What should be India’s stand at Bali climate meet? Debate
The negotiations for the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol kick off early next month at Bali where developing countries are sure to come under pressure to reduce emissions. Three experts discuss the position India should adopt.
I SS U ES
Should India accept some voluntary restraints on emissions?
Is there a case for some international effort to reward clean technologies and free them from
patents?
Does India have the capacity to monitor, audit and control emissions?
AMIT MITRA
Secretary General FICCI
THE picturesque island of Bali will be flooded with 10,000 visitors from 189 countries to debate the commitment of nations on reducing green house gas emissions, particularly CO2, after 2012. The United States has now agreed to join the Bali Conclave, though it refused to accept the earlier commitments under the Kyoto protocol. The vital question that hangs like a Damocles’ sword over India’s head is whether India will be forced to accept legally binding emission targets by developed countries of the west. Such targets would be at the cost of growth of India’s GDP and at the cost of employment. There is no free lunch in reducing carbon emission and mitigating pollution.
No wonder the United States introduced air and water pollution control laws after a 100 years of rapid industrialisation. The effective amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act came as late as 1972 and Clean Air Act was given teeth in 1970. The per capita income of the US had already reached $5,000 by then.
A glaring case of this trade-off between reducing pollution and extinguishing livelihoods of people comes from the action taken to preserve the Taj, resulting in the closure of metal foundries, glass factories and brick kilns in Agra. Each small unit was asked to shift from coal to natural gas, which meant an expenditure of Rs 30 lakh to 40 lakh per unit. Obviously, the small units closed and 100,000 workers lost their jobs.
The visible saving of the Taj stood in contrast to the invisible turmoil in the lives of half a million poor who were put at risk. Therefore, the Bali conference must not be allowed to fuel similar costs at much larger scales across developing nations. Inevitable pressures of the climate change ‘alarmists’ must be held at bay.
Here, we must remember that India’s per capita emissions of green house gases (GHG) is only 1.2 tonnes of CO2, as against the USA’s 20 tonnes. We emit 1/20th of the US, 1/12th of Japan and 1/15th of EU-15. With a population of 17% of the world, our emission does not exceed even 4%.
At this juncture of our history, our economy must grow at a fast pace to address the critical issues of health, education, poverty and unemployment, as indeed the developed nations did in their time. The Bali conference must take into account the differences among nations in output growth, emissions growth, industrial structure, financing capabilities and public policy
Objectives.
If we are to control pollution on a war footing, we desperately need the transfer of clean technologies from the west. A Technology Fund must be announced in the Bali Declaration. Also, a strategy for deepening and stabilising the now volatile marketbased ‘clean development mechanism’ (carbon trading market) must be announced as well. The developed nations, who pollute 10 to 20 times more, must put their money where their mouth is. They must recognise that to get to a low carbon development path, India and other developing economies would have to invest close to $30 billion per year over the next twenty years. Where will this resource come from? The Bali meet must provide an answer.
In addition, the Adaptation Fund (needed after cyclones and tsunamis) must be operationalised in Bali. Can we also get Mr Al Gore to persuade western MNCs to relax intellectual property rights on clean technologies to make them accessible to us? Recall Bill Clinton’s efforts on medicines for AIDS for Africa.
It is important that India and other developing economies push for a climate change regime that has convergence of green house gas emission on equal per capita basis world-wide. Our prime minister has spoken fervently on these lines and any deviation from this principle would defy equity and should therefore be rejected.
G ANANTHAPADMANABHAN
Executive Director Greenpeace India
THE threat of global warming and related climate change are now widely accepted as not being an exaggeration but a hugely inconvenient truth. The acceptance of this phenomenon has moved from scientific debate to recognition in governments and civil society that this is turning into the most critical threat to humanity. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has stated in no uncertain terms that global emissions must start declining by 2015 and be reduced by at least 50% by 2050 (from 1990 levels) to prevent the world’s temperature from
rising more than two degrees Celsius over pre-industrialised temperatures. This is the ominous ‘climate’ in which representatives of governments meet at Bali to take decisions on their commitments for the second phase of the Kyoto protocol.
India has so far stuck to its hardline position that it will not make any commitments to reduce its GHG emissions since it has one the lowest per capita emissions, and it is the developed world that created the problem in the first place and the developing world needs the carbon space to grow. While this is a historic fact, it must also be kept in mind that India is the sixth largest carbon emitter in the world today and is slated to take the third position behind only the United States and China if we continue with our proposed plans for a massive number of new coal power plants to power our future growth.
Greenpeace recently released a survey based report named “Hiding behind the poor” which revealed that the highest income group in India, constituting merely 1% of the population, emits 4.5 times as much CO2 as the lowest income group consisting 38% of the population.
This report highlighted the fact that India’s low average per capita emissions is due to the over 800 million poor population whose emissions are negligible and the difference in emissions between the highest and the lowest income groups in India is almost as glaring as the difference in the average per capita emissions between the EU and India. Over 150 million Indians are emitting above the sustainable limit which needs to be maintained to restrict global temperature rise below 2 degree centigrade.
While it is India’s, and the developing countries’ unassailable right to demand that the first world reduce CO2 emissions and provide developing nations the carbon space to grow, the Indian government must not hide India’s emissions behind the vast poor population. The principle of climate justice must be included in the national development plans. The emissions of the higher income groups in India need to be regulated so that the poor and the underprivileged are not only protected from future destruction due to climate change but also obtain the carbon space to develop. This must be brought through mandatory legislation within the country.
At Bali, India must take the initiative to force the developed world to seriously commit to deep cuts in their emissions (30% reduction by 2020 and 80% reduction by 2050 to 1990 levels of emissions). It is, in fact, in India’s interests to actively push for a deal that would force the first world to create mechanisms that ensure the transfer of appropriate technologies and resources to facilitate a shift to clean technologies. On our part, we must certainly be proactive in declaring our willingness to meet voluntary targets if these mechanisms were to be put in place. India has an opportunity at Bali to show leadership by expressing its intent to adopt a low carbon-intense energy path to the world while not compromising on development goals. It must seize this opportunity.
VIVEK KUMAR
Associate Fellow TERI THE thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is taking place at Bali, Indonesia from December 3–14, 2007. COP is the meeting of the countries which are signatory to the UNFCCC. The expectations from Bali COP have risen as a result of the release of the Fourth Assessment Report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change this year, which reported that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 2005 exceeded by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
The most important issue appearing in the international climate negotiations at the moment is ‘climate regime, post 2012’; this has its origin in Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol which states that the CMP (COP serving as the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol) shall initiate consideration of commitments for the subsequent period (the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol spans from 2008-2012) for developed country parties at least seven year before the end of the first commitment period.
According to the Article 3.9, the discussion should focus upon the emission reduction commitments by developed countries, yet they are trying to pull in developing countries also, especially the larger ones like China and India in the commitment regime. Such calls are emanating on the ground of increasing GHG emissions from these countries in the recent past, which is expected to grow further in future. Historical contribution of these countries has been minimal in the GHG build up in the earth’s atmosphere and the climate change is mainly a result of large amount of GHG emissions by developed countries. Since the negotiations at Kyoto, the situation has changed quite a lot and economies in several developing countries are on the rise and that is going to result in higher GHG emissions.
India presently stands at a juncture where the economy is growing on the one hand, while on the other the country has to address several persistent challenges — poverty eradication, providing basic amenities of life to its citizens, etc. The country has thus to maintain a balance between its developmental goals and environmental challenges. A close scrutiny of various sectors of the Indian economy tells us that upgrades of energy infrastructure, new energy infrastructure investments and policies that promote energy security present opportunities for
GHG emission reduction. Some of these may be win-win options and could be attempted with the resources available in-house, while for others financial and technological resources may be required. The opportunities presented by multilateral environmental agreements should be explored for pursuing the additional activities.
Climate change is gaining ground in India and policy makers have started taking note of it in their operations. Activities such as energy conservation and energy efficiency improvement are being promoted through various policies and programmes. There is a need for catalysing such activities further. Action is required on the part of developing countries for keeping their emissions under control while pursuing the path of economic development. Initially these actions should mostly be driven by internal policies and regulations. Supplemental actions with support from multilateral environmental agreements are welcome in giving a boost to climate change actions in India.
Proactive participation of India in the international climate regime sends a strong signal to the international climate community. This may also motivate some developed countries, which are hesitating at the moment to make emission reduction commitments. If it so happens, it will be a significant move towards addressing climate change challenge. The developed countries should also honour the UNFCCC call for a leadership role by them in addressing climate change by taking deeper emission reduction targets.
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