The Global South suffers most of the time because of climate change induced by industrial development in developed countries of the Global North, said climate journalist Aesha Datta.
A Fulbright scholar who has studied at the Columbia Climate School and worked in Economic Times Prime and The Hindu Business Line, Datta delivered two lectures for ACJ-Bloomberg students. The first was on climate data, its importance, and the challenges journalists face while collecting such data for their reports. The second was on climate finance and the role of carbon credits.
Datta said that climate finance has emerged as a business of its own as corporations and governments evade environmental responsibility by selling and buying carbon credits. The concept of carbon credits, she said, has become the new buzzword. Instead of being effective at controlling pollution, carbon credits have become a type of permit that allows the owner of the credit to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases.
Datta also discussed ways to go about reporting the impact of climate change and climate policy ahead of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) Environmental Summit, held by the United Nations in Baku, Azerbaijan.