The Centre for Social and Economic Progress is delighted to invite you to a Flagship Seminar titled “Global and Local Policies for Respecting Planetary Boundaries: Tradeoffs and Synergies” on Tuesday, 6 August 2024, from 4 pm to 5.30 pm. Thomas Hertel, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University will make a presentation. The presentation will be followed by comments from the two panelists, Vibha Dhawan, Director General, TERI and Anshu Bharadwaj, Programme Director (Energy, Climate and Green Transition), NITI Aayog. Rajesh Chadha, Senior Fellow CSEP, will moderate the seminar.

The seminar will be live streamed on Zoom as well as CSEP’s YouTube channel.

In a series of highly cited papers over the period 2009 – 2023, earth system scientists have identified a set of nine planetary boundaries that must not be breached if we wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for nature and humanity. These range from well-mixed, global boundaries such as climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions to localised limits on freshwater availability and reactive nitrogen entering the environment. Recent estimates by Richardson et al. (2023) suggest that four of the nine planetary boundaries have already been breached. The food system is a key driver of all four exceedances and, therefore, must play a key role in any solutions. However, the establishment of these boundaries and the analysis of potential solutions have often been devoid of economic considerations. Furthermore, little attention has been given to the economic policies that might allow society to address these critical planetary boundaries, as well as likely synergies and tradeoffs across policies targeted to individual targets. This lecture will bring economic analysis to bear on this question, providing quantitative assessments of global and local policies aimed at respecting these planetary boundaries.

Thomas Hertel is a Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. Prof Hertel’s research and teaching focuses on international trade, food and environmental security. He is a 2022 recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize. He is a Fellow and Former President of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science as well as the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, and an Honorary Life Member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. Professor Hertel is the inaugural recipient of the Purdue University Research and Scholarship Distinction Award. His professional association awards include Publication of Enduring Quality, Distinguished Policy Contribution, Outstanding Journal Article and Quality of Communication. In 2023, he received the Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission Award. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), which now encompasses more than 29,000 researchers in 179 countries.

Vibha Dhawan is a Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences, India, and serves as an Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University. She has authored six books and over 50 publications, significantly contributing to scientific research. Dr Dhawan’s leadership in research and policy development is recognised nationally and internationally. She is a task force member of various national committees and the Networks Strategy Council that advises the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Previously, she co-chaired the T20 Task Force on Clean Energy and Green Transitions. She led the establishment of the National Centre of Excellence in Green Port & Shipping and the DBT-TERI Centre on Advanced Biofuels. Dr Dhawan has held key roles with the Asia Pacific Consortium on Agriculture Biotechnology, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia. She has served on boards of prestigious organisations and developed significant biotechnological advancements, with recent research focusing on biofuels.

Anshu Bharadwaj is the Programme Director (Energy, Climate and Green Transition) at NITI Aayog. He is a former member of the Indian Administrative Services (1992 batch, Karnataka) and worked with the Government of Karnataka. He resigned from the IAS in 2007 to help establish the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a think tank based in Bangalore and functioned as its Executive Director. He also functioned as Chief Executive Officer of Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, a philanthropic organisation working in climate and clean energy. He holds a PhD from the Departments of Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh). His undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are from IIT Kanpur (Mechanical Engineering) and IIM Calcutta, respectively.