New Delhi, Apr 18, 2025: Climate Asia will host its 4th Annual Conference, focusing on elevating local leadership in climate conversations on April 22 in New Delhi. Titled Mitti Ki Baatein (Stories from the Ground), this year’s gathering aims to spotlight community-driven adaptation efforts, with a strong focus on grassroots civil society organisations (CSOs) and individuals on the frontlines of climate change.
This year’s theme responds to a pressing gap in global climate discourse: the underrepresentation of communities that live with the consequences of climate change every day. Mitti Ki Baatein seeks to bridge this disconnect by creating a platform for local voices — especially those of women, Indigenous leaders, and grassroots workers — to engage directly with funders, nonprofits, and policy influencers. The conference aligns with the priorities of COP30 and India’s own National Adaptation Plan, which underscore the importance of locally led solutions in building community resilience.
The event will feature a diverse agenda designed to elevate stories of lived experience and community-led innovation. Key sessions include Stories from the Ground, Roots of Resilience, a fireside chat titled Mitti Se Niti Tak, a Gallery Walk featuring visual narratives of impact, and a panel on Unequal Impacts, Unequal Risks focusing on gendered dimensions of the climate crisis. The day will culminate in an Action Lab session to co-create actionable, soil-up solutions.
Speakers at the conference include Padmini Chandragiri, a Community Catalyst from Ganjam, Odisha; Bitiya Murmu, Secretary of Lahanti; Gunjan Jain, Assistant Director of Climate Trends (also moderator); Megha Jain, Senior Adviser to the private Sector at Gates Foundation; and Sudipto Dey, Editor of sustainability at Outlook Business, among others, who will also moderate a key session. Their voices reflect the breadth and depth of climate adaptation efforts currently unfolding across India.
"Mitti ki Baatein is an invitation to re-centre development discourse around the margins we often ignore, our soil, our smallholders, and our indigenous knowledge systems. In the midst of climate disruption and institutional fatigue, it urges us to listen to the lived wisdom of those closest to the land. The future of sustainability will not be engineered top-down; it will be cultivated from the ground up,” says Satyam Vyas, founder, Climate Asia.
Adding to this, Pallavi Khare, Chief of Staff, Climate Asia, says, "Climate change is no longer a prediction; it has arrived at our doorsteps, and we are living in it. 2024 was recorded as the warmest year on record globally, where the average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level. We have long known the scale and gravity of climate change and its growing impacts. However, we have not focused enough on elevating the voices from the ground who are impacted the most. Mitti ki baatein is an effort to highlight the grassroots leaders who stand on the frontlines of the climate crisis. With the call for a “global mutirão”, a collective effort against climate change, COP30 is expected to prioritize the lessons from local communities on the frontlines of climate resilience. It is time we trust the grassroots leaders to guide us and the local communities towards a more resilient future."
Held annually since 2022, Climate Asia’s conferences have become a crucial space for advancing Asia’s climate resilience agenda. The inaugural event in 2022 established critical pillars for ecosystem development, including green jobs pipelines, grassroots innovation, and climate financing. In 2023, the dialogue evolved to tackle intersectional challenges, like gender-sensitive resilience and climate-health linkages, while pushing forward philanthropic strategy.
The 2024 edition in Bengaluru marked a turning point. Over 400 sector leaders convened to operationalise solutions, with a spotlight on feminist climate leadership, mental health inclusion for marginalised groups, and regenerative agriculture through technology.
x
