Ahead of the “India 2047” climate conference in New Delhi, nearly two dozen Harvard faculty, affiliates, and climate philanthropists visited Ahmedabad for a two-day immersion into the realities of extreme heat. The visit included exploring ancient stepwells for architectural insights, meeting informal workers impacted by heat with support from the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, and learning about the city’s pioneering 2013 Heat Action Plan at CEPT University. The second day focused on women in the informal economy, with visits organized by SEWA and insights from Harvard’s Community HATS study, which tracks how heat affects working women across environments. The trip emphasized the human side of climate challenges in India, complementing later policy discussions in New Delhi.
Harvard faculty and affiliates visit the Dada Hari stepwell in Ahmedabad, India. Photo credit: David Trilling | The Salata Institute
The trip aimed to provide faculty with more on-the-ground insights on climate change in India before the intensive days of workshops and discussions in New Delhi. Prof. James Salzman, who was on the trip, wrote in a blog on Legal Planet that while the conference itself was fascinating, the two days before in Ahmedabad were “even more fascinating and personally meaningful.” He added, “Discussing climate change at a large workshop can provide important policy insights and opportunities for networking, but it necessarily lacks the human element. Discussions and presentations in a conference center cannot adequately capture what people are doing on the ground.”
The first day started with a sunrise visit to one of Ahmedabad’s famous stepwells to see what insights ancient architecture can provide about tackling modern climate challenges. The visit was led by photographer and author Claudio Cambon, who has spent nearly five years photographing stepwells across India, culminating in his second book: “To Reach the Source: The Stepwells of India.”
(l) Prof. Tarun Khanna, Mittal Institute Faculty Director, and Hitesh Hathi, Mittal Institute Executive Director and (r) Prof. Peter Huybers and Klara Kuemmerle, Ph.D student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at a visit to a stepwell in Ahmedabad, India.
