streaming platform, JioCinema.

The cinematic, inspiring footage captured for the campaign was made freely available on Open Planet, creating the most extensive open library of Indian climate and nature footage in history and a substantial legacy for the campaign.