The Hindu Business Line : A cloudy alternative

DARK CLOUDS APPEAR to be stealing over the Kyoto Protocol with the signing last week in Laos of the `Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate' among four Asian countries — India, China, Japan and South Korea — and the United States and Australia. For, the US and Australia are the only developed countries yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and had been quietly working on the alternative the last one year. So the latest "pact" must be seen with some suspicion though New Delhi thinks it is consistent with the Kyoto Protocol. It is imperative that India — and China — realises that Kyoto Protocol is the key and must not be beguiled into any new arrangement that takes away from the objective of reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

Despite efforts by the United Kingdom — which was caught unawares by the US/Australia deal — to get the US to fall in with the European commitment to reduce GHGs, Washington refused to play ball on the plea that developing countries such as India and China contributed as much to GHG emissions. Indeed, some developing countries, such as China and India, have total emissions higher than, say, Australia's, but their populations are also far higher. Considered per capita, the picture is dramatically different. One Australian generates the same amount of greenhouse gas as 20 people in India and 10 in China. Australia emits even more carbon-dioxide per person than the US, which with just 4 per cent of world population emits a fourth of the world's carbon-dioxide. The US wants targeted GHG reduction imposed on developing countries in contrast with the Delhi view of differentiated obligations for developed and developing nations in proportion to their GHG/carbon-dioxide emissions.

The US/Australia approach is to bring technology to the rescue of climate. Claiming that the Kyoto Protocol emission targets will barely slow the warming trend, they want to strike regional and bilateral agreements to pursue research on global climate change, and energy and sequestration technologies. They also hope to open Asian markets for their companies selling clean technologies. The rise in the level of GHG emission is due mainly to the ever-increasing demand for energy for transport and electricity. The US/Australia position would make sense if a low-carbon-emission power source can be developed that is also cost effective enough for use by the developing nations without fear of polluting the atmosphere. Perhaps, only nuclear technology offers such a cost effective solution but its use raises many a question on safety. Vis-à-vis transport fuel, no breakthrough has happened though many technologies are on trial.

There can be no going back on the Kyoto Protocol, and the first step would be to get the US and Australia to sign on the dotted line. Then, a holistic approach must be taken that looks as much to developing emission-free technologies as to reducing emissions. Recent events across the world — the early onset of the hurricane season in the US, the heat wave in Europe or the monsoon fury in Central India — are all nature's warnings. Semantics or politics that delays action can prove disastrous.

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