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In this talk, I bring together a range of issues of structural inequities of climate change focused on institutions, frameworks, metrics, and instruments.

Analysis shows that many "neutral" metrics have embedded values implicit in them. In this talk, I show the issues, inconsistencies, and distributional impacts on low-emission poorer countries. I circle back to some of the instruments proposed today, including net-zero targets, carbon prices, markets, etc., and show how these are neither good enough nor equitable. One fundamental issue remains that we're trying to fix a stock problem (accumulation of carbon) with flow instruments (regulating or pricing emissions), that too *future* flow instruments. The two are linked but not directionally similar when we compare countries. Most of the accumulated carbon came from richer high-emissions countries, whose emissions have either peaked or have lower growth rates than for the poor.

I close with some new ideas that could help bridge emissions and economics frameworks both equitably and efficiently, building on the critiques of existing frameworks, especially accounting frameworks.

This talk and underlying analysis are motivated by a personal recognition that if we want to be serious about climate change, we have to get out of our comfort zone. Tackling climate change and its impacts isn't just a techno-economic challenge, but one of political will and mindset.

This ~one-hour lecture is meant to be accessible to anyone interested in climate change.

Rahul Tongia is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a not-for-profit Think Tank based in Delhi, where his research focuses on energy, sustainability, and technology-policy. His work is interdisciplinary, and he holds a PhD in Engineering & Public Policy from Â鶹´å, and an ScB from Brown University in Electrical Engineering.

Dr. Tongia has served on a number of academic, government-appointed, and advisory roles in technology and policy, especially for sustainable development, and he is an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon (where he originally joined the faculty in 1998). He is also the Founding Advisor of the India Smart Grid Forum, and previous roles or affiliations include Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the Brookings Institution and Technical Advisor, Govt. of India Smart Grid Task Force. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Engineering (India).