The Hindu Business Line : Climate of confusion

Actions that improve our lot must not be predicated on that of others. If this is what Mr Jairam Ramesh had in mind, then he is right in saying there is no point in being rigid.

The Government is tying itself in knots over the approach that it should adopt at the Copenhagen conference on climate change in December. In a letter written to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Environment, Mr Jairam Ramesh has said that India needs to be flexible and that it would be a good idea to take the US along at Copenhagen. The Congress party growled at him, and the next day the Prime Minister felt obliged to tell Army Commanders that “…there are c oncerted attempts by the developed countries to impose new obligations on developing countries like India to limit emission of greenhouse gases. This could impact on our economic development”. Net result: confusion. Now no one knows what India should be looking for. Two explanations are possible for this: the unlikely one that the Government is extraordinarily clever and is deliberately pursuing a negotiating strategy of confounding everyone; and the more likely one that it doesn’t know what it wants and so does not know which way to go.

This is not entirely its fault. The issues in environment policy fall into two broad categories: local and global. Thanks, however, to the climate-change wallahs who have hijacked the agenda, local approaches have been forgotten. So the simple fact that, if you follow good local policies, much of the global problem will be taken care of is being ignored. For example, we don’t know the relative contributions of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions on the Himalayan glaciers. These examples can be multiplied. Thus, it makes sense for India to do what it should anyway do without grumbling about what someone else is doing or not doing. Actions that improve our lot must not be predicated on the actions of others. If this is what Mr Ramesh had in mind, then he is right when he says there is no point in being rigid. That still leaves the question of accepting legally binding emission caps. No one really knows whether, as the Prime Minister has alleged, these caps will reduce India’s rate of growth and if so by how much. In any case, the same effect would be there if the prices of fossil fuels, already rising sharply, shoot up even further, which they will if fuel efficient technologies are not adopted. Third, using clean and efficient technologies is desirable in itself, and need not always be linked to what others do or don’t do. Fourth, the incentives structure in the West has become such that cheap funding will be easy to come by.

Lastly, India seems to have been thrown off-balance by China’s vague promise at the Pittsburgh G-20 meeting about reducing emissions by ‘notable’ margins. This provides a good opportunity because India should be asking China to define ‘notable’ — and then promise it will do the same proportionally.

Related Stories:
ISRO, Environment Ministry tie up to study climate change issues
The Copenhagen conundrum

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