Global Warming, Indian Views: Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
Joydeep Gupta July 8th, 2009
NEW DELHI - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is “absolutely
right” when he says that “climate change as we know it today has been
caused mostly by industrialised countries”, says the UN climate chief.
“That is why industrialised countries must take the lead in combating
climate change,” UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer told IANS.
“We all now recognise that we’ll need a global response to deliver a
climate agreement that is ambitious and equitable,” de Boer told IANS
in a telephone interview, speaking from Bonn.
De Boer, a Dutch, called on heads of government gathering in Italy for
the G8-G5 summit this week to “show leadership” in combating climate
change.
He was responding to Manmohan Singh’s statement before departing for
Italy that “it is the developing countries that are the worst affected
by climate change.
“What we are witnessing today is the consequence of over two centuries
of industrial activity and high consumption lifestyles in the
developed world. They have to bear this historical responsibility.
India will actively participate in the international negotiations on
climate change within the framework of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the Bali Action Plan.”
De Boer said the G8-G5 summit was a “very important moment” in the
global fight against climate change “because these are countries that
can make the difference. Their leaders have to come forward. This is
the time.”
Climate change, caused largely by emissions of carbon dioxide due to
industrial activities, is affecting farm output, making droughts,
floods and storms more frequent and more severe, and raising the sea
level.
Industrialised countries except the US are committed under the Kyoto
Protocol to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent
from 1990 levels by 2012.
The post-2012 commitments are supposed to be finalised by the next
climate summit in Copenhagen this December.
Pointing out that this would be the last G8-G5 summit “before
Copenhagen”, de Boer said: “It is imperative that the leaders show
leadership. Their success will be recognised by the world; so will
their failure.”
The pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become controversial
because some industrialised countries have said they will not make
promises unless major emerging economies such as India and China do
so. Beijing and New Delhi disagree.
De Boer hoped the G8-G5 summit would send a “very clear message to
Copenhagen for a long-term goal that is ambitious” and that leaders of
industrialised countries would set “clear targets for 2020″ to reduce
emissions.
He also hoped that the summit would “deliver agreement on short-term
financing for adaptation to climate change in developing countries”.
Asked about the status of the draft text for Copenhagen being prepared
by the UNFCCC, he said: “We have placed an edited version of the
negotiating text on the web. We hope countries will remove some of the
redundancies when negotiators meet in Bonn early August.
“At this stage, it is absolutely clear that choices will have to be
made.” He was referring to the many competing proposals put forward by
different countries.
Another contentious area in climate talks is transfer of green
technologies to developing countries on easy monetary terms. India has
called an international meet here in October to discuss possible south-
south cooperation in green technologies.
Welcoming this, de Boer said: “South-south cooperation is the obvious
way out in many areas. India is the world leader in wind energy
generation technologies, China in solar. South-south cooperation may
make it possible to make certain technologies available more easily
and more cheaply.”
He expected the final Copenhagen agreement to contain a section on
technology transfer and “how that can be enhanced. The clean
development mechanism (of the UNFCCC) has already led to the transfer
of some green technologies to developing countries. The two go hand in
hand”.
India, according to the annual economic survey, spends over 2.6
percent of its GDP to adapt to climate change. De Boer said such a
large “figure explains why we need a global response to climate
change, why we can’t leave it only to industrialised countries”.
Asked if domestic politics would allow US President Barack Obama to
make strong commitments, de Boer said: “That depends on how it is
formulated. The current legislation on climate change in the US is
ambitious. What I am hoping for is a strong outcome from the (G8-G5)
meeting that will send a strong signal to Copenhagen.”
(Joydeep Gupta can be contacted at joyd...@ians.in)
...and I am Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
bademiyansubhanallah
Global warming could submerge three large Indian cities
Date: December 8 2003
Global warming could submerge three of India's biggest cities beneath
the sea by 2020 unless the crisis was brought under control, an
Indian
scientist warned yesterday.
"If the warming continues, there will be about half to one metre
increase in sea level by 2020 and cities like Bombay, Calcutta and
Madras will be completely submerged," said Rajiv Nigam, a scientist
with the Geological Oceanography Division in the western Indian state
of Goa.
He said a one-metre rise in sea level could cause five trillion
rupees
($A147.24 billion) worth of damage to property in Goa alone.
"If this is the quantum of damage in a small state like Goa that has
only two districts, imagine the extent of property loss in metros
like
Bombay," he added at a workshop in the National College in Dirudhy,
Tamil Nadu state.
He also predicted that global warming could cause frequent cyclones
along the coastal areas and affect the annual monsoon rain, which is
crucial for India's farm-dependent economy.
God is punishing India for taking jobs & food out of the mouth's of
people in the West. India also has a serious AIDS problem due to
unsanitary conditions, homosexuality and excessive sex.
...and I am Sid harth
bademiyansubhanallah
Submitted by PeakEngineer on Sat, 2007-02-03 20:11.
As the fervor over global warming continues to permeate the
discussions of politicians and the media alike, I’ve noticed a stock
set of anecdotal arguments from those who choose to remain unconvinced
of anthropogenic global warming. A lot of their arguments remind me of
the arguments of those who believe NASA faked the moon landings:
“Well, in their pictures you don’t see the stars, so it must have been
done in a studio.” Um, have you ever tried taking a picture of the
night sky? How many stars do you see? But I digress...
While RealClimate has a solid collection of responses to common
contrarian arguments, I have yet to see a concise, simple document
targeted at the average reader for debunking the global warming denier
crowd. NASA has hardly bothered to produce a response to moon landing
deniers, finding it impossible to do so with a straight face at the
preposterousness of the claims. Given the gravity of global warming,
we similarly must respond seriously to the denialists even if it pains
your face to keep from laughing in theirs.
This is my collection of rebuttals for the most prominent arguments
put forth by the folks who deny anthropogenic climate change.
1. Mars is undergoing global warming, therefore humans can not be
causing it on Earth.
No. Mars is not undergoing global warming. The Mars Global Surveyor
detected a decrease in the mass of the South Polar Cap between 1999
and 2005. First, this is a regional (not global) warming localized to
the south pole of mars. There is no similar data for any corresponding
temperature change at either the north pole or any other part of Mars.
Secondly, since a Martian year is 687 days, this represents only 3
data points, which does not equate to the long-term trend we see on
Earth. (Indeed, we see dramatic peaks and valleys in the yearly
temperature data on Earth.) Lastly, research has shown that Mars’
climate is far more volatile than our own, and is quite sensitive to
changes in dust storm activity and orbital variations. If most of the
planets and moons in the solar system were exhibiting warming trends,
that would be a valid point for argument.
2. Volcanoes release much more carbon dioxide than humans.
No. Volcanic activity is 0.02 to 0.05 Giga-tons/year. [Note: 1 Peta-
gram (PgC) = 1 Gigaton (Gt)] Humans produce 8 Gt/yr (and climbing).
Volcanoes elicit a far more dominating cooling effect due to
atmospheric dispersal of particulates and sulfur dioxide. In addition,
there has been no recent increase in volcanic activity – and the
volcanic activity we have seen has actually slowed global warming.
3. The Earth (and its carbon cycle) is too big for humans to affect
it.
While the Earth exchanges a great deal of carbon between the ocean,
atmosphere, soil, and biosphere, it is the net balance which is of
greatest concern to us. Without human influence, this regulatory
process produces a net carbon increase of 0.0 Gt/year. During
1850-2000, through a combination of fossil fuel burning, cement
manufacturing, and land-use changes, humans added a net 174 Gt of
carbon. This caused the majority of an increase from 288 ppm (parts
per million) to 369.5 ppm of CO2. As mentioned above, we currently add
8 Gt/year to the atmosphere.
4. The sea level has not changed.
Yes, it has. Since 1900, sea level has risen by about 35 cm (13.8
inches). This change in sea level is accelerating.
5. Scientists predicted imminent global cooling in the 1970s.
No, they did not. Some magazines reported it as such, but scientists
understood that their preliminary, localized, and uncertain
measurements could not be extrapolated to either the world or a long-
term trend. They did indicate that the potential for an ice age in the
next 20,000 years was possible, but they made no predictions. Climate
science has advanced tremendously in the intervening years, as has the
data, and the conclusions for our climate are far more certain.
6. Scientists get paid big bucks to skew their data to indicate global
warming.
No, they don’t. There is little commercial funding available for
research designed to support global warming. It is far more lucrative
to produce research denying global warming. With little exception,
funding for climate research is provided by governments, which do not
attach conditions to the results of the research (OK…maybe some
conditions).
Logically, of course, it doesn’t make sense that corporations or
governments would want to fund skewed studies that indicate their
entire way of living is threatening the planet. And with tens of
thousands of scientists producing research indicating human-induced
global warming, the task to compromise the ethics of so many esteemed
professionals would be, to say the least, challenging.
7. Variations in solar output cause global warming
While global warming could not occur without solar influx, the sun’s
output has been relatively stable for as long as we’ve studied it, and
has in fact been declining in recent years. Solar variability plays a
very small role, if any, in global warming.
8. All temperature data is suspect due to the urban heat island
effect.
That argument might be valid if all measurements were taken in the
heart of cities. But they aren’t. Thermometers in the middle of the
arctic, in barren deserts, in the middle of oceans, on top of
mountains, and deep in the wilderness all agree on a global
temperature rise. Unless you believe that the urban heat island effect
can affect satellites, this claim is clearly wrong.
9. Because it snowed a great deal and got very cold in some areas,
global warming is not happening.
First, increased precipitation is predicted by global warming.
Increased snowfall events are further evidence of global warming, not
proof against it. Second, regional temperature variations occur. It is
the global average temperature which is of greatest concern. And
third, temperatures vary. Even record cold global temperatures for an
entire year would not be out of step with global warming. Global
warming is about the long-term average trend.
10. It is not possible to distinguish the effects of human activities
from natural processes with regard to CO2.
That is not true. We know how much CO2 is produced from burning a
barrel of oil and we know how many barrels of oil we use. Similarly,
we know how much CO2 certain types of plants absorb and we have solid
estimates for how many of each type of plant exist. The same goes for
volcanoes, the ocean, and the soil. It is a matter of collecting this
data, which is the task undertaken by hundreds of scientists.
Estimates vary, but they all agree on one point -- humans are causing
global warming.
bademiyansubhanallah
By Roland Buerk
BBC News in Bangladesh
If climate change pushes sea levels higher, people in coastal areas in
low-lying countries like Bangladesh could be forced from their homes.
As part of the BBC's Planet Under Pressure series, Roland Buerk visits
a family living in the Ganges River delta.
Most experts agree that global warming is a reality and that it will
bring further rises in sea levels.
In the last century the world heated up by 0.6C, according to the
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Sea levels rose by between 9 and 20cm and scientists predict further
increases of 9 to 88cm by the year 2100.
The South Asian country of Bangladesh stands to be the worst
affected.
It is situated in the low-lying Ganges River delta and is also one of
the most densely populated countries on earth.
Char Bangla is one of thousands of islands in the mouths of the
Ganges.
The land comes and goes with the tides and seasons as the silt is
washed away and deposited by the river and sea.
Staying afloat
The people who live on Char Bangla are among the most vulnerable
anywhere to a rise in sea level.
"I have to work hard because of my misfortune," said Abdul Razzak.
"There's lots of suffering here. Sometimes the tide is four or five
feet high. Then I can't sleep because I have to stay standing up."
The villagers have built up platforms of mud for their straw huts to
try to keep them out of the water.
They have planted trees hoping the roots will bind the soil to stop it
being washed away.
Millions of people in low-lying countries may be forced to migrate
But over the long term their efforts will almost certainly be in
vain.
Some estimate that the rise in sea level at the top end of the IPCC
forecast is predicting will leave at least a fifth of Bangladesh under
water.
And it is not just coastal areas that are under threat. Bangladesh's
rivers are expected to flood even more frequently.
"It's a flat, flat, flat country," said Dr Atik Rahman of the
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies who has investigated how
climate change will affect the country.
"The flow of water coming from the Himalayas - which is huge - depends
on the differential of height.
"When the sea level is higher, the flow of that water will be
restricted. So when you hear now of Bangladesh being a flood-prone
country - it will be a much more flood-prone country in future."
Dr Rahman adds that after sea levels rise, salt in the ground water
will become a major problem, with fields up to 40km from the new
coastline rendered useless for growing crops.
International tensions
The irony is that Bangladeshis have contributed little to the
pollution blamed for enhancing climate change, and which threatens to
bring so much destruction to their country.
Like most people here, Abdul Razzak's wife cooks on a wood-burning
stove made out of clay.
But apart from that, the family consumes little energy.
They have no electricity and use candles for light. They get about by
walking or in a boat powered by a single oar at the stern.
The people on Char Bangla are acutely aware that the "sins of the
rich" could be visited on them.
"We are angry with the people who are doing this," said Abdul Razzak.
"We are angry with the people building these factories that will make
us sink into the sea."
Fields up to 40km from the new coastline will be rendered useless
"We have heard these kinds of things, the danger that is going to
come. We are going to be washed away. But we are living by relying on
Allah," said his wife Rabea Khatun.
"What can we do?", asked their neighbour Abdus Salaam Taluikdar. "We
are angry but we're trying to get on with our lives. We can do
nothing, but everyone is angry."
Dr Atik Rahman believes the richer countries have an obligation to
help countries like Bangladesh which will suffer disproportionately
from global warming.
"No contribution, highest impact - that makes it a huge case of moral
inequality against which the global citizenry, the global nation
states, must take action. If not we'll be calling it climatic
genocide. That's where we're heading."
Some predict that in the future millions of people in low-lying
countries like Bangladesh will be forced to migrate.
But a movement of people on that scale will create its own
international tensions.
The world will have to learn to cope with refugees from climate
change.
bademiyansubhanallah
By Abhay Singh and Gaurav Singh
July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s concern for global warming has
improved the chances of an accord being reached at Copenhagen to
succeed the Kyoto Protocol, said the chief of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra K. Pachauri.
“I’m cautiously optimistic” a deal will materialize, Pachauri said in
an interview in New Delhi. “If you didn’t have someone like President
Obama who repeatedly has been emphasizing his commitment to this
issue, I would have had no hope at all.”
Pachauri said he was encouraged by the swift approval of the American
Clean Energy and Security Act by the U.S. House of Representatives on
June 26. The climate plan, now headed for the Senate, seeks to impose
the first limits on the production of greenhouse gases in the U.S.,
the second-largest producer of emissions blamed for global warming.
An agreement at the United Nations-led climate negotiations in
Copenhagen in December is crucial if global warming is to be limited
to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). For that
to happen, emissions have to peak by 2015, according to the Nobel
Prize-winning IPCC’s fourth assessment report on climate change,
released in 2007.
Differences between the developed world and China and India remain a
sticking point for the new agreement. The Asian nations say
industrialized countries must be willing to cut emissions 40 percent
by 2020 if they expect emerging economies to agree to long-term
reduction goals.
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh highlighted the differences
yesterday when he said that developed countries must bear “historic
responsibility” for climate change.
High Consumption
“What we are witnessing today is the consequence of over two centuries
of industrial activity and high consumption lifestyles in the
developed world,” Singh said in a statement before leaving for the
Group of Eight summit in Italy.
The three-day G-8 summit and a meeting of the world’s largest emitters
of greenhouse gases marks the U.S. leader’s first major appearance in
international climate policy talks.
Pachauri stands by the Indian government’s position not to accept any
emission-reduction targets because that would undermine the South
Asian nation’s efforts to lift its people out of poverty.
“How can they possibly demand reduction in emissions when in India we
have little more than a one ton per capita of emissions, 400 million
people without access to electricity and they are letting off 23 tons
per capita of emissions in North America?” he said. “Where is the
ethical basis for it?”
Per-Capita Emissions
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh meanwhile reiterated India’s
previous offer to contain per-capita emissions of carbon-dioxide at
less than those of developed nations.
Pachauri said he sees progress with leaders such as Angela Merkel of
Germany accepting that per-capita emissions form the basis for
negotiations. Pachauri is also encouraged by British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown calling for rich countries to give $100 billion a year by
2020 to help developing countries cope with climate change.
The world needs to view climate change with the same urgency that it
dealt with the financial meltdown, Pachauri said.
“It was possible for the whole world to pump in $2.7 trillion in these
bailout packages and nobody took more than a week to do that,” he
said. “I can’t understand why something that has the potential for
disaster for different parts of the world requires so much of
procrastination.”
Almost 200 countries are scheduled to gather in the capital of Denmark
to debate terms for a new accord to combat rising temperatures and sea
levels. The UN has set the Copenhagen meeting as a deadline for
crafting a treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2012.
To contact the reporters on this story: Abhay Singh in New Delhi at
abhay...@bloomberg.netGaurav Singh in New Delhi at
gsin...@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 8, 2009 10:11 EDT
bademiyansubhanallah
By Bibhudatta Pradhan
July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Developed countries must bear “historic
responsibility” for industrial emissions of greenhouse gases they have
produced, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said ahead of climate
change talks this week.
“What we are witnessing today is the consequence of over two centuries
of industrial activity and high consumption lifestyles in the
developed world,” Singh said in a statement in New Delhi today before
leaving for the Group of Eight summit in Italy. “It is the developing
countries that are the worst affected by climate change.”
Climate change will feature at the meeting of G-8 countries and major
developing nations in L’Aquila, Italy, beginning tomorrow. European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday that the
European Union will urge the world to accept a goal to restrict global
warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
A draft G-8 document last week showed the U.S. moving toward accepting
the temperature goal, which it previously refused to do.
India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, has said he is talking to
countries such as Brazil, China and South Africa on taking a common
stand in international negotiations that richer countries like the
U.S. and Britain must reduce their emissions 45 percent by the year
2020 from 1990 levels.
That level of reduction worldwide may be enough to ensure the global
average temperature rises no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-
industrial times, according to a United Nations climate agency, which
suggested a 25 percent-to-40 percent cut over the same three-decade
period.
Fully Participate
Singh said India, which has more than 800 million people living on
less than $2 a day, will participate in the climate negotiations
within the outline of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the Bali Action plan.
India has said it will reject any new treaty to limit global warming
that makes the country reduce greenhouse-gas emissions because that
will undermine its energy consumption, transportation and food
security.
Cutting back on climate-warming gases is a measure that instead must
be taken by industrialized countries, and India is mobilizing
developing nations to push that case, Ramesh said on June 30 in New
Delhi.
“India will not accept any emission-reduction target -- period,”
Ramesh said. “This is a non-negotiable stand.”
The 27-nation European Union, promising a 20-percent reduction, Japan,
pledging an 8 percent cut, and the U.S., committed to return to 1990
levels by 2020, all fall below the UN target for gases such as carbon
dioxide.
Global Treaty
More than 190 nations are negotiating a global climate treaty to
reduce gas emissions and replace the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol
limits. Countries plan to wrap up negotiations and sign the new treaty
in Copenhagen by late December.
India wants funds and access to green technology for developing
countries to be part of the new global accord.
Asia’s third-biggest economy in June unveiled a plan to form eight
commissions to improve energy efficiency and mitigate the impact of
climate change.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi
at bpra...@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 7, 2009 04:33 EDT
...and I am Sid harth
bademiyansubhanallah
By Bibhudatta Pradhan
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- India said it will reject any new treaty to
limit global warming that makes the country reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions because that will undermine its energy consumption,
transportation and food security.
Cutting back on climate-warming gases is a measure that instead must
be taken by industrialized countries, and India is mobilizing
developing nations to push that case, Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh told the media today in New Delhi.
“India will not accept any emission-reduction target -- period,”
Ramesh said. “This is a non-negotiable stand.”
India, which has more than 800 million people living on less than $2 a
day, is talking with Brazil, China and South Africa on taking a common
stand in international negotiations that richer countries like the
U.S. and Britain must reduce their emissions 45 percent by the year
2020 from 1990 levels.
That level of reduction worldwide may be enough to ensure the global
average temperature rises no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6
Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, according to a United Nations
climate agency, which suggested a 25 percent-to-40 percent cut over
the same three-decade period.
The 27-nation European Union, promising a 20-percent reduction, Japan,
pledging an 8 percent cut, and the U.S., committed to return to 1990
levels by 2020, all fall below the UN target for gases such as carbon
dioxide.
“We are not re-negotiating the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change,” Ramesh said, referring to the treaty that entered into force
in 1994 and laid the groundwork for emissions cuts by richer nations.
“There is no way India is going to accept any emission reduction
target, period, between now and the Copenhagen meeting and
thereafter.”
Per-Capita Offer
More than 190 nations are negotiating a global climate treaty to
reduce gas emissions and replace the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol
limits. Countries plan to wrap up negotiations and sign the new treaty
in Copenhagen by late December.
Ramesh reiterated India’s previous offer to contain CO2 emissions per
capita below those of developed nations.
India, the second-most populous nation, only emits 4.6 percent of the
global carbon-dioxide emissions, while the U.S. produces 20.9 percent,
he said. Asia’s third-biggest economy in June unveiled a plan to form
eight commissions to improve energy efficiency and mitigate the impact
of climate change.
The legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to impose
trade penalties on nations that do not accept limits on global warming
pollution is a concern for India, Ramesh said.
“We reject the use of climate as a non-tariff barrier,” the minister
said. “We comprehensively and categorically reject any attempt to
introduce climate change” as part of World Trade Organization talks.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bibhudatta Pradhan in New Delhi
at bpra...@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 30, 2009 09:34 EDT
bademiyansubhanallah
L'Aquila, 9 July (AKI) - Leaders of the world's emerging countries on
Thursday demanded more action from the world's leading industrial
nations to reduce carbon emissions and slow global warming. India,
Brazil, and China were among the countries invited to join G8 leaders
in the Italian city of L'Aquila in a bid to seek agreement on climate
change.
In an address to the summit session, chaired by US president Barack
Obama, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh issued a stern warning to
the world's G8 leaders.
"Climate change cannot be addressed by perpetuating the poverty of the
developing world," Singh said.
Before Thursday's session, Singh told reporters that developing
countries were the worst affected by the global financial crisis and
their economies were also being hit by rising food prices.
Global leaders attending the G8 on Wednesday agreed to cut their
carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 and to limits on increases in
world temperatures in the future.
The initial accord set a limit on the global increase in the average
temperature to two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The same document reaffirmed a desire for all countries to reduce
their global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050, with even
higher emissions from G8 countries.
British prime minister Gordon Brown said the G8 had agreed on the
tough new carbon emission cuts and would try to prevent global average
temperatures rising more than 2 degrees celsius, above pre-industrial
levels.
But developing nations seem reluctant to endorse stricter controls.
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak also arrived in the quake-stricken
city to take part in the talks.
But observers believe a firm agreement was unlikely without Chinese
president Hu Jintao.
President Hu Jintao was forced to leave Italy and return home because
of ethnic conflict in the northern province of Xinjiang.
The Group of Eight - United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain,
Italy, Canada and Russia - began the three-day summit discussing the
economic crisis, but climate change was one of the key issues on this
week's agenda.
The Group of Five emerging nations, which include powerhouses China
and India, said on Wednesday developed countries had to take the lead
on removing trade barriers and addressing climate change.
"We are concerned about the present state of the world economy, which
submits the developing countries to an inordinate burden resulting
from a crisis they did not initiate," said the G5 nations, which also
include South Africa and Mexico.
The G5 countries have stressed the importance of maintaining adequate
finance to the developing countries and for keeping markets open by
resisting protectionist pressures.
bademiyansubhanallah
forward
www.chinaview.cn 2009-07-11 16:55:10
NEW DELHI, July 11 (Xinhua) -- The declaration on climate change
made by the world's largest economies in L'Aquila, Italy on Friday is
an important step toward achieving global consensus on reducing
greenhouse gas emission and halting global warming, a senior Indian
scholar said on Saturday.
Ajay Singh, a professor and political analyst of a reputed Indian
university, told Xinhua the declaration also paved the way for success
at the Copenhagen Climate Summit to be held in December.
The participants at the G8 summit were from the most developed
countries and the most dynamic developing countries of the world,
whose greenhouse gas emissions account for more than 75 percent of the
world's total, Singh said.
He said that this was the first time industrial countries had
agreed specifically to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 80
percent by 2050, and all countries to the 2-degree target (future
warming should be an increase of less than 2 degrees Celsius).
Singh said what was encouraging was that developed countries had
principally agreed to provide relevant technology and funds to
developing countries for environmental protection and industry
reforms.
He noted that for developing countries whose living standards are
much lower than those of developed ones, economic and social
development remains the priority.
He quoted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as saying that
India, as a responsible member of the international community,
recognizes its obligations to preserve and protect its environment,
but climate change cannot be addressed at the cost of development,
especially to that of developing countries.
The prime minister was also quoted as saying the international
community needs to evolve a coherent strategy of growth that brings
about a higher standard of living without harming the environment.
Singh said India firmly believes that the free transfer of
technology and provision of funds by developed countries to developing
ones should be one of the pre-conditions for developing countries to
achieve climate change goals.
"This is why India will host a conference on technology
development and transfer related to climate change in October in New
Delhi," he said.
Singh said one of the major goals of the New Delhi conference is
to develop and share green technology by both developed and developing
countries.
He said he agreed with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
that in the next 10 years, a 70-percent reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions can be achieved through increasing energy efficiency,
reducing deforestation, and using lower-carbon and renewable energy.
But all this needs a lot of money and technology, Singh said.
bademiyansubhanallah
bademiyansubhanallah
If climate change is the unprecedented challenge the world faces, the
declaration issued by the major economies at the G8 Summit in
L’Aquila, Italy just won’t do. There are of course some good
initiatives. President Barack Obama’s affirmation of U.S. intent to
reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by mid-century was
heartening. There may be scepticism about the cap-and-trade approach
towards carbon emissions being pursued in the U.S., but that too
represents a policy advance. Mr. Obama also highlighted the tough new
automotive standards that would save fuel, and the green jobs that are
to emerge from targeted investments. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
announced the opening of a US$ 78 million global carbon capture and
storage institute in Australia to develop clean coal technology as a
public good. These progressive efforts may be insufficient to wage
what British scientist James Lovelock describes as a difficult
“climate war.” To everyone’s dismay, leaders of the major economies
have no firm plans for emissions to peak before 2020 and decline
thereafter. The target date of 2050 for reduction of greenhouse gases
is too remote. The resolve to keep global warming to less than 2
degrees Celsius may end up as nothing more than a pious wish.
There is yet time for the G8 and other high-emission countries to act.
They must sit down to the hard task of setting concrete goals for the
next decade and beyond, for adoption at December’s Copenhagen
conference of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The
importance of China and India in the global climate equation has been
growing. Both countries have committed themselves to dealing with the
issue. But while China has taken a major step forward, India’s
national action plan is remarkably devoid of detail. New Delhi has
adopted the negotiating position that it will not accept emissions
targets, because that might derail its poverty-alleviation efforts. It
is true that by the standards of the developed world, most Indians
suffer significant energy deprivation. But the problem is that the
national development path continues to be carbon-intensive, with its
rising total emissions causing global concern. It is time India
abandoned its stance as a climate laggard. It must prioritise areas
such as energy efficiency in lighting, transport, and power generation
and reduce the energy-intensity of industrial production. Cutting
duties on fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicles, as the 2009-10 budget
has proposed, is certainly not the way forward. Funding equitable,
efficient public transport is. Only strong and convincing actions at
home can win India support for its proposals at Copenhagen.
bademiyansubhanallah
N. Ravi
L’Aquila, Italy: In what represents modest progress in the climate
change talks, leaders of the world’s largest economies meeting at the
Major Economies Forum summit here convened by United States President
Barack Obama agreed on some specific emission reduction goals and on
moving towards a financing and technology transfer framework.
The group, accounting for 75 per cent of global emissions and
comprising the G8, the G5, the other major economies Australia,
Indonesia and South Korea, and Denmark that is hosting the United
Nations climate change conference in December, agreed on several
contentious issues for the first time in what Mr. Obama described as
an “important stride forward” in the talks.
In the declaration issued at the end of their meeting, all nations
recognised the imperative of not letting the global average
temperature to rise beyond 2 degrees C over the pre-industrial levels.
While the industrial countries will make robust aggregate and
individual reductions in emissions in the medium term, the developing
countries would take prompt actions that would represent a “meaningful
deviation” from the business as usual model of polluting growth.
The leaders agreed both aggregate and national emissions should peak
and start falling “as soon as possible,” with a different timeframe
for the developing countries “bearing in mind that social and economic
development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding
priorities.”
The part of the declaration on goals represented a compromise between
the position of the industrial and the developing countries. The
industrial nations meeting in the G8 summit had earlier committed
themselves to reducing their emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and
called on the rest of the world to move towards the goal of reducing
overall global emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.
The G5, representing China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa, in
their declaration called upon the industrial countries to reduce their
emissions by 40 per cent in the medium term, by 2020. While the G5 and
the other developing countries felt that a long term goal without an
intermediate target would not be credible or scientific, the
industrial nations argued on grounds of pragmatism and scientific
feasibility that it may not be possible for them to commit to such a
medium term goal.
Still, there were many “firsts” at this conference that were listed by
Mr. Obama. Among them was that the developing nations acknowledged for
the first time the significance of 2 degrees C metric and agreed to
take meaningful action to lower their emissions in the medium term.
The G8 countries had arrived at a “historic consensus” on concrete
goals, including the 2050 target and limiting the rise in temperature
to 2 degrees Celsius. Along with the agreement on the peaking and on
making emission reductions “measurable, reportable and verifiable,”
they represented “very significant steps forward.”
Sid Harth
N. Ravi
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addresses the media on board his special
plane on Friday night, while returning to India after attending the G8
Summit 2009 in Italy. National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan sits
next to him.
New Delhi: India recognised its responsibility to control its
greenhouse gas emissions and will do its bit, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh told journalists during an interaction on board the special
aircraft bringing him from Rome to New Delhi.
“We are not able to undertake quantified emission reduction targets,
but we are also quite clear that as citizens of the global economy we
have an obligation to do our bit to control emissions and therefore
all countries have an obligation to be prepared to depart from
business as usual,” he said in reply to a question on where India
stood with regard to greenhouse gas emissions.
In his statements at the Major Economies Forum summit on energy and
climate change he had said India was quite alive to the dangers of
climate change and in fact climate change was already taking place. He
had also presented India’s climate action plan and outlined the eight
national missions to address the issue.
“We are willing to do more provided there are credible arrangements to
provide additional financial support as well as technological
transfers from developed to developing countries so that green,
sustainable development can really become an effective instrument of
strengthening the atmosphere to tackle climate change,” Dr. Singh
added.
“Some important gains”
In reply to a question if he saw his second term as Prime Minister as
different from his first, he said it was a continuation of the
journey. The role of the government was to enable the country to get
rid of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease and the government had
made “some important gains” in the last five years. These included
imparting a stronger growth momentum to the economy, inclusive social
and economic development and putting in place social safety nets to
soften the harsh edges of extreme poverty.
It was a long and arduous journey and the challenge was to take full
advantage of the instrumentalities now in place for inclusive growth
to plug the loopholes, reduce leakages and ensure that these
instruments become more effective. In addition, the government would
aim at accelerated growth, more inclusive development and a greater
emphasis on rural development and agriculture.
“So it is a continuation of the journey we undertook for five years
with renewed commitment, with renewed determination even though we
must recognise that the international environment is not as supportive
as we had imagined at one time,” Dr. Singh said.
Asked about the view of the government on the Delhi High Court
judgement striking down the part of Section 377 of the Indian Penal
Code (unnatural offences) in so far as it applied to consenting
adults, and whether the government would appeal against it, the Prime
Minister said he had not discussed the matter with his Cabinet
colleagues.
“I will seek their views as to whether anything further needs to be
done or said in this regard,” he said.
Asked whether the appointment of Mr. Nandan Nilekani as Chairman of
the Unique Identification Authority of India presaged the bringing of
more experts into government from outside, Dr. Singh said he would
like to involve more intellectuals in the process of governance.
There was an “enormous reserve of knowledge, wisdom and experience
available outside the political system” that had to be harnessed in
the service of the people. He would do it “at a pace at which it does
not create any side effects.”
“I think Nandan Nilekani’s appointment has been widely welcomed, and I
sincerely hope that in course of time we can enlarge the involvement
of top intellectual elements in the processes of governance,” Dr.
Singh said.
Sid Harth
The Financial Express
Posted: 2009-07-13 22:08:44+05:30 IST
Updated: Jul 13, 2009 at 2208 hrs IST
Discuss : The climate change stalemate between developing and
developed countries is enough to make a pessimist out of anyone. Long
years ago in the late 1980s, Margaret Thatcher (in a move that hasn’t
got nearly the recognition it deserves) became one of the first global
leaders to raise a global warming alert. When the Kyoto Protocol was
signed nearly a decade later, then US President George W Bush refused
to submit the treaty for Senate ratification because it exempted
countries like India and China. The understanding, shared by UNFCC,
was that the largest share of global emissions of greenhouse gases
historically originated in developed countries. An equitable framework
for “common but differentiated responsibilities” would naturally allow
for developing countries to increase emissions to meet increasing
social and developmental needs. Following from this principle of
equity, India has repeatedly reiterated that since climate change is
not taking place due to current emission levels alone, industrialised
countries must make extra commitments that reflect their greenhouse
leads. While refusing a reduction target for developing countries at
the L’Aquila G-8 meeting as at previous such forums, it proudly
flaunts a unilateral commitment not to allow per capita greenhouse
emissions to exceed the average per capita emissions of developed
countries. Morally, that’s strong ground. The argument of history is
ethically indefensible. But since history offers none of us any
protection from the battering of climate change, we will have to work
a way around the current stalemate. The sooner the better.
Even as the G-8 was agreeing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by
2050 (base year is still unclear), there came fresh news of climate
change’s unanticipated side-effects. Science reported that as winters
on Scotland’s Soay island are becoming shorter and milder, they are
making food more abundant for native sheep. So, smaller and smaller
sheep—which would never have survived to maturity in times past—are
winning the struggle for survival. That’s just luck of the draw. By
all accounts, India is not likely to do well by it. Extreme weather
events like droughts and floods are all expected to increase. We will
need all available scientific arsenal to cope with these developments.
It would be foolhardy to assume we can home grow such a battery. The
US department of defence alone spends $79 billion on internal R&D.
That puts, forget us, even the British armed services’ $4-billion
budget looking like dirt. These militaries are in serious search of
new alternative fuel sources. Stimulus packages are also pouring money
into green R&D. Then there are efficient and energy conserving
technologies that countries like Japan have already mastered.
Incidentally, whatever the broader economy numbers say, Japan’s
homebuilder Sekisui expects sales of small houses powered by sunlight
to rise five-fold in two years. India recognises the need for climate-
friendly technologies. In coming months, what it may have to adjust to
is the idea of paying for these, perhaps in the shape of emission
concessions. Whatever morality may demand, it doesn’t look like they
are coming to us for free.
Sid Harth
Posted by Gary Plyler on 2009-07-13 04:44:45.99035+05:30
There has been atmospheric cooling the last 8 years, and no new high
global annual temperatures in the last 11 years. Anthropogenic (or man
caused) global warming is not proved. None of the computer models
replicate this fact.The global warming adherents base their argument
of proof on more than 20 different computer models called general
circulation models (also known as global climate models or GCMs). Each
computer model is composed of dozens of mathematical equations
representing known scientific laws, theories, and hypotheses. Each
equation has one or more constants. The constants associated with
known laws are very well defined. The constants associated with known
theories are generally accepted but probably some of them may be off
by a factor of 2 or more, maybe even an order of magnitude. The
equations representing hypotheses, well, sometimes the hypotheses are
just plain wrong. Then each of these equations has to be weighted
against each other for use in the computer models, so that adds an
additional variable (basically an educated guess) for each law,
theory, and hypothesis. This is where the models are tweaked to mimic
past climate measurements.The SCIENTIFIC METHOD is: (1) Following
years of academic study of the known physical laws and accepted
theories, and after reviewing some data, come up with a hypothesis to
explain the data. (2) Develop a plan to obtain and analyze new data.
(3) Collect and analyze the data, this may even require new technology
not previously available. (4) Determine if the hypothesis is correct,
needs refinement, or is wrong. Either way, new data is available for
other researchers. (5) Submit results, including data, for peer review
and publication. The output of the computer models run out nearly 90
years forward is considered to be data, but it is not a measurement of
a physical phenomenon. Also, there is no way to analyze this so called
data to determine if any or which of the hypotheses in the models are
correct, need refinement, or are wrong. Also, this method cannot
indicate if other new hypotheses need to be generated and incorporated
into the models. IT JUST IS NOT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. The worst flaw
in the AGW argument is the treatment of GCM computer generated outputs
as data. They then use it in follow on hypotheses. For example, if
temperature rises by X degrees in 50 years, then Y will be effected in
such-and-such a way resulting in Z. Then the next person comes along
and says, well, if Z happens, the effect on W will be a catastrophe.
“I need (and deserve) more money to study the effects on W.”
Hypotheses, stacked on hypotheses, stacked on more hypotheses, all
based on computer outputs that are not data, using a process that does
not lend to proof using the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Look at their results,
IF, MIGHT, and COULD are used throughout their news making results.
And when one of the underlying hypotheses is proven incorrect, well,
the public only remembers the doomsday results 2 or three iterations
down the hypotheses train. The hypotheses downstream are not
automatically thrown out and can even be used for more follow on
hypotheses.
bademiyansubhanallah
Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:23am EDT
By Arshad Mohammed
GURGAON, India, July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton sounded optimistic on Sunday that the United States and India
can bridge their differences on reducing greenhouse gases.
However, a senior Indian official repeated his government's view that
it cannot accept legally binding targets for cutting carbon emissions
that cause climate change.
Speaking at an award-winning "green" building outside New Delhi,
Clinton told reporters she had had productive talks with Jairam
Ramesh, India's minister of state for environment and forestry.
"We had a very fruitful discussion today," Clinton told reporters. "We
are not sitting down and writing the framework but we have many more
areas of agreement than perhaps had been appreciated."
"There are some specific recommendations which he has made today which
are very promising," she added. "I am very heartened by our capacity
to work (together)."
Ramesh bristled at a suggestion India was unwilling to find ways to
curb its carbon emissions, saying it was doing so but could not commit
to mandatory targets.
"It is not true that India is running away from mitigation," Ramesh
said at a joint news conference. "We are simply not in a position to
take on legally binding emissions (reduction) targets."
The United States wants India to agree to limit its carbon emissions
ahead of the signing of a new U.N. climate treaty in Copenhagen in
December. There, more than 190 nations will try to set emission cuts
targets to 2020.
India says rich nations are most to blame for climate change and
should make deeper cuts before asking others to do so.
It is reluctant to put any brakes on industry, to ensure its economy
keeps up growth estimated at 7 percent this year with an eye to
returning to 9 percent.
CLIMATE FIRST
While Clinton's official talks on Monday will cover such issues as
defence sales, nonproliferation and civil nuclear power, Clinton made
climate change her first priority in the Indian capital.
The top U.S. diplomat drove straight from the airport to an office
building built by India's ITC conglomerate which has been granted an
award for energy efficiency and environmental design.
The red brick building maximizes natural light and its glass lets in
light but not heat, which respectively reduce the need for artificial
light and air-conditioning.
On Monday Clinton meets Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.
U.S. officials hope to sign a pact to ensure that U.S. arms technology
sold to India is used for its intended purposes and does not leak to
third countries, a step required by U.S. law.
Such a pact would allow U.S. firms to compete for India's plan to buy
126 multi-role fighters, which would be one of the largest arms deals
in the world and could be a boon to Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and
Boeing Co (BA.N).
The United States also hopes India will announce that it has reserved
two sites for U.S. companies to build nuclear power plants, which
could be worth as much as $10 billion in business for American firms.
And they want to establish a "strategic dialogue" between the two
countries to be led by Clinton and Krishna, reflecting U.S. President
Barack Obama's desire to strengthen ties with India. (Editing by
Bryson Hull and Richard Balmforth)
bademiyansubhanallah
Jairam Ramesh
July 19th, 2009 SindhToday
New Delhi, July 19 (ANI): Minister of State for Environment and
Forests, Jairam Ramesh, has said that India will never allow its per
capita emissions to exceed that of the developed countries.
In his opening remarks at ITC Green Building event organized in
connection with the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
today, Ramesh made it clear that India’s position on the on-going
climate change agreement negotiations is clear, credible and
consistent.
“Embedded in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and the Bali Action Plan, we are fully alive to our global
responsibilities. Even with 8-9% GDP growth every year for the next
decade or two, our per capita emissions will be well below that of
developed country averages,” he assured.
He added that India, despite being among the lowest emissions per
capita, pressure to reduce emissions.
“If this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon
tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” he said.
Talking about India’s economic growth he said Indian government is
ensuring that its economic growth path is ecologically sustainable—GDP
is increasingly Green Domestic Product, not just Gross Domestic
Product.
In collaboration with the UN, the Government of India is hosting an
International Conference on Climate Change and Technology on October
22-23rd, 2009. The New Delhi Statement on Technology and Climate
Change will be reflected in the Copenhagen Agreement.
Giving details of India’s comprehensive National Action plan on
Climate Change, Ramesh explained that it is driven primarily by
adaptation imperatives but it does not neglect what we should do on
our own for mitigation also.
He added that India seeks to engage the United States of America
purposively in areas joint research, development, demonstration and
dissemination of environmental projects.
Ramesh proposed to jointly explore the feasibility of establishing an
Indo-US Foundation for Climate Change Technology with initial kick-
start contributions from our respective governments. (ANI)
[NF]
bademiyansubhanallah
July 19th, 2009 SindhToday
New Delhi, July 19 (ANI): The visiting US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on Sunday agreed with the Indian concerns on climate change
and said that being one of the biggest emitters of Green house gases
the US should share the burden of cleaning up the environment.
Addressing a meet on Climate Change held in Gurgaon, on the outskirts
of New Delhi, Hillary Clinton said: ‘The challenge is to create a
global framework that recognises the different needs and the
responsibilities of developed and developing countries alike. And I
not only understand but I agree with the concerns of countries like
India. United States and other countries that have been the biggest
historic emitters of Green house gases should shoulder the biggest
burden for cleaning up the environment and we do sink our carbon
footprint.”
Clinton also said that the United States would never do anything to
limit the economic progress of India.
‘First the United States does not and will not do anything that would
limit the economic progress of India. We believe that economic
progress of India is in everyone’s interest and not just India to lift
people out of poverty and to give every child born in India a chance
to live up to his or her God- given potential, is a goal that we share
with you,’ said Hillary Clinton.
The United States wants India to agree to limit its carbon emissions
ahead of the signing of a new UN climate treaty in Copenhagen in
December, where over 190 nations will try to set emission cuts targets
to 2020.
Clinton, however, told media that she had productive talks with Union
Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh.
She expressed optimism that the United States and India could bridge
their differences on the issue of reducing Greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, Jairam Ramesh on this occasion said that India would never
allow its per capita emissions to exceed that of the developed
countries.
In his opening remarks, Ramesh made it clear that India’s position on
the ongoing climate change agreement negotiations was clear, credible
and consistent.
“Embedded in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and the Bali Action Plan, we are fully alive to our global
responsibilities. Even with 8-9% GDP growth every year for the next
decade or two, our per capita emissions will be well below that of
developed country averages,” Ramesh said.
“If this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon
tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” he added.
Talking about India’s economic growth he said the Indian government
was ensuring that its economic growth path was ecologically sustainable
—GDP is increasingly Green Domestic Product, not just Gross Domestic
Product.
In collaboration with the UN, the Government of India is hosting an
International Conference on Climate Change and Technology on October
22-23rd, 2009.
The New Delhi Statement on Technology and Climate Change will be
reflected in the Copenhagen Agreement.
Ramesh said that India seeks to engage the United States of America
purposively in areas joint research, development, demonstration and
dissemination of environmental projects. (ANI)
bademiyansubhanallah
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 19, 2009; 12:16 PM
GURGAON, India, July 19 -- The stage was set for a demonstration of
how India and the United States could work together to reduce the
impact of climate change: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
touring an environmentally-friendly "green" office building on the
outskirts of the sprawling capital of New Delhi.
This Story
Clinton, India's Ramesh Clash on Climate Change
On the Plane: Travels With Clinton
But the clash between developed and developing countries over climate
change intruded on the high-profile photo opportunity midway through
Clinton's three-day tour of India. Indian Environmental Minister
Jairam Ramesh complained about U.S. pressure to cut a worldwide deal
and Clinton countered that the Obama administration's push for a
binding agreement would not sacrifice India's economic growth.
As dozens of cameras recorded the scene, Ramesh declared that India
would not commit to a deal that would require it to meet targets to
reduce emissions. "It is not true that India is running away from
mitigation," he said. But "India's position, let me be clear, is that
we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions
targets."
"No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth
that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty," Clinton
countered. "We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty
and develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon
footprint."
Both sides appearing to be playing to the Indian audience, with Ramesh
taking the opportunity to reinforce India's bottom line.
Before the visit, U.S. officials were acutely aware that the Indian
government has faced criticism at home for making what they considered
relatively modest concessions on reducing greenhouse emissions earlier
this month at a meeting of major economies. A leaked e-mail from
former Indian negotiator Surya Sethi to other negotiators -- in which
he asserted the decision would make India poorer -- generated a
firestorm here.
Clinton was prepared to argue that countering climate change could
actually lift India's economy, not undermine it. U.S. officials also
believe, as one put it, that "developing countries are willing to do
more than they are willing to agree to."
Todd Stern, the administration's special envoy for climate change, has
accompanied Clinton on her tour of India. Though U.S. officials said
that Stern's visit had been coordinated with Indian officials, the
nervousness of the Indian establishment was reflected in one
newspaper's headline on Saturday: "Climate Man's Visit Shocks India."
The visit to the "green" building -- the brick and sandstone
headquarters of the hotel division of Indian tobacco giant ITC Ltd. --
began amicably. The building appears undistinguished from the outside,
but Alwyn Noronha, an ITC executive vice president, explained to
Clinton that the building has a 30 percent smaller carbon footprint
than a similar-sized building, cutting energy use in half though
innovations such as an L-shaped design that allows a maximum use of
natural light.
Clinton likened the squat, plain-looking building -- which was
constructed with U.S. assistance -- to a new version of the Taj Mahal,
grandly declaring it was "a monument to the future."
After the tour was over, the American and Indian delegations settled
into a conference room for a closed-door chat. Ramesh opened with a
blunt statement that took four minutes to read.
"There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the
lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,"
Ramesh told Clinton. He asserted that "detailed modeling" showed
"unambiguous" results -- that developing country emissions would
remain well below the averages of developed countries even with high
growth rates.
At the meeting, Clinton responded that she "completely" understood
India's argument about per capita emissions, according to the notes of
a U.S. reporter permitted to observe the discussion. "On one level,
it's a fair argument," she said, but she argued the per capita
argument "loses force" as developing countries rapidly become the
biggest emitters.
Ramesh replied that India's position on per capita emissions is "not a
debating strategy" because it is enshrined in international
agreements. "We look upon you suspiciously because you have not
fulfilled what [developed countries] pledged to fulfill," he jabbed,
calling it a "crisis of credibility."
The tone of the nearly one-hour meeting appeared to become less
strained as Clinton acknowledged some of Ramesh's points and
repeatedly stressed the United States was not trying to limit India's
growth.
'We want an international agreement," Ramesh said, but whether one can
be reached at a major climate summit scheduled for December in
Copenhagen will depend on being creative, leveraging international
technology and especially "international capital is going to be key."
Clinton emerged from the session to declare the discussion was "very
fruitful" and she saw the potential for narrowing differences between
the two countries on the contentious issue. "We have many more areas
of agreement than perhaps had been appreciated," she told reporters.
bademiyansubhanallah
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
July 19 (Bloomberg) -- India will resist pressure from the Obama
administration to accept legally binding caps on its carbon emissions,
the South Asian nation’s environment minister told visiting Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton.
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among
the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,”
Jairam Ramesh said at a meeting today with Clinton in Gurgaon near New
Delhi, according to a statement he issued to reporters. “And as if
this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon
tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”
Clinton is on a state visit to India meant to showcase trade and
security ties and seek common ground on climate change and arms
control. India has said it will reject any new treaty to limit global
warming that makes it reduce emissions because that will undermine the
country’s energy consumption, transportation and food security.
The climate-change bill that passed the U.S. House on June 26 calls
for carbon-based tariffs if countries like China and India don’t adopt
their own greenhouse gas controls by 2020. The U.S. said its push for
higher environmental standards is not aimed at limiting the economic
progress of nations, including India.
“No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth
that is necessary to lift millions of more people out of poverty,”
Clinton said at a joint news conference with Ramesh in Gurgaon. “But
we also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop
sustainably that will lower significantly the carbon footprint of the
energy that is produced and consumed to fuel that growth.”
Action Plan
India has a comprehensive national action plan on climate change,
Ramesh said and suggested collaborating with the U.S. on research and
development of projects; environment planning, regulation and
management, and building institutional capacity for continuing
research.
In December, negotiators from more than 180 nations will meet in
Copenhagen to broker a new treaty to fight global warming by limiting
the release of gases in the air from burning fossil fuels and clearing
forests.
“Both of us reiterated our commitment to arriving at an agreement at
Copenhagen that takes note of the imperative of doing something
quickly but also takes note of the special concerns of countries like
India for continuing with their path of economic growth with the
objective of poverty eradication,” Ramesh told reporters. “I think
this has been a good beginning.”
Energy Use
Clinton said she is confident that the U.S. and India can devise a
plan that changes the way energy is produced, consumed and conserved,
helping to create additional investments and jobs. The two countries
must also expand the use of renewable energy in India, especially for
rural electrification.
“There is no question that developed countries like mine must lead on
this issue and for our part, under President Obama, we are not only
acknowledging our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and
climate change, we are taking steps to reverse its ill effects,”
Clinton said. “It is essential for major developing countries like
India to also lead because over 80 percent of the growth in future
emissions will be from developing countries.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in New Delhi
at ilaks...@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 19, 2009 09:19 EDT
bademiyansubhanallah
20 Jul 2009, 0351 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: India firmly reiterated its position that it was not in a
position to take on legally binding targets on reducing emissions.
This
statement came even as US secretary of state Hillary Clinton accepted
that developed countries had made “mistakes”, but that all countries
need to take steps to reduce emissions. Ms Clinton was speaking at the
ITC Green Building in Gurgaon on the first day of the Delhi leg of her
India visit.
Ms Clinton, who was accompanied by US special envoy for climate change
Todd Stern, addressed a closed-door conference on climate change,
which was attended by minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh
and the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran.
Climate change continues to be a pressing global concern on which
developing and developed countries remain divided. This is the first
meeting on the issue of climate change since Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh signed the MEF declaration at L’Aquila in Italy.
There is a concern that MEF declaration has undermined India’s
position. And how India plans to safeguard its position during
meetings with the visiting US team is crucial. Ms Clinton said India’s
greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase 50% by 2030, and
even if developed countries cut down emissions, the problem will not
go away. “India’s greenhouse gas pollution is projected to grow by
about 50% between now and 2030,” she said.
India stressed that its position on the on-going climate change
agreement negotiations is “clear, credible and consistent”. “We are
fully alive to our global responsibilities as well. We have done
detailed modelling, the results of which are being released very soon.
The results are unambiguous. Even with 8-9% GDP growth every year for
the next decade or two, our per capita emissions will be well below
that of developed country averages.
There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the
lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions. As if
this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon
tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” Mr Ramesh said.
Climate change and the divisive issue of how developed and developing
nations should share the burden of carbon emission cuts is a key focus
of Ms Clinton’s visit. The Indian side expects considerable pressure
from the US on two major issues. The first a formal level of emission
cap — something that India has consistently opposed. India has refused
to commit to carbon emission cuts until developed nations like the US
agree to cut emissions by 40% over the next decade.
The second issue on which India expects will figure in the discussions
is verification on efforts being made by India to respond to climate
change. On this count as well, India has maintained that efforts
undertaken domestically will not be subject to international
monitoring or verification. However, if India gets technology and
international finance for certain activities, then only those
activities will be subject to monitoring, reporting
and verification.
Following what she described as a ‘fruitful meeting’ with the minister
for environment, Ms Clinton said: ”I am very confident...that the US
and India can devise a plan that will dramatically change the way we
produce, consume and conserve energy. We are not sitting down and
writing the framework today, but we have many more areas of agreement
than perhaps had been appreciated.”
Reaching out, Ms Clinton reassured that “the US does not and will not
do anything that will limit India’s economic progress. The challenge
is to create a global framework that recognises the different needs
and responsibilities of developed and developing countries alike.” Mr
Ramesh reiterated that “India’s position is that we are simply not in
a position to take on legally binding emissions reductions targets”.
India and the US have agreed on “concrete partnerships” in the area of
energy efficiency. “I want to say that both sides have agreed on the
need of partnerships, concrete partnerships, on projects in various
fields like energy efficiency, solar energy, biomass, energy-efficient
buildings of the type that you are seeing here today. We have made a
good beginning. We have taken a small step today. We will continue our
engagements in multilateral forums. But we will also have bilateral
engagements,” Mr Ramesh said.
Sid Harth
Mon, 07/20/2009 - 11:39am
Yesterday, things got a bit heated between Secretary Clinton and
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh when it came to climate
change.
As the two toured a "green" building near New Delhi while dozens of
cameras rolled, Ramesh said, "India's position, let me be clear, is
that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding
emissions targets."
Clinton responded: "No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the
economic growth that is necessary to lift millions more out of
poverty. …We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and
develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon
footprint."
After the tour, the U.S. and Indian delegations had a closed-door
meeting that once again began with tension. Ramesh delivered a blunt
four-minute opening statement declaring, "There is simply no case for
the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita,
face to actually reduce emissions."
Clinton countered that the per capita logic "loses force" as
developing countries quickly become the world's largest emitters of
greenhouse gases.
Ramesh's rejoinder: "We look upon you suspiciously because you have
not fulfilled what [developed countries] pledged to fulfill,"
referring to it as a "crisis of credibility."
After the meeting, though, Clinton announced that the discussion was
"very fruitful" and pointed out, "We have many more areas of agreement
than perhaps had been appreciated."
Climate change is definitely a sensitive issue for large and rapidly
developing countries such as India and China. It can look hypocritical
for rich countries to demand that poor countries curb emissions when
rich countries themselves pollute more per capita and historically
increased their pollution levels as their people became wealthier.
Clinton said it's possible to eliminate poverty and develop
sustainably at the same time. I really hope these "green" technologies
pull through to save the day. But even with green technologies and
more environmental awareness, it's gonna be tough. Last Friday, the
first Tata Nano was delivered.
Photo: PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images
Sid Harth
India doesn't need lectures from the US on global warming.
By Martin Hutchinson, breakingviews.com
Published: 7:57AM BST 21 Jul 2009
A hard cap on emissions, desired by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary
of state, would unfairly stunt growth for India, a relatively low
emitter. And US carbon tariffs could damage its exports. But the
populous country matters to global emissions goals. The US should
compromise - a carbon tax could be India's best option.
Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, is right to reject the US
line. India is the world’s fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide
overall. But even in aggregate, its emissions amount to less than a
quarter of those from the US or China. In per capita terms, India's
emissions are just a fraction of the other top global culprits'.
Significantly, even its emissions per dollar of GDP (on a purchasing
power parity basis) are in line with those of the US and far below
those of Russia and China.
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climate pledge
Gordon Brown flies to Italy for G8 SummitIndia is poor and needs rapid
economic growth to improve living standards. Capping its emissions at
or near current levels - as the US wants - is unjustified. There is
also no rational basis for US threats to impose carbon tariffs on
Indian exports, when India’s emissions per dollar of output are no
worse than what the US achieves and far better than many other
countries manage.
Whatever the merits of the “cap and trade” system planned for the US,
applying one in India would be inviting an economic nightmare. Aside
from a negative impact on growth, the complex enforcement bureaucracy
could easily worsen the corruption that has hobbled India’s economy in
the past.
Rather, a moderate carbon tax could prove helpful in restoring India's
fiscal stability, which suffers from deficit spending. It would not
restrict future growth unduly, but would help direct that growth in
ways that tended to reduce carbon emissions.
India has committed to helping the global fight against carbon
emissions. But it makes more sense to allow the country to use
intelligent policies of its own - not blunt instruments of America's
self-interested choosing - to fulfil that commitment.
Sid Harth
Posted 07/20/2009 07:09 PM ET
Leadership: Hillary Clinton's trip to India to push a global warming
agenda has proved a waste of time. Not just because India rejected
junk science, but because big issues got sidelined. Her agenda is
making her insignificant.
The last thing the U.S. should be doing with a prized ally like India
is try to force it into the green agenda of the Kyoto and Copenhagen
set, as if that were the most important issue for the two states,
topping their military and trade interests.
But Secretary of State Clinton made that the centerpiece of her visit
to India, almost trying to shame the nation of 1 billion people to
agree to slash its greenhouse gases by 50% by 2050 in preparation for
a comprehensive treaty in Copenhagen by December.
"Not so long ago, the measure of a nation's greatness was the size of
its military or its economic strength, or its capacity to dominate its
friends and adversaries," Clinton told students at Delhi University.
"But in this century — in the interconnected and interdependent world
in which we live — greatness can be defined by the power of an
example."
Example? Actually, India will go for the economic and military
strength, thank you very much. Unfortunately, there wasn't much more
than lip service on that from Clinton.
And that's a shame, because India is a nation that has moved away from
multilateralism, statism and socialism since 1991 and vowed to do the
things that make a nation substantially great instead of
sanctimoniously pure. That means a strong defense and open markets.
This year it expects to post 6% GDP growth, a miracle in a global
economic downturn. Signing on to any green pact will halt that.
But that hasn't stopped the Obama administration from submerging that
unique relationship beneath a multilateral global agenda and a series
of other smaller issues — a disservice to us and to India.
India's alliance is the best thing to happen since the Iraq War. Our
huge strategic and trade relationship — we now do some $44 billion in
two-way trade — is unlike any other in the world. Forged from a common
fight against terrorism and a commitment to growth through trade, it
needs to grow on those terms.
But instead of talking about a free-trade treaty, as India has sought,
or taking steps to strengthen the U.S.-India military alliance as new
challenges from China, Pakistan and emerging non-state actors like
Somali pirates appear, Clinton called for a "comprehensive strategic
approach," devoted to education, food security and the climate change
agenda.
Not surprisingly, the Indians gave her an earful. "India's position,
let me be clear, is that we are simply not in a position to take
legally binding emission targets," India's environment minister,
Jairam Ramesh, told Clinton. He noted that global warming is unproven
science and India didn't want to give up its economic growth for that.
It also didn't help that Clinton was cajoling the Indians by using
nonsensical arguments put forward by Obama himself during his campaign
instead of her own more commonsensical ones.
She insisted that signing on to the green agenda would bring economic
growth, something the Obama administration has tried to sell to the
U.S. public.
"No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth
that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty," Clinton said.
"We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop
sustainability that will lower ... the carbon footprint."
The Washington Post also reported that she toured a squat "green"
building, calling it a new Taj Mahal and a "monument to the future,"
surely making the Indians realize the real one was better.
Lastly, she made a ridiculous apology: "We acknowledge now with
President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and
we along with other developed countries have contributed most
significantly to the problem that we face with climate change."
None of these moves lifts America's stature abroad. The U.S. has less
real interest in dreamy global treaties like Copenhagen than it does
in strengthening actual bilateral ties like defense and trade.
Is it any wonder that with such a misplaced agenda, Clinton's
influence is said to be shrinking? It's the agenda that makes it so.
Sid Harth
actionThe cost of tackling climate change will be paid for by benefits
that would come from better energy security, employment and health,
Rajendra Pachauri says ahead of major announcement on 2013 reports
Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk,
Monday 20 July 2009 13.52 BST
Measures needed to tackle global warming could save economies more
money than they cost, the world's top climate change expert said
today.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), told the Guardian: "The cost could undoubtedly be
negative overall." This is because of the additional benefits that
reducing greenhouse gas emissions could bring, beyond limiting
temperature rises.
Until now, estimates of the price of preventing dangerous climate
change have all indicated significant costs. The most authoritative
study, the 2006 Stern report, concluded that 1% of global GDP would be
required, and he has since said 2% is now more likely.
Pachauri's comments came ahead of a press announcement in New York
today about the IPCC's plans for its next series of reports in 2013.
He said these would include a greater emphasis on the economics, as
well as ethical and humanitarian concerns.
Funding for reducing and adapting to climate change in one of the most
difficult issues in the negotiations towards a global deal at a UN
summit in December in Copenhagen. But Pachauri argues that if the
costs are negative, then "inertia and vested interests would be washed
away. As the Americans say, it would be like dollar bills lying on the
sidewalk."
Alex Bowen, one of the Stern report authors, said: "[Pachauri's] is a
defensible postion, not delusional. But I am more of a sceptic."
"My hunch overall is that it will be a little more costly than we
estimated in 2006. But if well designed policies are put in place, we
can still do it remarkably cheaply. And there is still no doubt that
strong action now is much cheaper than no action," added Bowen, an
economist at the Grantham Research Institute On Climate Change at the
London School of Economics.
The associated benefits Pachauri pointed to include better energy
security, protecting consumers from oil price spikes, new employment
in green industries, more productive agriculture and lower air
pollution, cutting health costs. He said one good example was
insulating draughty homes and installing better energy control
systems. "This can yield very high rates of returns, with pay back in
one year."
The idea of co-benefits is also central to the "green new deals"
promoted by the UN Environment programme, Lord Stern's group and
others.
Bowen said: "Negative costs depends on assumption that policy design
and implementation is sensible and very consistent across countries
all over the world. But we have gone three years [since the Stern
report] without global policies. Emissions have grown rapidly and a
lot of people now think economic growth will be much higher later in
the century." The faster you have to reduce emissions, he said, the
more expensive it is likely to be.
Pachauri's comments came as he led discussions what the next set of
reports from the IPCC should cover. Its last report in 2007 is
acknowledged to have settled the argument over whether emissions from
human activities were causing climate change.
In the next series, due in 2013, Pachauri said the focus would change.
"The IPCC cannot address the issue in purely scientific terms. For
adaptation and mitigation, we need to put euro or dollar values on
those. But there are also some costs you can't quantify. For example,
take Hurricane Katrina. You can put a value on property losses, what
about psychological, sociological, and institutional costs. I would
not like to try to quantify those."
The IPCC meeting raised a range of further issues that it believes
need more attention, including extreme weather events, new greenhouse
gases, the full impacts of aviation and global scale geo-engineering.
The reports take between five and seven years to complete, but
Pachauri argued that this is their strength: "The IPCC process of
regular peer review means the reports are far more defensible than
anything else. Comments received are posted on our website as are
actions."
Sid Harth
Washington (PTI): The nexus between today's threats and the climate
change is more acute in South Asia than anywhere else, a powerful
American senator has said.
"Nowhere is the nexus between today's threats and climate change more
acute than in South Asia, the home of al-Qaeda and the center of our
terrorist threat," said Senator John Kerry, Chairman of Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, comparing the impact of climate change in the
region with the threat posed by terrorism.
"Scientists are now warning that the Himalayan glaciers, which supply
water to almost a billion people from China to Afghanistan, could
disappear completely by 2035.
"Water from the Himalayas flows through India into Pakistan. India's
rivers are not only agriculturally vital, they are also central to its
religious practice," Mr. Kerry said at a hearing on 'Climate Change
and Global Security' by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Pakistan, for its part, is heavily dependent on irrigated farming.
Even as our government scrambles to ratchet down tensions and prepares
to invest billions to strengthen Pakistan's capacity to deliver for
its people, climate change is threatening to work powerfully in the
opposite direction," Mr. Kerry argued.
"Just as 9/11 taught us the painful lesson that oceans could not
protect us from terror, today we are deluding ourselves if we believe
that climate change will stop at our borders," he said.
Climate change, Mr. Kerry argued, injects a major new source of chaos,
tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world.
"It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more
natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a
staggering scale," he said.
"Places only too familiar with the instability, conflict, and resource
competition that often create refugees and IDPs will now confront
these same challenges with an ever growing population of EDPs
(environmentally displaced people)," Mr. Kerry said.
"We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring
opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an
interconnected world, that endangers all of us," he added.
Sid Harth
Society endorses geoengineering research
July 21, 2009
Geo-engineering remains at best a secondary climate strategy if you
first do really aggressive CO2 reductions and keep concentrations
below 450 ppm. For now, as Obama’s science advisor put it [and
reiterated to me this year], “The ‘geo-engineering’ approaches
considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high
costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects.“
At worst, geo-engineering is an utterly false hope that will undercut
efforts to achieve the kind of emissions reductions needed for it to
have any value. That, of course, is why conservatives love it (see
here). Still, there is no reason not to do some research, as long as
one is realistic….
Climate engineering research may get green light
Hacking the planet to rein in humanity’s effect on the climate has
been given a scientific stamp of approval.
The umbrella body for meteorological scientists in the US is about to
endorse research into geoengineering as part of a three-pronged
approach to coping with climate change, alongside national policies to
reduce emissions.
New Scientist has seen the final draft of the American Meteorological
Society’s carefully worded position paper on geoengineering. The AMS
is the first major scientific body to officially endorse research into
geoengineering.
The document states that “deliberately manipulating physical,
chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system” should be
explored alongside the more conventional approaches to climate change.
Conventional approaches means reducing emissions – “mitigation” in
policy-speak – and adjusting to the unavoidable effect of climate
change – known as “adaptation”….
Opponents of geoengineering may be reassured to find that the
statement calls for studies into the social, ethical and legal
implications of geoengineering solutions, and for methods to be
developed in a transparent fashion.
Riding a Wave of Culture Change, DOD Strives to Trim Energy Demand
Capt. John Hickey was on a mission.
The commanding officer at Honolulu’s U.S. Coast Guard Integrated
Support Command was determined to save energy on his base when the
data server manager bluntly refused, saying he would not slow his
machines until the last drop of oil was extracted from Alaska’s
protected lands.
“I said to him, ‘OK, we’re at war,’” recounted Hickey, who called
supervisors in Washington to eventually override the man’s
intransigence.
The episode illustrates some of how far the U.S. military, the
nation’s single largest energy consumer — at more than 1 percent of
the U.S. total — has come in recognizing and reducing its reliance on
fossil fuels. But experts say it also indicates just how far the
military still has to go. In 2006 alone, the Pentagon bought 110
million barrels of oil and 3.8 billion kilowatts of electricity. To
put that in perspective, it’s about what the entire world uses each
day.
Experts say making strides will require changing the culture of an
institution accustomed to having everything it needs to get its job
done.
Chasing the wind
…Aesthetic concerns have stalled the Cape Wind project, which would
erect 130 turbines 5 to 13 miles from Cape Cod and Nantucket. But
technological advances in recent years are allowing developers
elsewhere to consider building wind turbines farther from shore, where
they would be less visible.
Last month, the US Department of the Interior granted the nation’s
first ocean leases for exploring the feasibility of large wind farms,
with most of the sites 12 to 18 miles off New Jersey and Delaware. New
York power companies are exploring the possibility of a vast wind farm
13 miles off the Rockaways. And a 120-turbine farm has been proposed
48 miles off New Bedford.
If these and similar projects prove viable, some wind energy
specialists and developers say, they could leapfrog closer-to-shore
projects like Cape Wind. Winds are often stronger and more sustained
farther from shore.
IPCC Chief Raps G-8, Calls for Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts
After 2015
The chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change criticized
the Group of Eight summit participants for ignoring the IPCC’s
scientific findings and the declaration that emerged from the 2007
U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, in which leaders agreed to
work toward a new treaty limiting average global temperature increase
to 2 degrees Celsius.
Though simultaneously praising the 2-degree commitment as “clearly a
big step forward” in international talks, IPCC Chairman Rajendra
Pachauri told reporters here yesterday that G-8 leaders failed to heed
warnings that global greenhouse gas emissions levels must peak by
2015. Nations must also start to come up with concrete plans for
rapidly slashing emissions afterward, Pachauri said.
“They have clearly ignored what the IPCC came up with,” he said. “If
the G-8 leaders agreed on this 2-degree increase as being the limit
they will be accepting, then I think they should have also accepted
the attendant requirement of global emissions peaking by 2015.”
China wind turbine makers blow over foreign rivals
China-based wind turbine manufacturers have overtaken foreign
competitors in the race to supply domestic wind power projects for the
first time – a lead that is likely to widen due to the government’s
controversial “buy Chinese” procurement policy.
According to figures from the state-run Chinese Wind Energy
Association, domestic and Sino-foreign joint venture turbine makers
accounted for 61.8 per cent of China’s market share at the end of
2008, surpassing overseas producers for the first time.
The top three wind turbine suppliers were homegrown companies Sinovel
Wind, Goldwind Science & Technology and Dongfang Electric. Denmark’s
Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest turbine manufacturer,
maintained its fourth-ranking position from 2007, while Spain-based
Gamesa fell to fifth place from third.
Coal giant offers cash for biggest clean rival
Canada’s biggest generator of dirty power has launched a $1.5 billion
hostile bid for the country’s leading developer of clean power,
including the two largest wind farms in Ontario.
Analysts say TransAlta Corp.’s proposed acquisition of Calgary-based
Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. could be the first of many moves in an
energy sector that sees big polluters trying to green up their assets,
partly to limit their exposure to carbon-emission penalties once a
national cap-and-trade system is introduced.
“This is a big public indication of what’s to come,” said MacMurray
Whale, an alternative energy analyst with Toronto-based Cormark
Securities. “It highlights how valuable low-carbon power production
is, and it’s a massive opportunity in Canada.”
Cutting Water Use in the Textile Industry
The process of making textiles can require several dozen gallons of
water per pound of clothing, especially during the dyeing process.
Amid tightening environmental regulations and a push to save money,
companies are working to reduce the waste.
One such company working to cut its water use is California-based
Colorep. Its AirDye technology, found in the occasional window shade
or T-shirt, uses air instead of water to help the dye penetrate the
fiber, a process that it claims uses no water and requires less
energy.
Solar Cells, Automation and Green Jobs
Aside from its environmental benefits, solar energy is frequently
touted for its job creation potential. But for solar manufacturers
themselves, machines — not employees — may be the key to their long-
term survival.
Take, for example, photovoltaic solar panels — the most common form of
solar technology. As Roger Efird, the managing director of the United
States branch of Suntech Power, a solar energy company based in China,
the process of making these cells is already largely automated.
How Accurate Is Emissions Reporting?
Each day, more companies claim to have slashed their carbon footprints
or achieved other sustainability goals. But how meaningful are these
claims, and are they independently verified?
The short answer: It’s murky.
Kids’ lower IQ scores linked to prenatal pollution
Researchers for the first time have linked air pollution exposure
before birth with lower IQ scores in childhood, bolstering evidence
that smog may harm the developing brain.
The results are in a study of 249 children of New York City women who
wore backpack air monitors for 48 hours during the last few months of
pregnancy. They lived in mostly low-income neighborhoods in northern
Manhattan and the South Bronx. They had varying levels of exposure to
typical kinds of urban air pollution, mostly from car, bus and truck
exhaust.
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5 Responses to “Energy and Global Warming News for July 21st: American
Meteorological Society endorses geoengineering research”
1.paulm says:
July 22, 2009 at 1:16 am
I am not a fan of GeoE to solve climate change. But I think we are at
a stage where we shouldn’t rule it out and should be tinkering and
think about it, in the best possible way.
CO2 draw down is straightforward, you don’t need gazillions of
scientist working on this solution. Just swap the Coal Plants out and
move to more sustainable green paradigm.
So instead of sitting around twiddling their thumbs or trying to get
us to mars they aught to be focusing on the number one problem – which
is to get us through the next century relatively in one piece.
2.paulm says:
July 22, 2009 at 1:31 am
I wonder what the impact is going to be on the Mediterranean?
Barcelona gets new water supply
Dried-up riverbed at Llosa del Cavall (file pic)
Catalonia has suffered repeated droughts in recent years
A desalination plant has opened near Barcelona – said to be the
biggest of its type in Europe – to ease chronic water shortages.
A drought last year forced Barcelona to import drinking water by
tanker. It was one of Spain’s driest years on record.
3.paulm says:
July 22, 2009 at 1:38 am
hey gail….
Mapping America’s giant trees
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
…
The project is designed to follow up research, in the Yosemite
National Park, which suggests that giant trees are perishing as a
result of climate change.
“You know that there’s a bigger picture and that you’re starting
something, you’re becoming a really positive part of history. It’s
rewarding and fulfilling knowing that people far into the future are
going to come back to what we have started here.”
4.paulm says:
July 22, 2009 at 2:00 am
Cost of fighting wildfires more than doubled this year
Province has spent $54 million, compared to $23 million last year
Dave White VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) | Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 8:00 pm
Bookmark
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – So how much are these wildfires costing us?
Alyson Couch with the Provincial Fire Headquarters says this year,
we’ve reached a whopping $54 million – last year $23 million was spent
fighting fires. “We have responded to almost 1,100 fires across the
province since April ‘01. At this point last year we had responded to
just over 930.”
While the number of fires fought may not seem like a big difference,
it’s the size and strength of the fires this season that have hit
B.C.’s pocketbook. Couch says with at least two months left in the
fire season and combined with tinder dry conditions and a lack of
rain, we could see that $54 million figure grow even larger.
5.Jim Beacon says:
July 22, 2009 at 4:28 am
Geo-engineering? The world is balking at the price tag of the
realtively simple mechanical approach to achieving a 17% to 25%
reduction of CO2 by 2020 — and the American Meteorological Society
(and other pie-in-the-sky scientists) thinks people are going to pop
for mega-trillions of dollars for 1940’s style sci-fi pulp magazine
geo-engineering stunts? What a wet dream.’
Hey, I know: Let’s get all 7 billion of us to put on our tin-foil hats
and go sit outside in the sun all day — that way we will reflect all
the heat back into outer space! Problem solved.
Sid Harth
bademiyansubhanallah
SF Environmental Policy Examiner Second generation look at global
warming
July 21, 6:29 PM
Before I even start I want to remind everyone that, as far as I can
tell (and remember) what's happening in the debate over global warming
is what always happens with new scientific theories. Lots of fighting,
lots of egos being bruised, lots of genteel namecalling.
What's different is that this caterwauling is happening in public
view, perhaps for the first time, thanks to the Internet. Can you
imagine what it would have looked like if the plate tectonics dustup
had happened live on YouTube?
We are now seeing the inevitable pushback against the 'conventional
wisdom' on global warming. The 'new' theory (which in fact is more
than 150 years old) took wing around 1975 and became the conventional
wisdom starting around the mid-80s. It is only now that some holes are
being poked in the CW, due mostly (in my opinion) to incredibly sloppy
data gathering and analysis.
There was a wholly political rush to judgment that needed some
scientific backing to lend weight to the political decisions that were
being contemplated. So climate scientists accepted temperature
measurements without verifying them and have been trying to correct
for bias ever since. Some within the community have been trying to
paint the most extreme picture possible, mostly to match the extreme
pictures being created by politicians. And so we get absurd word
pictures of 20 foot sea level rises backed by equally absurd
Impressionist charts.
But counter-studies and counter-claims are now emerging that call much
of the science into question. Many of these claims seem to suggest
strongly that, although global warming is real, it is also modest and
likely to remain so. As this matches my own personal opinion, I'm
delighted to see it and hope that it holds up--but it has to hold up
to the counter claims that will be advanced against these papers, in
turn.
It is much easier to attack a new theory than to defend it, as climate
scientists are finding out. Those who are skeptical about the broadest
claims of AGW activists can look at the work and pick holes in it.
Because the work is not perfect, and because the climate scientists
are not either, it is the skeptic's day in the sun. (Almost literally,
as the sun returns to the argument as one possible reason for much of
the recent warming.) But as the skeptics offer alternative
explanations for recent warming, it will be their turn to face
criticism from activists. And so it will go, probably for 30 more
years. I consider it job security of a sort.
Global warming is a 'big' theory, and big theories don't get settled
quickly. The physical mechanics behind the theory are accepted--with
the grand exception of positive feedback. (Everyone understands that
doubling CO2 will cause about 1 degree Celsius of global warming.
Activists think this will trigger a reinforcing positive feedback in
water vapor that will act as a multiplier for that one degree.
Skeptics ask for evidence of this--which isn't really forthcoming to
date.)
We'll know soon enough. According to some, if we do not see a new
temperature record by 2014, it will call into question the big theory.
According to others, the recent pause in warming is already evidence
against it.
The real question is what do we do while we're waiting. I've given my
opinion so often here that I should ask regular readers to recite it
in unison (or maybe give it back to me in Limerick form... comments?):
Invest in alternative energy generation, distribution and storage.
Incentivise more efficient consumption. Put a modest price on carbon
now--either by a (much reformed) cap and trade plan, or a small carbon
tax.
But start by getting better data and agreeing on standards for
analysis. Start there.
bademiyansubhanallah
TNN 4 August 2009, 12:06am IST
|
Gandhinagar : Political statements and announcements notwithstanding,
the state government does not seem to be very serious about tackling
the global warming issue.
Though Gujarat government, earlier this year, decided to start a
climate change department to combat global warming and climate
changes, allocation in the recent budget is just Rs 5 crore against
that of Rs 352 crore for the forest and environment department.
Officials said that the new department would just have 1.4 per cent of
the total allocation for the forest and environment department, which
is paltry when the role it is supposed to play is considered. A senior
officer said that it seems that announcement would just remain only on
paper this year. The officer said that the with a new ministry to be
set up this amount would be too small. "It's not enough even to meet
administrative expenses of a new department," said government
sources.
Activities of the climate change department will be taken up in
coordination with other departments dealing in research, awareness
generation, ecological balancing, environmental education among
others. For this purpose an amount of Rs 5 crore is required during
the year 2009-10.
A senior officer said the basic idea of forming the department came
from Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth', which Chief Minister Narendra
Modi showed to IAS officials. Gujarat is the fourth province after
South Australia, Scotland and New South Wales to have a separate
department for climate change.
Officials said that the department will coordinate with all other
related departments in the government and will carry out a range of
studies to assess the impact of climate change and global warming on
coastal regions of the state. He said that Gujarat has 1,600 sq km of
coastline and this department will carry out a study on the impact of
climate change on agriculture on the land near the coast, and on
people living in the coastal area.
Sid Harth
India and climate change talks
27 Aug 2009, 0051 hrs IST, Arvind Panagariya, ET Bureau
I have been surprised by the number of reasonable Indians who have
come to accept the proposition, advanced by equally reasonable but
perhaps nationalistically-motivated Americans, that the acceptance of
internationally-mandated restrictions on carbon emissions by India is
in its own national interest. Some have even come to argue that India
should actively seek a climate change treaty at the Copenhagen
conference in December 2009.
I disagree with this proposition. The foremost objective India must
pursue in the forthcoming decades is to provide a humane existence
with adequate access to basic amenities such as shelter, water and
electricity to all citizens.
Given that 300 million Indians still live in abject poverty and 400
million are without access to electricity, achieving this objective
requires sustained rapid growth complemented by well-crafted social
programmes for some decades to come. The question then is whether such
growth is feasible while implementing mitigation targets beginning in
the near future, say, 2020.
Some insight into this question can be gained by comparing India’s
emissions to those necessary to achieve the current Chinese living
standards. Making the generous assumption that China could cut its
current emissions by 25% through the adoption of the most efficient
but cost-effective technologies without compromising its current
living standards, its total emissions would still remain 3.5 times
those of India. The likely implication is that India cannot achieve
even the current Chinese living standards — a far cry from a humane
existence for all — without a significant increase in carbon
emissions.
A key argument mitigation advocates offer is that by refusing to
accept mitigation obligations as a part of a Copenhagen treaty, India
makes matters worse for itself by making future catastrophes more
likely. They say that being among the most vulnerable to catastrophic
events such as cyclones, India stands to gain the most from joining
the mitigation effort. There are at least three objections to this
argument.
First, while the facts of global warming and green house gas (GHG)
emissions as its cause are widely accepted, scientific evidence
linking GHG emissions to increased frequency or intensification of
catastrophic events such as hurricanes and cyclones is lacking. A 2005
article in the Bulletin of American Meteorological Society of America
carefully surveyed the existing peer-reviewed literature on the
relationship between global warming, hurricanes and hurricane impacts.
It concluded that ‘claims of linkages between global warming and
hurricane impacts are premature.’
They added that ‘the peer-reviewed literature reflects that a
scientific consensus exists that any future changes in hurricane
intensities will likely be small in the context of observed
variability.’ Evidence linking global warming and glacier melting is
similarly weak: the Gangotri glacier has been receding since
scientists began to keep its measurement in 1780.
Second, granting that a connection between global warming and
increased incidence of rains, floods, heat waves, rising sea levels
and even cyclones and hurricanes exists, mitigation by India in the
next two or three decades is neither necessary nor sufficient to
arrest global warming and its consequences. The richer world
consisting of the US, Europe, Japan, Canada and Eurasia account for
slightly more than 50% of the current carbon emissions. Adding China
brings the proportion over 70%. In contrast, India accounts for less
than 5% of the global emissions.
If the big and largely rich emitters of today were to take mitigation
in the immediate future seriously, they could achieve emission cuts
commensurate with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) without denying the poor in India (and
Africa) the prospects of a humane existence. With abject poverty
eliminated and electricity and water provided to all, India could join
the mitigation effort by 2040.
At that point, it would ease the future burden of the countries taking
on mitigation obligations in the early decades. The argument that
mitigation is not feasible without participation by India is, thus, a
political one: as a bargaining tactic, the US Congress refuses to
undertake internationally-mandated mitigation obligations unless India
accepts them as well.
Finally, the stock of carbon in the atmosphere in the next two to
three decades would continue to be dominated by the emissions
accumulated over the past century. Therefore, in so far as the impact
of human activity on global warming, rains, floods, sea levels and
hurricanes in the next two to three decades is concerned, the die is
already cast. If India accepts mitigation commitments early on, it
will remain woefully inadequately prepared to face the vagaries of
nature that would visit it even absent any additional GHG emissions.
But if it manages to postpone the commitments until 2040 and stay
course on growth and poverty alleviation, it would be able to provide
significantly improved protection against the adverse natural events
in the early as well as later decades.
With higher incomes, individuals will have better shelters and greater
mobility to protect themselves against heat, rains, floods and
cyclones as also much improved access to health care and medicines.
Likewise, the government will have more resources to assist citizens
against emergencies arising out of various natural disasters. It will
be in a much stronger position to move people away from coastal areas
and build dikes as water levels rise. It will also have more resources
to alleviate water shortages that threaten India in the forthcoming
decades even if mitigation proceeds according to the IPCC
recommendations.
None of this should, of course, distract India from taking measures
that contribute to carbon mitigation without compromising its poverty
alleviation objective. Included among such measures are replacement of
“green” bulbs for conventional ones, fighting urban pollution that
causes breathing diseases, switch to clean energy sources when it is
cost effective, pricing of electricity to reflect scarcity and
reforestation. Even as its aggregate emissions rise to accommodate 9%
to 10% growth over the next three decades, India must endeavour to
replace dirty plants by modern, cleaner ones.
(The author is a professor at Columbia University and non-resident
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution)
Sid Harth
Posted: Tue, Aug 4 2009. 10:17 PM IST
Views
Legalities of climate change
A recent climate change declaration poses significant challenges--and
opportunities--for India
Anuradha R.V.
The Declaration of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
(MEF) signed on 9 July, marks a significant event in the run-up to the
United Nations (UN) climate change conference in Copenhagen in
December. Launched in March this year, MEF comprises 17 developed and
developing economies—Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European
Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico,
Russia, South Africa, the UK and the US. The crux of the MEF
declaration is a clear acknowledgement that the increase in global
average temperatures above pre-industrial levels should not exceed 2
degrees Celsius and that both developed and developing countries need
to work towards this goal. This article seeks to examine the broad
contours of the MEF declaration and the legal niceties that a
developing country such as India would need to bear in mind during the
forthcoming negotiations for a climate deal that would follow the
Kyoto Protocol in 2012.
Image: StockXpert
The declaration begins by reiterating the principle of common but
differentiated responsibility between developed and developing
countries. Its point of departure from existing instruments is its
statement that, while developed countries will “take the lead by
promptly undertaking robust aggregate and individual reductions”,
developing countries also commit to “promptly undertake actions whose
projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from
business as usual in the mid-term”. This articulation of a developing
country responsibility with regard to emissions is a unique aspect of
the declaration. (The current framework under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, and the Kyoto Protocol
mandates emission reductions only from developed countries). The MEF
declaration proceeds to contextualize a developing country’s
responsibility with an emphasis on “sustainable development, supported
by financing, technology and capacity building”. Where it falls short,
however, is in drawing a clear link between the obligation of
developed countries to ensure adherence to these critical factors and
commensurate responsibilities on developing countries.
bademiyansubhanallah
Climate change and development
Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander
The poorest must be at the forefront of our minds as we decide what
sort of deal we want at Copenhagen. Doubly so, because they have done
the least to cause the problem.
With the clock ticking and less than a hundred days to go until
ministers from around the world meet at the U.N. climate change
conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, now is the time for the U.K. and
India to work together to get a climate deal that is fair to the
region’s economy and its people.
We are here in South Asia to hear what climate change means for
millions of people in India and Bangladesh. For this region, the case
for the urgency of tackling climate change is beyond question.
Flooding of the Kosi river over the past two years has driven millions
from their homes in Nepal and Bihar. Cyclones Aila and Nargis have
killed thousands and displaced millions more in Burma, Bangladesh and
West Bengal. Torrential rains have caused terrible landslides across
the Himalayas. And now a weakened monsoon is causing a drought which
threatens hundreds of millions of farmers all over India, Bangladesh
and Nepal. Once again, the number of farmer suicides is increasing.
While none of these natural disasters can be directly attributed to
climate change, scientists predict that they will become more frequent
and more severe unless we act. Alongside the terrible human toll,
these disasters exact an economic cost — with the loss of economic
growth in South Asia from environmental causes equivalent to double
that from the global economic crisis, each and every year.
It is the poorest who are most vulnerable to these natural disasters.
And it is the poorest who are most severely affected by climate
change. They must be at the forefront of our minds as we decide what
sort of deal we want at Copenhagen. Doubly so, because they have done
the least to cause the problem and their voices are rarely heard in
the negotiations or the media. It is their voice we have come to South
Asia to hear. Yet we have also come to listen to those communities,
businesses and Governments around the region who are pioneering
responses to climate change. From sustainable forestry in Nepal, to
flood-resistant crops in Bangladesh, to renewable energy production in
India, there is much to learn. We can also draw encouragement and
optimism that the world is taking the issue more seriously. In July
world leaders, including Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Gordon
Brown, agreed to strive to keep global temperature rise within a 2
degrees threshold, beyond which the risks of dangerous climate change
rise significantly.
As well as coming to listen, we have also come to South Asia to
explain that we recognise the role that developed countries must play
in facing up to our duties to help solve the problem of climate
change. And we are here to work with the Indian and Bangladeshi
governments, to help secure an ambitious, fair and effective deal in
Copenhagen.
Firstly, the U.K. recognises developed countries’ historic
responsibility for climate change. The developed world must lead in
the response and must do more. That means ambitious commitments to
reduce emissions, including from the United States and Europe. The
U.K. has set out plans to reduce its emissions by one third by 2020
compared to 1990 and our Climate Change Act puts our stringent targets
in legislation. We are prepared to go even further as part of a global
deal.
Secondly, developed countries must meet our commitment to provide the
finance and technology to help developing countries address the
challenges of climate change. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently
launched a climate finance initiative which put a global figure of
around $100 billion every year by 2020 to help developing countries
address climate change, including adapting to its impacts. Finance
needs to flow in the context of an ambitious global deal. Thirdly, on
the basis on the basis that action must be lead by developed
countries, we recognise that at this stage, developing countries in
South Asia will not take on national emission reduction targets. But
equally, we know that allied to strong action by developed countries,
we need developing countries to pursue a low carbon development path
if we are to have a hope of tackling the problem of climate change.
That is why it is welcome that India is taking important steps to
increase the use of renewable energy, particularly solar power, to
increase the energy efficiency of its economy and to increase forest
cover. It is demonstrating the carbon savings that can be achieved
through these actions. But it is taking these steps to put its economy
onto a low carbon path because it recognises the benefits for its
energy security and sustainable development. Bangladesh, a very low-
energy consuming country, is pursuing a low-carbon growth path whilst
building its resilience to climate change, reducing the risks climate
change poses to national development.
This is the kind of action which the U.K. stands ready to assist. We
are keen to learn how, as part of a global climate deal, we can help
India and Bangladesh to build on these plans, thereby helping to
tackle together the climate challenge and lift millions more out of
poverty. We are here together because we recognise that whilst we
cannot hope to eliminate poverty in South Asia without facing this
global climate challenge; neither can we hope to achieve a global
climate deal without facing this region’s development challenge. The
decisions made in December at the climate conference will be some of
the most important the world will take for decades and are vital for
the future security and prosperity of South Asia.
We look forward to all countries playing their part in an outcome at
the Copenhagen climate change talks which is good for development and
good for the future sustainability of our planet.
To know more about U.K.’s position at Copenhagen, visit: www.actoncopenhagen.gov.uk
(Ed Miliband is British Minister for Energy and Climate Change.
Douglas Alexander is the Minister for International Development.)
Sid Harth
BJP fumes, Congress steers clear
HT Correspondent
New Delhi, October 19, 2009
First Published: 23:58 IST(19/10/2009)
Last Updated: 00:00 IST(20/10/2009)
Jairam Ramesh’s letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggesting a
"radical change" in India's stated position on climate change drew a
sharp reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Without mincing words, BJP leader Arun Jaitley asked whether the
Environment Minister was a “stalking horse on behalf of a larger
lobby.”
As the Congress steered clear of Ramesh’s letter, Jaitley said the
change in India’s position completely breaks the unity of the
developing countries that form a large group of 131 nations, known as
G-77.
“Is the Environment Minister giving his personal views or is he a
stalking horse on behalf of a larger lobby? If these are his personal
views, can he continue as India’s key negotiator on climate change,”
asked Jaitley, who heads the Opposition in Rajya Sabha.
He said if the minister was a "trial balloon" for a larger lobby, the
issue assumed "greater seriousness.” He said the BJP “expected the
government to clarify” its stand on the issue and India's stated
position at the international fora.
“If India changed its stand on climate change, it would have to pay
the price for pollution caused by developed countries.
If we change our position, it would be UPA's Diwali gift to the US and
other developed countries at the cost of India's poor," he said.
Earlier, Jaitley said, Ramesh had “sabotaged” India’s negotiations by
his comments in an important newspaper when they were going on in
Bangkok.
Asked about Ramesh’s stand, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi
said, "Let us be very clear. The clarification, if any, has to be
given by the honourable minister or the PMO. This is a matter in which
the party did not have consultation. There is no question of
commenting on it."
Sunita Narain, Director for Science and Environment, a NGO, said, “I
don’t understand why Ramesh is willing to change India’s position for
US. They are giving very little for climate change. In fact, US have
been seeking to increase its emissions before reducing it”.
She said Ramesh’s agreement to accept Australia’s proposal for new
protocol on climate change was dangerous.
Sid Harth
Climate change: Minister is all for shift, not surrender
Chetan Chauhan , Hindustan Times
New Delhi, October 20, 2009
First Published: 00:52 IST(20/10/2009)
Last Updated: 01:04 IST(20/10/2009)
Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has denied suggesting a
radical shift in India’s position on climate change, but he does
advocate taking a more nuanced position.
“There is no question of India agreeing to emission cuts targets or
junking the Kyoto Protocol,” Ramesh, told Hindustan Times, after a
meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “We want emission cut
targets only for the developed world, not for developing nations.”
However, in a note to the PM, Ramesh has suggested that India be
willing to talk about commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, provided
developed countries give the funds and technology required.
The note also suggests a domestic law on climate change management,
which has emission mitigation targets for efficiency in energy sector
and non-fossil based energy supply by 2020/2030. The proposed law,
which the environment ministry wants to introduce in the winter
session of Parliament, will quantify India’s emission reduction
targets for the first time.
“The question of subjecting what we do to reduce our emissions from
our own resources will not be open for international scrutiny. The
information will be available for discussion, not verification,” he
said.
In the note, Ramesh said India must maintain flexibility in
negotiations and be seen as “pragmatic and constructive” and not
“argumentative and polemical” so that the country is not treated with
disfavour or resented as that could affect India’s aspiration to be
permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Sid Harth
Climate stand: jairam for nuanced shift
Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, October 20, 2009
First Published: 00:52 IST(20/10/2009)
Last Updated: 00:54 IST(20/10/2009)
Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh has denied suggesting a
radical shift in India’s position on climate change, but he does
advocate taking a more nuanced position.
“There is no question of India agreeing to emission cuts targets or
junking the Kyoto Protocol,” Ramesh, told HT, after a meeting with
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “We want emission cut targets only for
the developed world, not for developing nations.”
However, Ramesh has suggested that India be willing to talk about
commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, provided developed countries
give the funds and technology required to achieve this.
It also suggests a law on climate change management, which has
emission mitigation targets for efficiency in energy sector and non-
fossil based energy supply by 2020/2030.
...and I am Sid Harth
Sid Harth
Should India agree to reduce carbon emissions?
By: Reuters Staff
15:38 October 20th, 2009
The Indian government has reiterated its refusal to reduce carbon
emissions under any new global deal to fight climate change.
The Times of India reported this week that Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to accept
curbs on India’s rising carbon emissions without insisting they should
hinge on new finance and technology from rich nations.
While such a possibility was seen by Western negotiators as
potentially helping in getting agreement on a global deal in
Copenhagen in December, Ramesh was accused in the Indian media and by
opposition political parties of hurting the interests of India.
But Ramesh said on Tuesday India was not going to accept
internationally legally binding emission reduction targets, though it
was prepared to discuss and make public periodically the status of its
domestic climate action.
Should India agree to reduce carbon emissions under a global deal to
fight climate change? Or should it ask rich nations to fulfil their
commitment to give developing countries finance and technology to
fight climate change?
2 comments so far
October 21st, 2009 12:17 pm GMT - Posted by madman
Do we see a pattern emerging? This PMO is indulging in a lot of kite
flying. A minister’s note to the PM is leaked to the press… the media
is all over it… the Congress party distances itself… the minister is
forced to issue a clarification.
October 21st, 2009 2:05 pm GMT - Posted by Neha
I don’t think India should succumnb to the pressures of America. They
should do something themselves and only then turn to other nations.
They cannot act as dictators.
bademiyansubhanallah
India, China close ranks on climate fight
Posted On Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Agencies
New Delhi, Oct 21:
India and China Wednesday signed an agreement to cooperate on ways to
fight climate change. They will also continue to work together in
international climate deal negotiations.
There is virtually no difference between Indian and Chinese
"negotiating positions" on international climate treaties, India's
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said here shortly before the
agreement was signed.
Xie Zhenhua, China's environment minister, nodded from the dais as
Ramesh made the statement.
The agreement is significant in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate
summit, with developed and developing countries at odds over who
should reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing climate
change.
Ramesh said he would hold more discussions with Xie to see "what India
and China should do to ensure a successful outcome at Copenhagen that
not only protects the environment but promotes the interests of
developing countries". India and China have been in the same bloc as
the Group of 77 countries in climate negotiations. Ramesh's comments,
immediately ratified by Xie, set at rest recent speculation that India
may want to move out of this grouping.
The agreement is specifically meant to intensify collaboration in
areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean energy
technologies, transportation, sustainable agriculture and
afforestation. The agreement also aims to enhance cooperation in
evaluation of adverse impacts of climate change.
Indian and Chinese climate scientists will carry out joint research
and development, the agreement says.
chhotemianinshallah
Manmohan Singh says developed nations must cut emissions to tolerable
levels
By ANI
October 22nd, 2009
NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that if
developed countries make a serious effort to bring their per capita
emissions within tolerable levels, they will unleash large resources
directed towards research.
Inaugurating a conference on climate change here, Dr Singh said, “We
stand committed that our per capita carbon emissions will never exceed
the average of the per capita carbon emissions of developed countries.
“Developing countries cannot and will not compromise on development.
But as responsible members of the global community we also do
recognise that we, along with other members of the global community,
must do our bit to keep our emissions footprint within levels that are
sustainable and equitable,” he added.
“Equating GHG emissions across nations on a per capita basis is the
only just and fair basis for a long-term global arrangement on climate
change,” he added.
He said the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
should play a leading role in directing effective and collaborative
actions in this vital area.
He said India’s development path has been relatively benign from the
climate change perspective thus far.
“Our per capita consumption of primary energy is less than one-fourth
of the world average and our per capita emission of CO2 is among the
lowest in the world. Moreover, the energy intensity of our output has
been continuously declining in the last 30 years,” he added.
He also pointed out that the approach has been adopted successfully in
the case of pharmaceutical technologies for the benefit of HIV/AIDS
victims in developing countries.
“The moral case of a similar approach for protecting our planet and
its life support system is equally compelling,” he added. (ANI)
chhotemianinshallah
Maldives president discusses climate change with Manmohan Singh
By Indo Asian News Service | 22 October 2009 | 1:47pm
New Delhi, Oct 22 (IANS) Days after he made a splash by holding an
underwater cabinet meeting to highlight perils of climate change,
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed held talks with Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh Thursday to seek India's support for a common position
on global warming.
Manmohan Singh held talks with Nasheed, the youngest leader to head
the Indian Ocean atoll island that faces an existential threat from
global warming, on a wide range of bilateral and global issues at his
7 Race Course Road residence.
The two leaders discussed possibilities of evolving a common regional
approach on climate change and also touched on the global economic
downturn that has impacted tourism-driven Maldivian economy adversely,
sources said.
Member-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) had agreed Tuesday to make a separate statement as a group at
the Copenhagen meet on climate change in December.
Nasheed was the guest of honour at the inaugural session of the Delhi
High Level Conference on Climate Change and Technology Transfer that
began here Thursday morning.
Making an impassioned speech at the inaugural session, he said that
for the Maldives climate change was 'not an abstract irritation but a
clear and present danger'.
Pointing out that holding global warming to two degrees Celsius -- as
promised by the G20 earlier this year -- was not good enough for his
country, Nasheed said: 'We don't want to trade our paradise for a
climate refugee camp'.
Nasheed arrived on a five-day state visit Wednesday, his second visit
to India after he dislodged Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Maldives' ruler for
three decades, in landmark elections late last year.
Nasheed will also interact with business leaders of India and seek
greater investment in the Maldivian economy which is said to be
recovering fast from the downturn. India has identified tourism,
fisheries, infrastructure and marine transport as key areas of
cooperation with the Indian Ocean island nation.
The Maldives, located southwest of Sri Lanka, is one of the world's
lowest lying island groups that face the prospect of extinction from
sea level rise triggered by global warming.
In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned
that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100 would be
enough to make the country practically uninhabitable.
Copyright Indo-Asian News Service
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Sid Harth
Climate change bigger challenge than terrorism: Nasheed
STAFF WRITER 17:26 HRS IST
New Delhi, Oct 23 (PTI) With global warming threatening to render an
estimated 300,000 people refugees every year, climate change is a far
bigger challenge than international terrorism, Maldives President
Mohamed Nasheed said today.
"Climate change is going to affect a large number of people through
flash floods, diseases and massive human displacement due to sea
(level) rise, besides creating food scarcity," he said at a talk on
'Environment and Conflict Resolution' here.
Nasheed, while pointing out that Maldives and other small islands have
already started feeling the heat of global warming, called upon the
global community to take urgent and immediate steps to arrest the
menace.
"It is important to defend the Maldives which is on the front line of
climate change. If it can happen today to our nation, tomorrow it can
happen with you as well," he said appealing for immediate flow of
funds for mitigation measures.
bademiyansubhanallah
Climate change roils India’s agri, threatens livelihood of 670 mn
Zia Haq and Gaurav Choudhury, Hindustan Times
New Delh, October 23, 2009
First Published: 22:00 IST(23/10/2009)
Last Updated: 01:54 IST(24/10/2009)
Over the last 48 hours, India’s ruling combine had two reasons for
euphoria: electoral triumphs in three states and the announcement that
the economy will grow by 6.5 per cent this year.
But a footnote in the economic data has revealed how the euphoria must
be put aside immediately, as climate change poses the next big
political challenge for the Congress party.
A season of withering drought and damaging rainstorms is predicted to
cut India’s agricultural output by 2 per cent, despite a 400 per cent
rise in rural spending on jobs and infrastructure by the government
since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took office in 2004.
With climate-change models predicting harsher droughts, storms and
floods across India as the earth warms, rescuing the livelihoods of
670 million Indians who survive on farming is an immediate and long-
term economic and political challenge, a range of experts told the
Hindustan Times. * India will produce 11 million tonnes less foodgrain
during 2009-2010 than the previous year.
* Inflation in food prices is up 14.13 per cent between March and
October this year
* Since March this year, vegetable prices have shot up 58 per cent
“Despite fiscal and monetary stimulus packages, there are strong risks
emanating from poor monsoons that could delay the recovery in the
economy,” said N.R. Bhanumurthy, professor at the National Institute
of Public Finance and Policy, a Delhi think-tank.
Scientists predict a best-worst-case global temperature rise anywhere
from 1.1 to 6.4 deg C. But even a half-degree rise in India — the
world’s second-largest wheat producer — will reduce wheat yield by a
fourth.
“The situation will be substantially worse by 2050, marked by higher
temperatures that will certainly affect India’s wheat yield,” said
Gerald C. Nelson, a senior scientist, who led a study completed last
month by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in
Washington D.C. Nelson said it was “crucial” for rural incomes to keep
going up because people with better incomes were more resilient to
climate change impacts.
This year, the UPA government has a Rs 40,000 crore budget for its
flagship job scheme against rural poverty, but it will spend 1/40th of
that on expanding irrigation facilities. The IFPRI study was based on
two models evolved in the US and Australia and released in September.
They differ on the intensity of rainfall but what they agree on is in
line with earlier predictions on the monsoon: India will have stronger
droughts and get more rain. But the rain will also come in damaging
storms, as Andhra witnessed last month.
About half of India’s farms depend on rains. India has built small and
big dams that can irrigate 58.74 million hectares, about 50 per cent
of the farmed area.
Instead, thanks to unfinished canals and other infrastructure,
irrigation facilities — they cost Rs 1,42,269 crore over the last 15
years — actually reaches only 40 per cent of farmland.
India requires $272 billion (Rs 12,78,400 crore) over the next nine
years to expand its irrigation network, according to a September 2009
Goldman Sachs report. This is nine times India’s defence budget for
2009-10, “We have to get stability from better irrigation and water
management,” said Surinder Singh, farm adviser to the Planning
Commission.
The share of agriculture and allied activities in India’s gross
domestic product has declined over the years to 17.5 per cent. But a
good harvest stabilises food prices, assures a livelihood for 55 per
cent of the labour force and shores up the broader economy.
Historically, every drought year has dampened India’s overall economy.
In many sectors, such as automobiles, rural buyers account for close
to 40 per cent of total sales. This is also true of televisions and
other consumer durables, which grew 22.3 per cent in August this year,
the highest in more than five years.
chhotemianinshallah
Japan Calls on India to Make Climate Commitment
By REUTERS
Published: October 24, 2009
Filed at 6:07 a.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph HUA HIN, Thailand (Reuters) - Japanese Prime
Minister Yukio Hatoyama called on his Indian counterpart on Saturday
to make an international commitment on climate change, saying it was
vital for a U.N. deal due in Copenhagen in December.
Hatoyama, who took office last month after a landslide election
victory, has pledged Japan -- the world's fifth biggest emitter of
greenhouse gases -- will cut emissions 25 percent by 2020 and hopes
emerging nations like China and India will also sign up to an
ambitious global deal.
"India's commitment is indispensable for the success of Copenhagen and
I hope it will make an international commitment based on their steps
taken domestically," Hatoyama told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, according to a Japanese government official.
The two leaders held a bilateral meeting on the sideline of a series
of summit meetings among Asian leaders in the Thai seaside town of Hua
Hin.
Disputes over 2020 emissions cuts by developed nations and the amounts
of cash to help developing nations combat global warming are among the
main sticking points in sluggish U.N. talks meant to end in Denmark on
December 18 with a new treaty.
Developing nations led by China and India say the rich need to make
cuts averaging at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid
the worst of climate change.
Singh welcomed Hatoyama's climate change initiative and said India as
a responsible member of the international community would contribute
to the global efforts on climate change and seek a low-carbon society,
the Japanese official told reporters.
But Singh stopped short of making a climate change commitment and
noted that India's emission is only 4 percent of the total global
emission, the Japanese official said.
POVERTY & DEVELOPMENT CONSIDERATIONS
India's foreign affairs ministry said Singh insisted that the solution
must be based "on the principles of equity and the overriding
imperative of economic development and poverty reduction."
A statement carried on the ministry's website reiterated India's
intention to keep its per capita greenhouse gas emissions lower than
the global average.
The Japanese official said Singh had also asked for Japan's assistance
on a more efficient use of energy, renewable energy technology and
nuclear power generation.
Hatoyama was cautious on the notion of supporting India's nuclear
power generation technology, saying Japan as the only country that has
suffered nuclear attacks would need to consider various factors before
looking into providing assistance.
On nuclear disarmament, Singh told Hatoyama that India wanted to work
with countries that share the same view on seeking a nuclear-free
world, noting that his country has been exercising its moratorium on
nuclear testing, the official said.
Hatoyama, in return, expressed strong hope that India will quickly
sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would
outlaw all nuclear tests, as a step to an ambitious goal of creating a
world free of nuclear weapons.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Sid Harth
UPA govt colluding with US, charges CPM
26 Oct 2009, 0452 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: CPM has charged the Manmohan Singh government of colluding
with the United States in order “to dilute the Copenhagen outcome.”
This claim comes on the heels of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
public reiteration of India’s commitment to the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan,
similar reiteration by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and
clarifications by environment minister Jairam Ramesh.
The CPM Central Committee resolution on climate change has alleged
that the government was not seriously countering efforts of the US to
undermine the Kyoto Protocol. “There are clear signs that India is
tacitly going along with US efforts to dilute the Copenhagen outcome
by emphasising general goals, some unequal technology collaborations
and postponing if not abandoning the requisite stiff emission
reduction targets for developed countries. The overall trend is
towards India collaborating with the US as part of an overall Indo-US
strategic partnership,” the resolution states.
The Left has called on the government to resist pressure from the
developed countries to abandon the Kyoto Protocol and UNFCCC, which is
based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities
for developed and developing countries. According to the Convention
and the Kyoto Protocol, only developed countries are required to take
on legally-binding emission reduction targets. Developing countries
are to take on national actions according to their development needs
and abilities.
It said that India should along with the G-77 and China continue to
demand fund and technology transfers from developed to developing
countries as compensation for damage caused by historical emissions,
and freeing of technology transfers from IPR restrictions
CPM has suggested that India take up and announce measures for control
and reduction of emission rates not unilaterally but only conditional
upon the US and other Annex-1 countries undertaking the deep emission
cuts.
chhotemianinshallah
Posted: Wed, Oct 28 2009. 11:56 PM IST
Economy and Politics
NGOs differ over India’s stance on climate change policy
India is against any mandatory cuts in emissions without financial and
technological commitments from industrialised countries
Padmaparna Ghosh
New Delhi: A clutch of non-governmental organizations on Wednesday
petitioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India’s climate policy
must be based on the developmental needs of its people.
The 43 organizations said the country’s negotiating stance should
remain unchanged, irrespective of steps to mitigate and adapt to
climate change and regardless of finance and technology from rich
countries.
India is against any mandatory cuts in emissions without financial and
technological commitments from industrialised countries.
But not all environmental groups and civil society organizations are
on the same page. In a clear difference of opinion, none of the main
international environmental pressure groups such as the WWF,
Greenpeace or Oxfam have signed the petition.
Experts said that the divide is symptomatic of how the issue is
viewed.
“Some environmental groups forget the global picture. The divide is
there because of a misunderstanding that climate change is only about
the environment,” said T. Jayaraman, professor at the Centre for
Science, Technology and Development, Tata Institute of Social
Sciences, Mumbai, which is a signatory to the petition. “But the
reality is that climate change issue has a strong economic aspect,
which is driven in a big part by the domestic economy.”
The petition draws a line between voluntary actions in India’s own
interest and what it might be forced to do under global pressure.
“It is not in India’s favour to take any commitment right now,” said
Raman Mehta, senior manager, policy, ActionAid India. “We have no
problem with flexibility, or action under the UN but taking action
doesn’t mean change in stance, especially when it is becoming very
clear that the biggest polluter, the US, is not going to come to the
table with any concrete number on finance or technology.”
Akin to hectic global negotiations, positions taken by the NGOs boil
down to whether the battle is to save the planet or a war over
resources.
The NGOs that did not sign on the petition said that it didn’t seem
necessary now, as Singh has already clarified that India has not
changed its stand.
But another reason for the disagreement over the petition is the
demand that markets should not play any role in mitigating the effects
of greenhouse gas emission.
“The truth is you do need some market mechanisms,” said Shirish Sinha,
head of climate change and energy programme at WWF. “Our stand is that
about 10-20% of the total mitigation from developed nations could be
from offsets.”
Offsets are generated by projects in developing nations, which reduce
carbon emissions. The reductions are then bought by rich countries for
their emission-reduction targets.
K. Srinivas, climate policy consultant with Greenpeace International,
said that one third of the mitigation from richer countries could be
from offsets.
chhotemianinshallah
Left, BJP join hands to pressure govt on climate
Nitin Sethi, TNN 29 October 2009, 02:46am IST
NEW DELHI: The political cost of a shift on climate change
negotiations increased for the UPA government with the Left, BJP and
the green lobby standing on common ground to oppose any political
drift before the crucial Copenhagen climate talks in December.
While the RSS voiced its opposition to any dilution of India's stand
in its mouthpiece `Organiser', CPM took out a resolution warning the
government against bending to accommodate the US on the issue.
A group of key green groups have also written a strong letter to the
PM warning, "Civil society in India would oppose any moves to change
India's negotiating position in the direction being suggested by the
minister of environment and forests."
The flurry of political action also marked a leap for environment as a
subject on the political sphere.
CPM, in its resolution, said, "India should firmly resist pressure
from the US and other advanced countries to abandon the Kyoto Protocol
and UNFCCC framework and stick to the principle of common but
differentiated responsibility."
Indicating that the UPA government's proposal to move a law on
greenhouse gas emission reduction in the winter session of Parliament
may not see smooth sailing, CPM warned, "India should take up and
announce measures for control and reduction of growth rates of
emissions not unilaterally but only conditional upon the US and other
advanced countries undertaking the deep emission cuts as called for by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
The RSS said in Organiser's latest edition, "The developing countries
led by India till have held their position in trying to make the rich
nations accept responsibility for the poison they spew. By suggesting
that India should change its stand on Kyoto Protocol... the minister
has attempted to break the spirit of the developing nations."
The missive from a chunk of green and development NGOs, including
Action Aid, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and grassroot
organisations, to the PM also echoed the political consensus emerging
from the Opposition benches. However, observers pointed out that some
important NGOs had kept off the list, clearly showing that divisions
still existed in the green brigade.
Sunita Narain, director of Centre for Science and Environment and
member of the PM's Council on Climate Change, said, "We want an
effective climate deal at Copenhagen, not a bad deal or a cop out.
India is asking for its right to development, not the right to
pollute."
With environmental issues ratcheting up on the political scene ahead
of the Copenhagen meet, the UPA government will find it tough to make
concessions without seeking trade-offs at the negotiations, observers
noted.
chhotemianinshallah
COLUMN
Climate & credibility
PRAFUL BIDWAI
India’s climate policy swing from a do-nothing hard line to tailing
the U.S. will damage the chances of a worthy deal and hurt the poor
everywhere.
CHAIWAT SUBPRASOM/REUTERS
A demonstration outside the U.N. building in Bangkok on October 5. The
Bangkok talks exposed the ugly underbelly of the global power system.
WHEN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets President Barack Obama at the
White House to discuss climate change, among other things, he will
face the full onslaught of the brand of diplomacy that the United
States specialises in: intense pressure, backed by hardball tactics
and gentle arm-twisting (if that is possible), and some cajolement and
promise of rewards for joining hands with Washington.
Manmohan Singh will not find it easy to cope with the pressure, for
three reasons. First, India’s own stand on what constitutes a good and
desirable global climate deal that succeeds the Kyoto Protocol seems
confused, divided and contradictory. The recent storm caused by
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s letter to Manmohan Singh
proposing a sharp break with the G-77 southern countries’ grouping and
a wholesale shift towards the U.S. has seemingly blown over, but not
without damaging India’s credibility and exposing deep fissures in its
climate policymaking.
Second, there is such a yawning gap between what India demands of the
developed North (both on its own, and as part of the G-77+China bloc)
and what the U.S. is prepared to concede, that genuine reconciliation
seems near impossible. The bloc wants the northern countries (called
Annex 1 under Kyoto) to reduce their 1990-level greenhouse gas
emissions by 40 per cent by 2020. Climate science tells us that such
large cuts are essential if the world is to cap atmospheric GHG
(greenhouse gas) concentrations under 450 parts per million (ppm) of
carbon dioxide-equivalent and limit global warming to under 2°Celsius
over pre-industrial levels, thus preventing catastrophic climate
change.
The U.S. is extremely reluctant to go beyond a miserly 4 to 7 per cent
cut. Going by the domestic U.S. mood, anything more ambitious is
unlikely to go through the Senate. The hiatus cannot be bridged
through a compromise over numbers. Reconciliation may involve an
altogether different compromise, with totally asymmetrical
obligations.
Third, Manmohan Singh is so heavily invested in building a strategic
partnership with the U.S. that he will find it hard to reject outright
any U.S. insistence that the two countries coordinate their stand on a
global agreement within the ambit of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Only last year, Manmohan Singh
staked the very survival of his government on the India-U.S. nuclear
deal. It survived only because the Samajwadi Party opportunistically
changed sides. He also sacrificed the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline. To please the U.S., India has also signalled a softening of
its stand in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Round. It has
indicated its willingness to buy high-end military equipment from the
U.S.
A close, special, intimate relationship with the U.S. is pivotal to
Manmohan Singh’s foreign policy framework. He is better known as a
pragmatic economic administrator who bows to reality than as a fighter
for convictions. He has taken an unusually firm stand on only two
issues in his public career: neoliberal economic policies, and a
foreign/security policy orientation that decisively breaks with the
legacy of non-alignment.
Jairam Ramesh’s maladroit intervention through a letter, which nearly
triggered the resignation of one of India’s climate negotiators, must
be seen in the dual context of this foreign policy orientation, and
pressure from the North, led by the U.S., to reshape the climate
negotiations, and minimise the obligations of the Annex 1 countries,
which ought to reduce their emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, and 95
per cent by 2050 over 1990 levels.
The climate negotiations have followed a tortuous, mean and downhill
course since the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Bali, Indonesia, followed by Poznan (Poland 2008). Subsequent inter-
sessional talks showed the North’s leading powers in the worst
possible light – obsessively short-sighted, mulishly resistant to
accepting their responsibility, persistently adversarial towards the
South, and inclined to use the dirtiest tricks in the book, from
bribing to threats to outright bullying, to push for a manifestly
unfair climate deal.
E.U. BACKS U.S.
The Bangkok talks (September 28-October 9) exposed the ugly underbelly
of the global power system. There, the European Union – the good boy
in the climate cast, which has made unilateral reductions commitments
– joined the U.S. in assailing the UNFCCC and Kyoto and demanding an
altogether new agreement that would abolish the distinction between
the industrially developed and developing countries and bury the
principle of differentiation in their responsibility to combat climate
change. This was a rude surprise to many southern negotiators because
the larger developing countries had put their best foot forward by
adopting cooperative deal-making postures and declaring their
willingness to undertake significant voluntary commitments.
The aim of the North’s crude, morally reprehensible and reckless
attack on the Kyoto Protocol was twofold: mount pressure on the
South’s bigger economies to reduce emissions and push for a weak
global climate regime, which would enable the North to evade its
obligations. So ferocious was the northern attack on Kyoto that even
the most radical of civil society organisations, which have been
unrelentingly critical of the Protocol’s flaws, were forced to defend
it, holding their nose, as it were.
The threat to the edifice of the UNFCCC and associated arrangements
united the G-77+China. But it left them shaken and demoralised. Norway
brought some relief when it offered to reduce its emissions by a
handsome 40 per cent by 2020 (although this would be conditional upon
an ambitious Copenhagen agreement and on offsets trading). But the
relief was minor. Particularly reprehensible was the role of the U.S.,
which had kept out of the Kyoto Protocol for all the wrong reasons.
The U.S. appears bent on working for a weak climate deal that only
mandates incremental changes in the north’s emissions obligations
while extracting substantial commitments from fast-growing Southern
economies – to reduce the energy intensity of their gross domestic
product, or GDP, (China and India) and rates of deforestation (Brazil
and Indonesia). The U.S. also wants to prolong the UNFCCC process by
stressing technical measurement and monitoring issues as part of the
Bali requirement of MRV – measurable, reportable and verifiable
voluntary mitigation actions. This parallels the U.S.’ past insistence
on verification in various arms-control negotiations, including the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaties, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Chemical Weapons
Convention.
Some U.S. policymakers and -shapers would like the climate
negotiations to be transformed into a framework-type process like the
WTO negotiations. This will prevent a single, unified, comprehensive
climate treaty that could yield immediate results in the post-2012
period. Rather, the emphasis would be on a prolonged process of talks,
discrete agreements, and complex monitoring and verification
arrangements.
GLOBAL EMISSIONS UP
The U.S.-led northern attack on the Kyoto Protocol poses a conundrum.
On the one hand, the Protocol has failed to deliver what it promised
on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Global emissions have
increased almost three times since the 1990s. Only three of the
European Union’s significant economies, Germany, Britain and Sweden,
are likely to meet even the modest targets set by Kyoto. Britain has
“achieved” its target by excluding transportation-related emissions
from accounting, buying cheap carbon credits abroad, importing (rather
than making) emissions-intensive goods. Canada will soon exceed its
target by 30 per cent. The general record of compliance with Kyoto is
appalling.
However, Kyoto has a rational kernel. That lies in its acknowledgement
of North-South iniquities and the North’s historical responsibility
for GHG emissions and bringing the world to the present pass. Thus,
Kyoto imposes quantifiable obligations on the Annex 1 countries, but
exempts the South. It is precisely this kernel the U.S. wants to
undermine. Its proposal for an undifferentiated framework for
mitigative actions by major economies from both North and South is an
attempt to obliterate the North’s responsibility and its vastly
greater obligation to support the decarbonisation of the global
economy.
India must defend Kyoto’s rational kernel, consolidate the G-77+China
bloc, and staunchly resist U.S. pressure for a new climate agreement
that dispenses with the principle of “common but differentiated
responsibilities”. Capitulating to Washington’s pressure or
inducements on the pretext of “bringing the U.S. into the mainstream”,
as Jairam Ramesh put it, would mean colluding with it to produce a
bad, ineffectual deal that imposes meagre emissions reduction
obligations on the North, with weak compliance clauses and no
penalties – an agreement that is guaranteed to aggravate the climate
crisis.
The poor, especially in the South, are the worst victims of climate
change. India’s poor are particularly vulnerable to it. From this
perspective, not having a deal would be preferable to a bad deal that
locks the globe into a high emissions trajectory. The best, or least
harmful, outcome in such a situation would be a broad, principles-
based political agreement at Copenhagen, which respects
differentiation and commits all states to conduct negotiations in good
faith to stabilise GHG concentrations at 350-450 ppm.
CREDIBILITY PROBLEM
However, India faces a major credibility problem. Until September, it
adopted a rigid and negative stance, which refused even voluntary, non-
binding commitments to reduce emissions – although it is the world’s
fourth largest emitter, spewing out warming gases at a rate that is
twice the global average. This turned a blind eye to India’s moral and
environmental obligation as a fast-growing advanced southern economy,
along with China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.
The climate cannot be stabilised with the North’s efforts alone. The
South’s bigger economies will have to join in soon, in 10 or 15 years’
time – with voluntary cuts, to start with. The Indian offer to link
its per capita emissions to those of the North is paltry and
inadequate.
As has been repeatedly argued in this Column, it is tantamount to
hiding behind the poor, while continuing with an elitist high-
emissions growth trajectory that allows upper middle class “luxury”
consumption to rise. This is as reprehensible as the U.S.’ attempt to
hide behind China’s and India’s rich to evade its own obligations.
India is also guilty of climate change denial in respect of the
melting of the Himalayan glaciers. It is a scientifically settled and
established fact that the glaciers are melting at unprecedentedly high
rates, so high that most will vanish in 30 years’ time. The causes of
the phenomenon, confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), and by independent scientists all over the world
including India, lie in the warming of the mountains to levels two to
four times higher than the average global rise in temperatures, and
the short-term effect of Black Carbon, consisting of soot and other
products of imperfect combustion of coal and biomass (firewood, twigs,
vegetable refuse and crop residues) widely used in India as cooking
fuel in extremely inefficient stoves. Black Carbon, as researchers
such as V. Ramanathan argue, is probably responsible for one-half of
the glacier-melting and recession observed in the Himalayas.
However, the government has adopted an agnostic position on the
glacier melting issue and downgraded the National Mission for
Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem under the National Action Plan on
Climate Change (NAPCC) into a data-gathering and research project
rather than one focussed on urgently needed remedies including a mass-
scale switch to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves with an
efficiency of 60 per cent (compared with 2 per cent for traditional
stoves).
India’s response to climate change has been paltry, half-hearted and
directed at preserving existing elite lifestyles. The NAPCC was
hastily drafted, without consultation with independent experts and
civil society organisations, and without proper strategies, measurable
targets, budgets and timelines for the eight National Missions under
it. Only three of the eight Mission Documents have reached any stage
of maturity and been discussed in the Prime Minister’s Council on
Climate Change, which has approved “in principle” the National Solar
Mission and the Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency.
India has to do far more, and better, if it is serious about
containing climate change – for its own people’s sake, independently
of the global negotiations process. There is a broad agenda for urgent
domestic measures, some of which may be externally supported, but all
of which are needed. They include rational energy planning; reform of
energy generation (the biggest source of emissions in India); across-
the-board energy efficiency improvement; reorganisation of the
transport sector through promotion of public transport; low-energy
housing construction; reform of agriculture to promote sturdy drought-
resistant and low water- and energy-intensive crops; reorganisation of
the water sector; reforestation and sustainable forestry; and good
waste management.
Many measures involve low or no costs and a payback period as short as
four months – for instance, a switch from incandescent to compact
fluorescent lamps or improvement in the efficiency of motors used in
countless industries. Prayas Energy Group estimates that energy-
efficient lights, fans, television sets and other domestic and
commercial appliances could save an astounding 70,000 million units of
power – equivalent to the installation of 20,000 megawatt of
additional generation capacity. This is more than twice the new
capacity installed in the past three years.
India must quickly start picking such low-hanging fruit even as it
drafts thoughtful medium- and long-range mitigation and adaptation
plans. That would be the best way of regaining credibility and
rebuilding a measure of North-South trust, which is necessary to drive
the climate negotiations to a worthy conclusion.
Sid Harth
Frayed Tempers in the time of Climate Change
Arati R Jerath
Sunday, November 1, 2009 0:47 IST Email
Calling Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in the dogfight
that's broken out between environment minister Jairam Ramesh and the
country's climate change negotiators. The negotiators are up in arms
because of the way Ramesh has been embarrassing them with off-the-cuff
proposals for a change in India's position on the international
climate change debate.
At two recent conferences, one in Bangkok and the other in London, the
negotiators faced a barrage of awkward questions from their
counterparts who wanted to know why the government of India was
working at cross-purposes. American climate change envoy Jonathan
Pershing buttonholed senior negotiator Chandrashekhar Dasgupta at the
plenary session itself, in front of all the other delegates.
The Chinese negotiator Yu Qingtai was more discreet but scathing. He
dripped sarcasm during a brief encounter with the PM's special envoy
Shyam Saran in London. It's being said that Ramesh is fighting a turf
battle with the PMO to bring the ongoing climate change negotiations
under his ministry. Never mind if it vitiates India's position and
makes us look like a divided house at a time when we should be closing
ranks for the difficult last lap in Copenhagen.
* * *
It was kiss and make-up time on the way to Srinagar in Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's special aircraft last week. The one hour plus flight
brought Sonia Gandhi and her mercurial Trinamool partner Mamata
Banerjee face-to-face after several weeks of distance, giving them an
opportunity to clear recent differences that were threatening to
destabilise their alliance.
The government's honeymoon with West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya topped Mamata's list of grievances and she spoke her mind
freely. She reminded Sonia that she hasn't embarrassed the Congress or
the government on price rise, sugar imports and other sensitive
issues.
So why were they ruffling her feathers by playing footsie with
Buddhadeb? She seemed particularly peeved with home minister P
Chidambaram and his recent pronouncements on Maoist activity in
Bengal. Why so pro-Buddhadeb and anti-Mamata, she wanted to know? Her
complaints had the effect she desired. Since the Srinagar sojourn, the
Congress has gone out of its way to placate Mamata. Spokesman
Abhishek Singhvi addressed a press conference specifically to clear
the air that the Trinamool Congress is in no way linked to the
Maoists. And look at the change that's come over Chidambaram. He too
has gone soft on Mamata and lashed out at the CPI(M) at his monthly
press conference on Friday.
* * *
The government has taken heart from Chinese prime minister Wen
Jiabao's silence when Manmohan Singh discussed the Dalai Lama with him
at the ASEAN summit last week. The two prime ministers were seated
next to each other at the state banquet and Singh siezed the moment to
raise the issue. Although there was no specific talk about the Dalai
Lama's forthcoming trip to Arunachal Pradesh, to which the Chinese
have objected in strong terms, Wen read the subtext of Singh's
formulation. Surprisingly, he kept mum and his silence has been read
here as a signal that while China will make its usual protests when
the Dalai Lama goes to Arunachal, it will notpress the issue beyond a
point. Interestingly, the official announcement of the visit came only
after this little exchange. Obviously, both sides have decided that
the war will be limited to words only.
* * *
Tailpiece
A disgruntled member of the anti-Advani camp was overheard grumbling
during a recent discussion on cricket: our umpire has declared him out
but he's refusing to leave the field!
bademiyansubhanallah
Sweden to seek India's support on climate change
2009-11-04 20:30:00
Leaders of India and Sweden will hold wide-ranging talks Thursday that
will focus on evolving a consensus on a new global climate deal and
promoting civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt arrives here Thursday morning
on a three-day visit to attend the 10th summit between India and the
27-nation European Union (EU) to be held Friday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will hold talks with the Swedish premier
on a range of bilateral and global issues, including the global
financial crisis, climate change, economic ties and ways to deepen
cooperation between the two countries in the field of nuclear energy
and non-renewable energy.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, Commerce Minister Anand
Sharma, Minister for Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah and Prime
Minister's envoy on climate change and nuclear issues Shyam Saran will
be present at the delegation-level discussions.
Reinfeldt, also chairman of the Swedish presidency of the EU, is
expected to seek India's support and enunciate the EU's position on
climate change in his speech at The Energy and Research Institute
(TERI).
Manmohan Singh will host a lunch for the visiting dignitary.
This is the first visit to India by the Swedish prime minister in the
last five years.
With the clock ticking away for the UN climate change summit at
Copenhagen next month, Reinfeldt, also the chairman of the rotating
presidency of the EU, will seek India's support for a new global deal
that is mired in differences among developed and developed countries
over the costs of mitigation and emission targets.
The EU summit last week agreed that rich countries should give
developing nations up to 50 billion euros a year by 2020 to help them
combat climate change, but did not specify how much it was willing to
contribute. This position has not gone down well with India, which has
advocated common and differentiated responsibilities and wants deeper
carbon emission cuts by developed countries.
Expanded cooperation in the area of renewable energy will figure
prominently in the discussions.
Sweden, a member of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, is keen to
offer New Delhi its niche expertise in nuclear waste management and
security. This issue will also come up for discussions, sources said.
A delegation of Swedish companies operating in the area of nuclear
technology and safety management came to India this April on an
exploratory trip. They held talks with officials of the Nuclear Power
Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and also met India's nuclear
pointsman Anil Kakodkar, chief of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Trade and economic ties have nearly multiplied five times in the last
eight years to around $2 billion. Sweden is the 12th largest investor
in India.
bademiyansubhanallah
India warns on trade approach to climate
By James Lamont in Delhi
Published: November 6 2009 01:12 |
Last updated: November 6 2009 01:12
United Nations-led negotiations on climate change are making the same
mistakes as global trade talks that ran aground at the World Trade
Organisation last year, a senior adviser to India’s prime minister has
warned.
Nitin Desai, a member of Manmohan Singh’s council on climate change
and a former top UN official, said a hard-nosed concession-based
negotiation to reach a global consensus on how to combat global
warming would likely founder. He urged political leaders to focus on
common ground in the run up to UN climate change talks in Copenhagen
next month rather than haggle bitterly over reciprocal concessions.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: Copenhagen summit - Oct-08
Republican boycott delays climate bill - Nov-03US rightwing activists
curb efforts to cut CO2 emissions - Nov-03Global Insight: Beijing has
played climate cards beautifully - Nov-03UN chief damps climate treaty
hopes - Nov-03Interactive graphic: carbon emissions past and projected
- Nov-04“We are still stuck in an environment of global negotiations
where we accept dire forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change and everyone else but we have not yet discovered a way
of negotiating that goes beyond reciprocal concessions. [It’s a case
of:] ‘I’ll you do this, if you do that’. This is the classical model
of tariff concessions.”
“Both [sides] are going to sink if we don’t do something in a more co-
ordinated way to address this problem.”
The prospect of the climate talks going the same way as the stalled
Doha round of trade talks is alarming. Asia’s third largest economy,
in defence of its impoverished farmers, was embroiled in a stand-off
at the WTO that led to the talks breaking down. The global economic
downturn has damped their quick revival.
Mr Desai said nations may fall short of full agreement at Copenhagen.
Instead, they were likely to agree to more specific action on
technology, forests and assistance to least developed countries and
small island countries.
India, one of the world’s fastest growing large economies, is a key
voice in the climate change talks. India has so far resisted signing
up to binding cuts or caps on its carbon emissions, which are expected
to grow as the country industrialises. Mr Singh has emphasised the
west’s responsibility for global warming and promoted technology
transfer and its finance from wealthy nations to poorer ones.
Mr Desai’s comments come as India’s climate change negotiators
increasingly sound a pessimistic note about progress in the lead up to
the Copenhagen summit. Shyam Saran, Mr Singh’s special envoy on
climate change, said last month’s Bangkok meeting to iron out
differences had taken steps backward.
India, meanwhile, has put climate change at the heart of bilateral
trade and investment discussions with Europe and the US. Strategies to
mitigate the effects of climate change are on the agenda at an EU-
India summit on Friday. The United States is also seeking a trade and
investment treaty with India that could help US companies to invest in
climate change technologies in India, alongside other sectors like
pharmaceuticals, IT and education.
“The official line from negotiators and even heads of states is not
bilateral treaties, although every country is planning to take that
route as one of many in the climate mitigation process,” said a
spokesman for Greenpeace, the environmental lobby group, in Delhi.
“All will depend on US position over the next 10 days. The EU is
willing to do a deal – maybe not at the levels that are needed but
willing all the same. The US has not budged.”
Mr Desai, an economist who served as the undersecretary-general for
economic and social affairs at the UN, recommended other avenues in
addition to the UN process to combat climate change.
“The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is not the only game in
town. The carbon constraint is going to bite us regardless of what
goes on in the UN process,” he said. “It will bite us through prices,
it will bite us through consumer resistance and in many other ways.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our
article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute
by email or post to the web.
chhotemianinshallah
EU warns of climate change impact on India
NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (AFP) Nov 06, 2009
Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, acting as president of the
EU, warned Friday of the impact of climate change on India unless a
new emissions pact was reached in upcoming UN climate talks.
At an annual European Union-India summit, Reinfeldt said the South
Asian giant was already feeling the cost of rising global temperatures
which had resulted in scanty rain, sudden floods and melting glaciers.
"So we already see all this happening at (an average rise of) 0.7
centigrade" in global temperatures, Reinfeldt told reporters at a
press conference in New Delhi, flanked by Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.
"What we are trying to achieve in Copenhagen is an agreement to stop
the increase (of global temperatures) at two degrees because if we
feel this at 0.7 degrees, it will be worse at two degrees."
He added: "We will do our part, but we cannot do things alone."
The EU has committed to reducing its emissions of harmful greenhouse
gas by 20 percent from 1990 levels and has said it could increase the
target to 30 percent if an international agreement was reached in
Copenhagen.
India has resisted binding emissions targets, while demanding
financial aid and technology to help reduce its output of greenhouse
gases.
Singh said New Delhi had last year outlined concrete plans to fight
climate change but refrained from committing to any binding emission
cuts.
"We recognise that climate change is a global phenomenon and all of us
have an obligation to work together... The question arises whether we
can quantify the emission reduction targets. We haven't reached that
stage so far," he said.
Some 190 countries will meet in Copenhagen between December 7-18 to
try to conclude a new United Nations-backed climate treaty to replace
the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
All rights reserved. © 2005
Sid Harth
India not ready for carbon emission targets: Prime Minister
Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, November 06, 2009
First Published: 16:43 IST(6/11/2009)
Last Updated: 17:51 IST(6/11/2009)
With just a month to go before the UN summit on climate change in
Copenhagen, India on Friday made it clear to the EU that it was not
ready to quantify its carbon emission targets, but would explore that
possibility.
"We have not reached that stage. We will explore that possibility,"
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told reporters when asked whether India
would quantify carbon emission targets.
"All of us have an obligation to work together," Manmohan Singh said
at the end of the 10th India-EU summit in New Delhi. "We have a very
ambitious national plan to combat climate change," he pointed out.
Climate change figured prominently in discussions between Manmohan
Singh and EU leaders -- Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Sweden now holds
the rotating EU presidency.
Reinfeldt pitched for India's cooperation in forging a consensus at
the crucial UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
"We have identified the costs of mitigation (of greenhouse gas
emissions). We need 100 billion euros by the time we come to 2020. We
have acknowledged there are ambitious plans in India, but we need
action from everyone," he said.
EU finance ministers calculated at their summit last week that the
world would need 100 billion euros a year to tackle global warming,
but did not specify who would contribute how much.
Developing countries, led by India, have consistently said this money
must come from industrialised countries, which have put almost all the
extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now.
India has also consistently advocated the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities to tackle climate change and wants
deeper carbon emission cuts by developed countries.
While industrialised countries (except the US) have an obligation
under the Kyoto Protocol to cut their greenhouse gas emissions,
developing countries have no such obligation. But developed countries
are now pressing large developing countries like India, China, Brazil
and South Africa to commit that by 2020, they will bring their
emissions down by 15 percent from the business-as-usual scenario.
chhotemianinshallah
India Cleans Up Its Act
Manmohan Singh's new stand on Copenhagen is just part of a plan to
reposition India as a global power.
Punit Paranjpe / Reuters-Landov
Smoke billows from an industrial plant in Mumbai, India's financial
capital.
By Jeremy Kahn | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 6, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009
Until very recently, India seemed to pride itself on poking a finger
in the eye of rich superpowers, particularly the United States.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, India was the leader of the group of poor,
postcolonial nations that banded together in what they called the
nonaligned movement, but which routinely tilted to the Soviet Union
and bashed American imperialism. To Washington's consternation, New
Delhi voted against the U.S. at the United Nations time and again.
Relations between the United States and India soured further when it
refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and then tested a
nuclear device in 1974. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when
India began to abandon Soviet-inspired economic planning, New Delhi
retained a reputation for obstructing America at every opportunity. It
opposed NATO intervention in Kosovo, and the establishment of no-fly
zones over northern and southern Iraq in the wake of the first Gulf
war. As recently as last spring, the highest profile Indian voice on
the world stage arguably belonged to Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who
set himself up as a defender of all poor nations against the trade
machinations of the conniving rich. Many in Washington saw Nath as the
man who killed the Doha round of global trade talks. Western diplomats
continued to describe India's negotiating style as a series of
attempts to score debating points before "getting to no."
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Now, as he prepares to make his first summit visit to see Barack Obama
in Washington later this month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is
repositioning India as an emerging power that can say yes. In place of
the resentful leader of poor, postcolonial nations, Singh is defining
India as an emerging powerhouse that can sit at the table of rich
nations, with fewer chips on its shoulder. This new stance has been
evolving for some time, and led to the landmark 2005 deal in which
America agreed to help India with civil nuclear technology—and at the
same time essentially conferred legitimacy to India's nuclear-weapons
program. Partly in return, India has in recent years twice voted at
the International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Iran's nuclear
program, siding with Washington against a former Third World ally, and
a major energy supplier. Now the transformation of Indian foreign
policy is gaining pace. Nath was shunted off to the Ministry of Roads
in May, a move that has helped revive hope for the Doha round. Then in
August, according to sources who attended the session, Singh said in a
closed-door address to foreign ambassadors and senior Indian diplomats
that India would work to drop its image as an obstacle to progress,
particularly in talks on trade and climate change, and instead "play a
role in the international arena in a manner that makes a positive
contribution to finding solutions to major global challenges."
Singh's speech signaled a growing realization in New Delhi that India
can have greater influence as a player inside the G20—the group of
large economies of which it is now a member—than merely as a leader of
the outsiders. Though still controversial at home, the new tone
acknowledges that if India wants to exercise the political clout that
is its due as one of the world's fast-growing economies, it needs to
accept certain responsibilities. "You can't [be] a global player and
just obstruct all attempts at cooperation," says Arvind Subramanian, a
senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in
Washington, D.C. It also revealed the increasing sense in New Delhi
that India is being outmaneuvered by its regional rival China, which
has been earning plaudits as a stabilizing force amid the global
financial crisis as well as for offering concrete action to combat
climate change. Singh's former spokesperson, Sanjaya Baru, says Singh
aims to position India as a "consensus builder and a bridge" between
rich and poor nations, rather than a spokesnation for the poor. At the
recent G20 summit in Pittsburgh, for instance, India backed a U.S.
call for "balanced growth" while also calling for reform of the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give greater
representation to developing nations.
India's new personality is perhaps most obvious in its attitude on
climate change. For years India had insisted that it was under no
obligation to cut carbon emissions, because global warming was the
result of the emissions rich nations produced as they industrialized.
But two years ago, Singh began to shift in a way that was subtle, but,
for an Indian politician, extraordinary. Dropping India's longstanding
refusal to consider any cap on its emissions, he pledged instead that
the country would never exceed the developed world in per capita
emissions. Since India produces the equivalent of just 1.7 tons of
carbon dioxide per capita, which is less than 7 percent of what the
United States emits, critics said he was committing to doing nothing
in the foreseeable future. Still, he had set a precedent for India to
change.
This summer, Singh went further by removing India from the camp of
global-warming denialists. India had long rejected the scientific
evidence suggesting that an average global temperature rise beyond 2
degrees Celsius would be catastrophic. At the Major Economies Forum
meeting in Italy, Singh signed a joint declaration stating that the
world should attempt to limit the average rise to 2 degrees above
preindustrial levels—and that each nation would take on its own carbon-
mitigation efforts. Then, at the September summit on climate change in
New York, Jairam Ramesh, Singh's environment minister, dropped another
pillar of Indian obstructionism: its insistence that developing
countries would not take on significant efforts to reduce greenhouse-
gas emissions unless the industrialized world pays for them.
India, Ramesh declared, would voluntarily curtail its future
emissions, even without a global pact or a pledge of financial support
from the West. By 2011, he said, the country would introduce a fuel-
efficiency cap on cars and trucks. A year later it would implement an
energy-efficient building code, and it would mandate that 20 percent
of its energy come from renewable sources by 2020, the same target to
which the EU has committed itself. What's more, he promised that when
the world sat down to hammer out a new treaty to combat climate change
in Copenhagen this December, India would "be a deal maker, not a deal
breaker." Senior Western diplomats, accustomed to Indian
recalcitrance, welcomed Ramesh's remarks as a potential turning point.
This new internationalism was less well received at home. The powerful
old guard of Singh's Congress party remains wary of the West and
uncomfortable with India abandoning its historic role as champion of
the poor nations. They believe that the party's future electoral
prospects hinge upon delivering on promises of development—especially
to India's rural areas—and they are loath to do anything that could be
painted as sacrificing that goal on the altar of a climate-change
pact. They got their chance to fight back last month, when the press
published a leaked version of a confidential letter from Ramesh to
Singh in which he urged India to "listen more and speak less," to "be
pragmatic and constructive, not argumentative and polemical." Ramesh
said that in trade and climate talks India should abandon the G77
group of developing nations for the G20, in part because fighting
greenhouse-gas limits "takes away from India's aspirations for
permanent membership on the Security Council." Critics pounced,
accusing Ramesh of caving to the West and betraying the developing
world.
The toughest attacks came from inside Congress. Finance Minister
Pranab Mukherjee and External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna
reportedly thought Ramesh had overstepped his mandate. India's senior
climate negotiators, Shyam Saran and Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, were
furious at Ramesh's criticism of the tough, anti-Western stand they
represent, and of their aggressive negotiating style. Ramesh was
forced to beat a hasty and embarrassing public retreat, issuing a
statement that he had not sought to shift India's negotiating stance.
Singh, for his part, issued a statement downplaying Ramesh's letter as
a "note for discussion," but it was clearly more than that. Singh had
personally approved the new Indian efforts to reduce carbon emissions
that Ramesh highlighted in New York. The vow that India would be a
"deal maker, not a deal breaker" in Copenhagen was identical to one
Singh made in his August talk in New Delhi. The only real difference
between Ramesh's letter and Singh's strategy was the letter's
bluntness, in rejecting old allies, and its crassness, in coveting the
Security Council seat too plainly.
Singh's strategy, by contrast, seems to be to move India
incrementally, all the while insisting nothing has changed, until
eventually a difference of degree—of style—becomes a difference in
kind. In this way, Singh has been nudging India to go beyond "no" on a
host of other global issues. For instance, Western negotiators had
blamed India for scuppering the Doha round of trade talks because of a
dispute over agricultural tariffs. But this summer, India made a
surprise offer to host informal discussions in New Delhi in September.
While the outcome of those talks was modest, India has been
unilaterally moving to lower trade barriers and drop previous demands.
India's new commerce minister, Anand Sharma, who is responsible for
trade negotiations, is (like Ramesh) drawn from the younger generation
of progressive Congress leaders. Rajiv Kumar, the director of the
Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in New
Delhi, says he does not see India walking away from a new global trade
agreement again.
Singh will arrive at the White House on Nov. 24 with the political
momentum to push India deeper into the American camp. Congress won a
surprisingly strong mandate in May's parliamentary elections and
returned to power unencumbered by the fragile coalition politics that
hobbled it throughout its first term. And Singh, the first Indian
prime minister to serve two consecutive terms since Jawaharlal Nehru,
seems firm in his conviction that whether the issue is liberalizing
world trade, building a more stable global financial architecture,
reducing global warming, or reining in nuclear proliferation, Indian
leadership is required. He and Obama are expected to agree to deeper
cooperation on counterterrorism and defense issues. They will also
discuss a bilateral agreement on combating global warming.
Perhaps the bigger test for India will come two weeks later at the
climate talks in Copenhagen. The world can only hope that Singh
succeeds in overcoming the resistance within his own party to a deal.
India is too big a country, too large an economy to simply opt out of
global discussions. If it continues the politics of "no," it risks
being left behind as leaders of other nations—competitors, rivals, and
allies alike—attempt to find their own solutions to the world's
problems. While it has become a cliché to say that the fate of the
world will hang in the balance at Copenhagen, for India, the stakes
include its own standing in the world.
© 2009
bademiyansubhanallah
Climate Science vs. Climate Politics: Who has the greenest ‘fingers’
of them all?
Shobhan Saxena, TNN 8 November 2009, 10:16am IST
Tuvalu’s PM is at the top and Manmohan scores better than Obama in
world’s first league table of ‘green’ leaders...
NEW DELHI: Carbon credits are already beginning to pay. For Al Gore,
they brought in greenbacks, for Manmohan Singh, an enviably high place
on a new green scale of governmental carbon cool.
As the pre-Copenhagen negotiations go from cold to hot and world
leaders and global firms compete for green brownie points, environment
NGO Greenpeace has issued a ratings chart of prime ministers and
presidents.
Singh scored 53 points out of 100, and ranks lower than the presidents
of China and South Africa but higher than the man he will soon visit
in the Oval Office, Barack Obama. The US President gets a measly eight
points and comes last. Prime Minister Apisai Lelemia of Tuvalu, a
small island nation in the South Pacific, tops the chart with 87
points.
Though Tuvalu may not figure anywhere in the list of countries with
highest GDPs, emerging economies or transparent governance, the top
ranking on the green scale may catapult it to the top league, just
like the happiness index made Bhutan known worldwide.
“This is the first time we have rated world leaders on their
commitment to emission reduction. The whole idea is to put the
spotlight on them and tell the average man on the street about the
policies of his government,” says Vivek Sharma, programme director of
Greenpeace in India.
The leaders were judged on their performance with regard to “targets,
finance, legal architecture and domestic action” for the required
emission reductions and other elements needed in the climate
agreement. The leaders can score a maximum of three points in each
category.
Lelemia is followed by President Jacob Zuma of South Africa (63),
President Hu Jintao of China (59), Manmohan Singh (53), President Lula
of Brazil (50), Prime Minister Gordon Brown of UK (45), Chancellor
Angela Merkel of Germany (45), President Nicolas Sarkozy of France
(37) and President Obama.
As green issues take centrestage and terms like carbon credit, energy
efficiency and global warming become part of mainstream discourse,
Greenpeace activists hope this ranking will put pressure on world
leaders to seal a deal at Copenhagen in December. “If they care for
their image, they may become more active on this front. And because we
have rated them issue-wise, they will be forced to follow their words
with action,” says Sharma.
Probably that’s the reason the report comes down heavily on the US
president who has decided not to attend the climate summit. “President
Obama’s election hasn’t brought the breath of fresh air to the climate
talks many had hoped for.
Instead, it’s seen as a perpetuation of Bush-era efforts to disrupt
and water down attempts to agree to a strong treaty, as Obama tries to
bring the whole world down to his own low level of ambition,” says the
report.
Sid Harth
Pranab Mukherjee Holds Developed Nations Responsible For Climate
Change
Last Updated: 2009-11-10T17:16:21+05:30
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that India had left the issues
related to climate change to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
as its stand on the funding to tackle climate change were not adhering
to the stand of developed nations.
"There is a commitment that industrialised countries, which have
committed this mistake over the years - not one year, two years but
200 years - will have to bear the responsibility," Mukherjee said.
"We could not agree on the funding of (tackling) climate change and
have left it to the leaders and appropriate forum of UNFCC. They
should adequately address the issue," the finance minister said while
talking at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit.
"The developed countries will have to keep in mind the approach which
has been accepted and which is well established that the
responsibility would be common but differentiated depending on the
capability of the country concerned," Mukherjee said.
He also mentioned that the climate change conference, slated to kick
off next month in Copenhagen, will have a “positive’ climax.
bademiyansubhanallah
PM to ink climate MoU on US visit
Nitin Sethi, TNN 12 November 2009, 03:10am IST
NEW DELHI: India will be signing an MoU with US on climate change when
PM Manmohan Singh visits US on November 24. But, the discussions
between the two countries continue as US continues to convince India
to agree to several issues that stand contrary to its international
climate policy.
In the ongoing negotiations, the Indian government has been able to
strike off several controversial clauses but highly placed sources in
the government said some of them remain as sticking points.
Part of the two-day visit by the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, on
November 13 and 14 would see the two sides thrash out the differences.
Sources said a meeting with the highest government officials for this
purpose is scheduled at the Planning Commission.
The initial offers from the US side included a proposal asking India
to agree to pledge its domestic climate change actions as part of an
international pact, akin to the Australian proposal that had become
controversial in India but had been finally opposed by the
government.
The US has in the international climate negotiations proposed such a
move but India has so far opposed it warning that it would trash the
existing Kyoto Protocol and destroy the differentiation between
developing countries' actions and developed countries' commitments.
Several other proposals inimical to developing country interests, that
India and other emerging economies have so far prevented from cropping
up in other political formulations, such as the G20, have also been
pushed by the US as part of the MoU though strongly resisted.
One of these, that still remains on the discussion table, is the
proposal that India agree that fuel and energy subsidies should be
entirely done away with in the mid-term. While India had accepted a
similar formulation as part of the G20 dialogue, such an agreement is
bound to have large repercussions for fuel and energy prices in India,
especially for the rural populations where much of these subsidies are
targeted.
The US also wants to include a text in the MoU requiring India to find
`low carbon pathways' for growth. The phrase, India has earlier
contended, demands developing countries to move towards cleaner but
extremely costlier forms of energy in order to go down further from
the existing low levels of emissions in countries like India. For a
growing economy, such as India, the government has so far contended
that defining a `business as usual line of emissions' and then forcing
it to go below this artificial line is an attempt to control the
growth patterns of an emerging economy.
The US also wants to make the black carbon from `chulah' or wood-fired
stoves used by millions of households in rural India a key issue. The
MoU proposal from the US wants to address the soot emanating from
these chulahs that some policy makers in the rich countries have said
should be addressed as part of the climate deal. India has always
pointed out that the soot is a `subsistence emission' from the poorest
of the poor who cannot so far afford any better fuel or burning
apparatus and the focus of international action should be on carbon
dioxide emissions of the industrialized and rich countries, which
emanate from highly-consumption driven and energy intensive lifestyles
enjoyed by their citizens.
bademiyansubhanallah
Ramesh says Himalayan glaciers not melting, PM's adviser says rubbish
Rajesh Sinha / DNA Thursday, November 12, 2009 3:23 IST
New Delhi: Rajendra Pachauri, a member of the prime minister's (PM's)
advisory council on climate change and director general of The Energy
and Resources Institute (Teri), has dismissed as "unscientific" a
report released by Union minister for environment and forests Jairam
Ramesh that claims Himalayan glaciers have stopped melting.
This is the second major instance when a point of view endorsed by
Ramesh has been strongly contested. The previous instance was when he
had suggested that India accept carbon emission cuts.
Pachauri, who is also chairman of the UN's intergovernmental panel on
climate change (IPCC), said the report prepared by geologist VK Raina
was based on "insufficient data" and "unsubstantiated observations"
made over a small two-year period.
While Pachauri was not in town, a Teri spokesperson said he disagreed
with Raina's findings which flew in the face of well-researched and
documented studies by thousands of IPCC scientists.
Pachauri pointed out that Raina's research was still to be reviewed
and authenticated by peers. "It is like schoolboy science," he said.
Teri glaciologist Shresth Tayal questioned Raina's conclusion that the
melting of the Gangotri glacier had "come to a stand still". He said,
"If rain is scarce for two years, can one say drought is here
forever?"
Certain aspects of Raina's study were self-contradictory, Tayal said.
For example, it claims that glaciers in western Himalayas are melting
faster but also says the Siachen glacier is advancing. Even the
conclusion that glacier melting is more pronounced in western
Himalayas than eastern Himalayas was wrong, Tayal pointed out.
"Our research shows all lakes formed by melting of glaciers are in
eastern Himalayas. A glacier in Sikkim, East Rathong, has reportedly
lost over 80% of its mass. No one has recorded a glacial lake in
western Himalayas," he said.
Tayal also dismissed Raina's claim that ice in the Himalayas would not
melt as it was at higher altitude whereas at the poles, it would melt.
"He overlooks the obvious. Poles are located at higher latitude and
never get direct sunlight. In the Himalayas, sunrays are more direct
and heat trapping is higher," he pointed out.
chhotemianinshallah
SPACE WIRE
Obama in 11th-hour climate bid with China, India
WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (AFP) Nov 12, 2009
With the clock ticking on the high-stakes Copenhagen climate summit,
US President Barack Obama will try to salvage fading hopes for a deal
as he meets this month with the leaders of China and India.
Obama on Sunday starts his closely watched debut trip to China. A week
later, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes to Washington in the
first full-fledged state visit of Obama's presidency.
The United States is also dispatching Energy Secretary Steven Chu to
both emerging powers in hopes of making headway ahead of the December
7-18 summit in the Danish capital.
The world's three most populous nations have all vowed action on
climate change but are deeply at odds over the shape of a Copenhagen
deal, which was meant to be a new global treaty but now looks set to
offer a framework at best.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has even threatened to boycott
Copenhagen unless the three nations move forward on their positions.
"A failure of the world climate conference in Copenhagen in December
would set international environmental efforts back by years. We cannot
afford this," Merkel said.
Obama has sharply changed US climate policy but, like his predecessor
George W. Bush, has joined the Europeans, Japan and other rich nations
in demanding that China and India act.
"No country holds the fate of the Earth in its hands more than China,"
Todd Stern, the US climate envoy, told a recent congressional hearing.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Singapore before joining Obama
in China, held out hope that compromise was possible.
"If we all exert maximum effort and embrace the right blend of
pragmatism and principle, I believe we can secure a strong outcome at
Copenhagen," Clinton said.
China and India argue that rich nations bear historic responsibility
for climate change and that developing nations therefore should not be
legally bound to cut carbon emissions blamed for rising temperatures
-- which UN scientists say will put entire species at risk if
unchecked.
China has surpassed the United States as the world's top carbon
emitter and India by most measures ranks fourth. Both nations appear
eager not to be accused as the spoilers in Copenhagen.
President Hu Jintao told a September summit at the United Nations that
China would reduce the intensity of its carbon emissions.
Singh has vowed that India will never produce more carbon per capita
than developed nations. The average Indian is responsible for only
one-17th the emissions of the average American, according to US
government figures.
Some experts and policymakers are hopeful that climate change will
emerge not as an obstacle but as a catalyst for closer US relations
with China and India -- a key priority for Obama.
In a recent study, the Asia Society and the left-leaning Center for
American Progress proposed that China and the United States team up on
carbon capture -- the largely untested concept of stopping emissions
before they get out.
With China already eyeing the field, the think-tanks said that the
initiative would create green jobs and control emissions from coal, a
necessity in any serious global effort to arrest climate change.
"We are at a tipping point, I think, both in the quest for remedies to
climate change and also in Sino-US policy," said Orville Schell, a
prominent author and director of the Asia Society's Center on US-China
Relations.
"We are at a moment when there could be a dramatic shift in how the
two countries relate to each other and I think the most likely
catalytic agent in such a relationship will be whether we can
cooperate on climate change," he said.
Serious US cooperation with developing nations may also help break
another key roadblock -- easing opposition in US Congress to imposing
legal caps on carbon emissions.
The Senate is unlikely to approve legislation in time for Copenhagen,
although Senator John Kerry has promised to provide at least an
outline of the eventual US system to fight global warming.
All rights reserved. © 2005
Sid Harth
The carbon bomb
Anika Gupta and Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
October 25, 2009
First Published: 00:54 IST(25/10/2009)
Last Updated: 01:39 IST(25/10/2009)
To understand the perils and the multi-billion dollar promises of
living in the age of climate change, start amid the bus-high piles of
garbage in a municipal compost plant in the south Delhi suburb of
Okhla.
Egrets and crows dodge backhoes that rake the rotten vegetables,
plastic, paper and glass into romantically named “windrows”, what the
piles of garbage are called. Over six to eight weeks, after some
spraying, sieving and packing, the garbage is turned into a fine-
grained fertilizer and trucked out to farmers in northern India. Tough
questions
Turning garbage into compost is a fine idea, except there’s no money
in it. At Okhla, the sale of fertilizer covers only 60 per cent of
costs.
So why is one of India’s leading infrastructure and finance companies,
through a subsidiary called IL&FS Ecosmart, wading into Delhi’s
unprofitable garbage? Why has it started 17 such operations across
India in the last 24 months?
The answer lies in Germany, where executives at its second-largest
electricity producer, RWE AG, are keen the Okhla project works, so
they can keep their giant coal-fired power plants running.
The Okhla business model sounds easy. Make fertilizer from garbage.
Save the earth from a greenhouse gas (and clean up Delhi as well). The
composting prevents the emission of methane, one of the gases
responsible for warming the globe. For every tonne of greenhouse gas
India can keep out of the air, there’s $10 (Rs 470) to be made.
Now, sell the value of the eliminated methane to the Germans.
IL&FS’s Okhla plant and hundreds of diverse operations across India
are at the heart of global climate-change negotiations, as they
release enough clean air to create what has already become India’s
fastest-growing industry: the carbon trade.
The actual sale of what are called carbon credits is more complicated.
Two years after it started, the Okhla operation hasn’t got a dollar —
and if a critical meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, fails in December,
the future of IL&FS’s project is in doubt.
THE HEAT IS HERE
It’s been nearly twenty years since international leaders accepted
that earth’s temperature is on the rise, and that human industrial
activity is to blame.
New projections by leading researchers show climate change will affect
every aspect of modern life. Agricultural production will plunge as
erratic weather shifts sowing seasons and monsoon rains. The melting
of Himalayan glaciers — which many say is already taking place at
double the rate elsewhere — will lead to challenges in water supply.
Rising sea levels, brought about by glacier melt, could submerge
islands and coastal towns.
In India, where flood and drought already affect more than 400 million
people, the results could be catastrophic. Close to 68 per cent of
India’s land is vulnerable to drought. A third of India’s great
plains are vulnerable to floods, which account for 50 per cent of our
natural disasters. The cost of floods and droughts is as high as
Rs 15,600 crore over five years, according to the Planning
Commission’s 11th five-year plan. This money is enough to provide free
food to a third of India’s 300 million poor for a year.
Indian policymakers have said for years that rich nations created
global warming by burning fossil fuels to fire industrialisation.
Even now, although India is the world’s fourth-largest emitter of
greenhouse gases, its per capita emissions are just over 1/20th that
of the US (see graphics).
The first National Action Plan on Climate Change, issued in 2008, says
that any international agreement on climate change must “allow each
inhabitant of the earth an equal entitlement to the global atmospheric
resource”. India has maintained that line in international
negotiations, insisting that rich nations pay up, and that India won’t
accept binding cuts on its greenhouse gas emissions because the cuts
might limit economic growth.
In recent months, environment minister Jairam Ramesh has suggested a
change. In an October note to the prime minister, Ramesh proposed
domestic emissions cuts. Pradipto Ghosh, a former environment
secretary and India’s lead climate-change negotiator, says he sees
“nothing wrong in discussing these issues”. To take Ramesh’s debate
forward, the prime minister has called a meeting of the National
Development Council, a body of all state chief ministers, before the
Copenhagen conference in December.
Much of the recent talk about international negotiation focuses on “co-
benefits”, or measures that India would want to implement for its own
reasons, and not just because of international pressure. Some of these
measures — increasing the efficiency of power plants, investing in
public transport — carry costs, but they are opportunities.
“We should tell the world that we are serious about climate change,”
says R.K. Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change.
Already, India is considering mandating more efficiency in the
electricity and automobile sectors, a move that might open up a
domestic market for carbon credits. Many businesses are ready to go
green.
“We don’t see much problem in adopting fuel efficiency standards by
2011,” says Dilip Chenoy, director with Society of Indian Automobile
Manufacturers (SIAM).
MONEY FOR AIR
But to truly understand the impact of climate change on economic
growth requires a return to Okhla, New Delhi, where a compost plant
that started operations in 2007 has not yet made money.
The operators of the Okhla plant have a twin revenue model. They sell
their compost for
Rs 1,200-2,000 per bag, but they also sell clean air, free of methane
gas.
Under a 1997 international agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol,
developed nations like Germany and the United Kingdom must limit their
greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
But governments and corporations that have trouble meeting this target
can buy carbon credits, or Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), from
carbon-reduction projects in developing countries like India and
China.
The Kyoto Protocol aims to create a barter system, known as the Clean
Development Mechanism or CDM, where rich nations can pay for the
adoption of new, greener technologies in the developing world.
The operators of the Okhla compost plant will keep about 300,000
tonnes of methane from being released into the atmosphere between the
years 2008 and 2012.
IL&FS won’t say exactly how much it’s getting for each carbon credit,
but each is worth roughly $10 (Rs 470) in the international market.
Before they can start making carbon money this month, the project must
be registered with the Indian government and the United Nations, and
validated by a team of Norwegian regulators, a two-year approval
process.
Since 2005, the year the Kyoto Protocol came into effect, India’s
carbon market has shot from 0 to $5 billion (Rs 23,500 crore)
annually, an increase of many hundreds of times. The closest
comparison is the telecommunications market, which grew by 1,000 per
cent, or 10 times, over the same period.
“It is the fastest growing market,” says Ashutosh Pandey, CEO of
carbon consultancy firm Emergent Ventures. “It will become the largest
market in the world, and it impacts everybody in the world.”
Pandey’s company has a portfolio of more than 200 projects, mostly in
India. Like an increasing number of Indians, they have turned the
costs of global warming into business opportunity.
India has registered 456 CDM projects with the United Nations, more
than any other country except China. The projects are expected to
generate 233 million tonnes of carbon reductions by 2012, according to
carbon ratings agency IDEAcarbon.
India’s carbon market includes major players like the Delhi Metro,
which cuts carbon dioxide from the air by reducing the amount of
fossil fuels burned by cars, to small-scale initiatives like the
introduction of more efficient stoves in rural households.
For firms like IL&FS Ecosmart, the CDM system has enabled projects
that would otherwise not make financial sense.
“These projects are not cash generating from day one,” says Ecosmart’s
CEO Mahesh Babu. “Without CDM, they are not viable.”
COPENHAGEN CALLING
The future of India’s carbon economy now depends on whether
negotiators can agree on what to do about climate change after 2012,
the year the Kyoto Protocol expires.
The debate hinges on the United States, the world’s second largest
greenhouse gas emitter and the seventh largest per capita emitter. The
US signed the Kyoto Protocol but never ratified it, which means it
doesn’t have to cut emissions, and it can’t buy carbon credits.
That may change.
A bill currently being considered by the United States Congress would
require emissions reductions of 20 per cent over 2005 levels, and
encourage the trading of carbon credits.
The US can enter the carbon market only if some deal is worked out at
Copenhagen, says Alessandro Vitelli, director of Strategy and
Intelligence at IDEAcarbon.
Despite its unknown future, in some ways, CDM might have already
succeeded in creating a greener business environment in India.
“Our cement industry is the cleanest and our steel sector is the most
efficient in the world. In wind energy generation, India is ranked
fifth,” says Jamshed Godrej, past president of industry body
Confederation of Indian Industry.
“If somebody asks me what has been the single biggest success factor
of CDM, I would say awareness of companies,” says Pandey. “They know
that climate change is occurring, they know that customer preferences
and businesses will change, they know they have responsibility to
create greener business, and I see this now in India.”
bademiyansubhanallah
COLUMN AJAY PRAKASH SHRIVASTAVA
It’s time for Indian businesses to engage in climate talks
Ajay Prakash Shrivastava
Posted: Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 0051 hrs IST
Updated: Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 0051 hrs IST
: While global climate change negotiations are moving very slowly,
the danger from its impact is very imminent. The negotiations, which
are basically in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, are not
moving at the rate at which they should be moving. Various countries
are trying to bring in their own agendas whereas climate change, which
is happening all over the world, is not specific to any one country
and does not respect political boundaries.
It’s heartening that the Indian government has really woken up to the
challenges of climate change. The National Action Plan on Climate
Change unveiled by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a very big and
timely step.
Various plans for combating climate change will, of course, involve
new technologies for emission control, and development of alternative
energy sources. These initiatives will bring both short-term and long-
term opportunities for businesses and industries all over the world.
Indian businesses should be ready to tap these opportunities in India
and abroad. The opportunities will be tremendous. The National Solar
Mission, which is a part of the National Action Plan on the Climate
Change, alone talks of an investment of about Rs 91,000 crore by the
government.
Indian businesses should invest money in developing and acquiring new
technologies for energy saving, alternative energy sources and new and
better technologies for renewable energies.
There is an absolute need for Indian businesses to get involved at
this stage at the global level to shape the future agenda of climate
change negotiations.
The government can only make policies. The implementation of these
policies will always be done by businesses and industries. Therefore,
it is very necessary for Indian businesses and industries to get
involved in government policy making, too.
The writer is president, Solar Energy Society of India
chhotemianinshallah
'More Indian CEOs concerned about climate change risk'
Press Trust of India / New Delhi November 17, 2009, 18:44 IST
The percentage of Indian CEOs, who are concerned about the risks of
climate change, has nearly doubled over the past year, even as
majority of firms do not currently have a climate change strategy in
place, a survey says.
As per the research conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), as much
as 52 per cent of Indian CEOs cited climate change as a concern from
27 per cent last year.
Despite this, 60 per cent admitted they had no climate change strategy
and 52 per cent said their companies were not preparing climate change
initiatives in the coming 12 months. The findings come from a survey
of 62 CEOs in India as part of the prestigious Global CEO survey
conducted by PwC on an annual basis.
Moreover, only 26 per cent of CEOs believe their company would need to
reduce its emissions significantly, while 37 per cent CEOs disagreed
for the action. "Findings of our research into Indian CEO attitudes to
climate change reveal a worrying gap opening up. There has been a
massive surge in number of business leaders recognising risks posed by
climate change, but the evidence is that too few are taking action to
combat its damaging effects," PricewaterhouseCoopers India Partner
Bharti Gupta Ramola said.
chhotemianinshallah
India willing to be isolated but will not accept legally binding cuts,
says Jairam
Special Correspondent
But will have to move on a low carbon trajectory to minimise impact of
climate change
— Photo: Sushil Kumar Verma
Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests,
releases UNFPA’s State of World Population Report 2009 in New Delhi on
Thursday.
NEW DELHI: A month before the heads of state meeting in Copenhagen on
climate change, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests
Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday that India was willing to be isolated
but would not accept legally binding emission cuts. In the same
breath, he said domestically India would have to be relentless and
ruthless in moving on a low-carbon trajectory to minimise the effects
of climate change on the country.
He made this assertion while releasing the ‘State of World Population
2009’ report of the United Nations Population Fund. “We need to
distinguish international commitments from our domestic obligations.
Our position in international fora will strengthen if we are seen to
be serious with our domestic obligations,” he said, while calling for
pro-activisim in turning India into a high economic growth and low
emission country.
Questioning the move to brand population as the culprit for greenhouse
gas emissions, a linkage reiterated in the report, Mr. Ramesh said
evidence was to the contrary. Flagging China as a case in point, he
said that despite a negative population growth rate between 1985 and
2005, emissions went up by 43 per cent. “It’s not so much a population
issue but one of lifestyle and consumption patterns.”
Referring to the Western apprehension that India’s greenhouse gas
missions would rise to 23 per cent — as in the case of China which has
outstripped the U.S. — if the country were to grow at 9 per cent a
year and break out of the poverty trap, he said this was not an iron
law. Comparative analyses of the lifestyles of the most consumerist
class in the developed world with their Indian counterparts had shown
that India had a low consumption pattern. “So it is not necessary that
we will follow the U.S. and Chinese trajectory,” Mr. Ramesh said,
using the Gandhian philosophy to say that this was a great opportunity
to demonstrate a new paradigm for economic development.
He also rejected the effort by the developed world to bully others
into accepting black carbon as more dangerous than greenhouse gases.
Admitting that India had a problem on this count, Mr. Ramesh said that
the scientific link between black carbon and global warming and the
retreat of the Himalayan glaciers had not been established as yet.
“Yes, we need to address the issue of black carbon because of public
health, but Copenhagen is about greenhouse gases. Let us not shift the
debate because the developed world is unable to control GHGs.”
Asked why India was shying away from setting emission targets for
itself as Brazil and Indonesia had done, Mr. Ramesh said the
commitments made by these two countries were because of avoided
deforestation, not greenhouse gas emission cuts.
As for India, he said low-carbon sustainable growth would be central
to the 12th Five Year Plan, and efforts were on to convert Nationally
Appropriate Mitigation Actions into Nationally Accountable Mitigation
Outcomes by indicating specific targets for industry, energy,
transport, agriculture, buildings and forestry for 2020 and 2030.
kangarooistan
> Sunita Narain, Director for Science and Environment, a NGO, said, “I
> don’t understand why Ramesh is willing to change India’s position for
> US. They are giving very little for climate change. In fact, US have
> been seeking to increase its emissions before reducing it”.
>
> She said Ramesh’s agreement to accept Australia’s proposal for new
> protocol on climate change was dangerous.
The India Salt Act of 1882 included regulations enforcing a government
monopoly on the collection and manufacture of salt. Salt could be
manufactured and handled only at official government salt depots, with
a tax of Rs1-4-0 on each maund (82 pounds).
The proposed Carbon Trading Tax , call it what ever you like , is
designed EXACTLY like the " salt Tax ' used to extract money / TAX
from every man woman and child every where on earth and pass the money
forward to those who control the system , in this case it will be the
jews who run the World Bank Carbon Trading Unit or their agents
EXACTLY like the jews have positioned themselves so as to fully
CONTROL the banking industry AND the DIAMOND INDUSTRY , [ also
carbon ] the jews WILL soon secure themselves into positions where
they can FINALLY set a tax system up that can HARVEST the WEALTH of
the ENTIRE GLOBE and run the ENTIRE industry from one tiny office
FULL control of the entire Globe was never won so easily since the
British used "salt Tax" to enslave INDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India#Effects_of_the_salt_tax
The world Bank Carbon Trading Unit will have the power to extract any
amount of " tax " they choose from any company anywhere FOR ALL TIME
It will take centuries and World War 4 to remove their claws from this
monopoly once they get it started , they will NEVER voluntarily give
it up, billions will die trying to break these financial chains from
YOUR grand childrens childrens ankles
Exactly like the Salt TAX
It will be sugar coated and offered as a CURE to the current problems
and introduced at a very LOW rate with very BIG rewards promised
EXACTLY like the Salt TAX
It will give the jews the RIGHTS to extract what ever rate of TAX they
choose to charge , your government once SIGNED UP can never complain
or alter the rates , and MUST enforce the collection at YOUR costs
using YOUR courts and YOUR police to arrest ANYBODY who dares produce
carbon without a " permit " at a price the " controller decides you
can pay
Endless grinding poverty awaits EVERYBODY who permits their GOVERNMENT
to sign away YOUR children s economic freedom in Copenhagen
Economic enslavement to the jewish run World Carbon Trading Unit
[edit] Effects of the salt tax
The high price of salt made it unaffordable resulting in a number of
diseases arising due to iodine deficiency.
Abhay Charan Das in his The Indian Ryot published in 1881 has written:
Then again there is a still more wretched creature, who bears the
name of labourer, whose income may be fixed at thirty-five rupees per
annum. If he, with his wife and three children, consumes twenty-four
seers [ 49 lb ] of salt, he must pay a salt duty of two rupees and
seven annas, or in other words 7 ½ per cent income tax. Now we leave
it to our readers to judge, whether the ryots and the labourers can
procure salt in the quantities they require. We can positively state
from our own experience, that an ordinary ryot can never procure more
than two-thirds of what he requires, and that a labourer not more than
half[6]
As late as 1942, when India was embroiled in the Second World War,
there were innumerable deaths due to salt deficiency
It was my duty in India to do special tours in the hottest weather
(June) to observe heat effects in such particularly hot stations as
Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, and Bareilly. The tour of 1942 was
particularly instructive, because it happened to be an unusually hot
season (maximum shade temperature in the above stations were between
115° and 123°F. (46° and 50.6°C.) and because in that year – the first
real war year for India – there was not adequate shade provision for
men, nor was there general realisation of the importance of extra salt
intake. During this hot season there were 1,959 admissions to hospital
for heat effects and 136 deaths. I personally saw 400 cases[6]
—Dr. Marriott, consultant physician at Middlesex Hospital
[edit] Early protests against the British Salt Tax
Since the introduction of the first taxes on salt by the British East
India Company, the laws have been subjected to fervent criticism. The
Chamber of Commerce in Bristol was one of the first to submit a
petition opposing the Salt tax:
The price to the consumer here [in England] is but about 30s per
ton instead of 20 pounds per ton as in India; and if it were necessary
to abolish the Salt tax at home some years since it appears to your
petitioners that the millions of her Majesty's subjects of India have
a much stronger claim for remission in their case, wretchedly poor as
they are, and essentially necessary as salt is to their daily
sustenance, and to the prevention of disease in such a climate[7]
The Salt Tax was criticized at a public meeting at Cuttack in February
1888. In the first session of the Indian National Congress held in
1885 in Bombay, a prominent Congress member, S.A. Swaminatha Iyer
pleaded against the salt tax[8][9][10].
It would be unjust and unrighteous if the tax on salt should be
increased. It is a necessary article both for human as well as animal
well-being... it would be bad policy and a retrograde movement to
raise the tax, especially at a time when the poor millions of India
are anxiously looking forward for a further reduction of the tax....
As any increase, therefore, of this tax will fall heavily upon the
masses of the people of the land, I would strongly urge upon the
attention of this Congress the necessity of its entering its strong
protest against any attempt on the part of Government to raise the tax
on salt[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India#Effects_of_the_salt_tax
taxing carbon will not CURE the problem it will only transfer wealth
from the workers and the poor to the wealthiest 1% of the ruling
elites sitting in airconditioned offices making sure we dont use any
untaxed fuel of any kind
ONLY replacing the iron to the oceans we REMOVE when using the rivers
for irrigation , we cut off the iron fertilization of the oceans and
nature can no longer REMOVE carbon from the air
The CURE to global warming can ONLY be had by replacing iron to the
oceans , even old used tin cans could easily CURE global warming for
FREE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
SCREAM NOW OR FOREVER HANG YOUR HEAD IN SHAME
After Copenhagen gets into gear it will be too late
Sid Harth
Top U.N. Scientist Laments U.S. Pace on Climate Actions
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN of Greenwire
Published: November 20, 2009
The United Nations' top climate scientist does not expect any major
breakthroughs on global warming next week when President Obama hosts
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, because the United States has
not acted to curb its greenhouse gas emissions.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Go to Blog » Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, told reporters today that a "shadow" hangs
over the upcoming Indian leader's state visit to Washington, which
comes just three weeks before some 190 nations meet in Copenhagen,
Denmark, to hammer out a political deal on climate change.
"I really don't see much in terms of coming together of views,"
Pachauri said from New Delhi, where he also serves as director-general
of an Indian-based research center.
"I'm afraid, if anything, the gap has widened a bit," he added. "And
what would really have carried a lot of credibility would have been
some commitment on the part of the U.S. to reduce emissions, but since
that's not forthcoming, I doubt if there would be much of a productive
dialogue on what the two countries will do in Copenhagen when the two
leaders meet next week."
Obama and other key world leaders last weekend agreed to focus on a
political agreement during the Copenhagen negotiations, pushing back
until 2010 the details of a new international treaty. The delay stems
in large part from the slowdown on Capitol Hill, with an uncertain
future as to whether the Senate can pass its version of climate
legislation amid next year's midterm election campaign.
Pachauri, speaking on a conference call hosted by the Natural
Resources Defense Council, said many international diplomats are upset
with the slow pace in Washington, given expectations that built up
over the last two years that the Copenhagen talks would result in a
comprehensive new climate agreement.
"I wouldn't use the term 'blame on the United States,'" he said. "One
knows that this administration really hasn't had enough time in office
and there's the historical backlog of inaction for eight years and
more. One could perhaps argue that this could have been a much higher
priority and this should perhaps have been pushed before any of the
other initiatives the administration has taken, particularly given the
fact that there was a deadline of December for getting an agreement."
He added, "To that extent, I wouldn't place any blame, but I feel
disappointed and so do so many other people that think that didn't
move rapidly enough."
As for the upcoming state visit in Washington, Pachauri said he
expects Obama and Singh to focus on areas where they can find
agreement, including cooperation on low-carbon energy technologies,
including "second generation" biofuels, solar power and development of
a "smart" electricity grid in India.
"I hope the visit really marks a watershed in relations in a set of
areas which really have enormous relevance not only for the two
countries, but for the world as a whole," he said.
Avoiding talk of tariffs
Pachauri predicted that Obama and Singh would skirt discussions over
U.S. legislative proposals to impose border tariffs on developing
countries that have not set up their own stringent climate change
policies. Key Midwestern lawmakers insist on the language to protect
their local, trade-sensitive industries. But developing countries
counter that such a move could provoke a trade war.
"I'm sure the U.S. administration knows that in most developing
countries, any linking of climate-related actions with trade is seen
with intense disfavor," he said. "Therefore, I really think, given the
limited time the two leaders have, I doubt if the U.S. and President
Obama in particular would raise this question."
Looking ahead to Copenhagen, Pachauri called for developed nations to
focus on outlining their emission reduction targets for 2020,
considering the growing scientific warnings that global emissions must
peak by 2015 in order to keep temperatures from rising no more than 2
to 2.4 degrees Celsius. Pachauri predicted success in Copenhagen if
developed countries propose emission limits along with a firm
financial figure devoted to help developing countries deal with
climate change.
"These are two things which would certainly make a major difference
and would bring about a total change of atmosphere," he said.
Pachauri also said he didn't expect major developing countries, under
the umbrella of the Group of 77 plus China, to combine on a collective
emissions reduction target. Instead, he predicted a tit-for-tat series
of pledges if developed countries step up, too.
"That's too large a group in which I think, particularly given the
differentials in emission levels and economic conditions, that we
might get any kind of agreement," he said. "But it's entirely possible
if the developed world is prepared to walk the talk, then you'd get
China, India, Brazil, Mexico making some commitments on their own
national action plans and probably placing them as their commitment to
the international community. I think something like that is possible."
The IPCC chief shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice
President Al Gore. And he urged Obama, who is set to accept his own
Nobel Peace Prize next month in Norway, to stick around the region to
attend the Copenhagen talks. "I personally think he should," Pachauri
said. "I mean he's going to be in the neighborhood in Oslo, anyway.
Let him spend a little more time in Scandinavia if he can. I think it
would be good."
White House climate and energy adviser Carol Browner said Wednesday
that Obama has not made a decision yet on whether he will attend the
U.N. negotiations.
Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
For more news on energy and the environment, visit www.greenwire.com.
chhotemianinshallah
Pollution kills 8 lakh in India every year: Report
Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, November 21, 2009
First Published: 00:57 IST(21/11/2009)
Last Updated: 01:02 IST(21/11/2009)
“Our cities are the dirtiest of the world. If there is a Nobel Prize
for dirt and filth, India will win it,” Environment and Forest
Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Friday.
Ramesh was speaking during the release of a report, which said that
800,000 people died in India every year because of environmental
factors.
Things could improve, the minister said, once Parliament approved the
National Green Tribunal Bill in the winter session. The report,
prepared by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), dwells on what
India will look like in 2047, 100 years after Independence.
Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Kelkar suggested a way of building
environment assets for the nation — selling half of the country’s
public sector undertakings to raise Rs 90,000 crore.
“The private sector has (made unnecessary) many PSUs now,” he said.
The report estimates the 8 lakh people die because of pollution of
air, water and land, and the cost of such deaths is Rs 2,00,000 crore
(Rs 2,000 billion).
The cost of environment degradation is 4 per cent of gross domestic
product (GDP), which in 2009-10 is Rs 46,00,000 crore ($1 trillion).
GDP is the value of goods and services produced in a country in a
year.
chhotemianinshallah
India can do more on climate if given tech, resources: PM
Lalit K Jha/PTI /
Washington November 24, 2009, 13:09 IST
Weeks ahead of the Copenhagen summit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has said India was ready to do more on climate change if developed
nations offer financial resources and technology.
India can commit to be part of a solution that does not compromise the
rights of the developing countries, despite the fact that being a
latecomer to industrialisation, it has contributed very little to the
accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions, Singh said.
"We are determined to be part of the solution to the problem. We are
willing to work towards any solution that does not compromise the
right of developing countries to develop and lift their populations
out of poverty," he said in his address to Washington-based think
tank, Council on Foreign Relations, in significant remarks that come
close to the Copenhagen summit on climate change.
Singh said India has already undertaken to do what it can with its own
resources. "We will do more if there is global support in terms of
financial resources and technology transfer".
He said India recognises the need to act on climate change "in our own
interest", since it is among the countries most impacted by the
phenomenon. "It is for this reason that we have adopted an ambitious
National Action Plan on Climate Change," he said.
"We are committed to ambitious and time-bound outcomes that will
increase energy efficiency of our economy, the share of clean energy
including nuclear power in our energy mix, and our forest cover,"
Singh said, adding all this will require considerable resources.
Referring to the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting, Singh said the
negotiations heading toward the meet were proving more difficult than
the world would have liked.
"There is disagreement among industrialised countries and between
industrialised and developing countries... It is important for all
countries to make every effort to contribute to a successful outcome
at Copenhagen," he said.
bademiyansubhanallah
US and India pledge common action on climate changeHopes of a strong
deal at Copenhagen summit renewed as Obama and Singh commit to
'significant mitigation actions'
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent and Jonathan Watts,
Asia environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 November
2009 19.57 GMT
Barack Obama welcomes Manmohan Singh during a ceremony at the White
House.
Photograph: Larry Downing/Reuters
America and India today pledged common action to fight climate change
and to build a new global clean energy economy, claiming the new
"green partnership" between two of the world's biggest emitters would
help produce a strong political deal at next month's summit in
Copenhagen.
Barack Obama and visiting Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, both
committed to "significant mitigation actions", ie reducing greenhouse
gas emissions.
With today's understanding, three of the world's top emitters, China,
America and India are now committed to action on emissions at
Copenhagen, though they have yet to reveal the actual targets. But it
does significantly boost the prospect that world leaders could commit
to strong action at the UN summit, despite the rancourous atmosphere
among their official negotiating teams at the last set of meetings in
Barcelona this month.
"It takes us one step closer to a successful outcome in Copenhagen."
Obama said. Today's pledge from Singh comes a day after the White
House said Obama would commit to cutting emissions before the
Copenhagen meeting gets underway. China's Hu Jintao committed to
reducing the future growth rate of emissions during Obama's visit to
Beijing a week ago.
India's new commitment is to take what the White House described today
as "vigorous action to combat climate change" in return for assistance
from industrialised countries for its shift from coal to cleaner
energy sources. Singh made it clear there would be a price for India's
cooperation. "We will do more if there is global support in terms of
financial resources and technology transfer," he told the Council of
Foreign Relations yesterday.
Some of that support came through today, with the announcement of a
joint research centre, with US and Indian government funds, to help
speed the development of more energy efficient technologies, as well
as carbon capture and storage. It is thought the US government will
contribute $100m a year to the centre over the next five years.
"India was a latecomer to industrialisation and as such we have
contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas
emissions that caused global warming, but we are determined to be part
of the solution," Singh said.
Although India has resisted international pressure to commit to
legally binding emissions targets in negotiations, the country has
over the last year embarked on a series of new greener measures.
India's cabinet this week approved a plan to triple solar capacity to
20 gigawatts by 2022, and to give more incentives to the development
of solar power.
The two countries directed their national labs to work together on
expanding solar and wind energy potential. US officials have also been
working with India to set up a local version of the Environmental
Protection Agency, which could regulate industry and help assure
supply of clean water and air.
In recent weeks, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea have all slapped
down hard figures on the negotiating table. A specific target from
China is expected soon and, under one scenario, China reveal it at a
summit with the European Union on 30 November in Nanjing.
That would pave the way for Obama to announce the US targets soon
after. But creating this domino effect requires a strong enough
commitment by Beijing to convince wavering US senators that China was
moving significantly beyond business as usual.
But several recent reports and recommendations on China's likely
ambition have generated fears that the carbon target will actually
mark a step back from its existing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, once more placing the talks in jeopardy.
"Some of the numbers being bandied around seem worryingly low given
China's weight of economic growth. But we remain confident that China
will ultimately offer us an emissions reduction target that represents
a significant reduction from business as usual," said a European
diplomat.
The closest the government in Beijing has come to announcing a goal
was at the UN summit in September, when president Hu Jintao's promised
to reduce the carbon intensity of China's economy by a "notable
margin" between 2005 and 2020. But recent reports have suggested that
China is considering a reduction in carbon intensity - emissions
relative to economic growth - in the lower end of the range 40-50% in
the period of 2005-2020.
chhotemianinshallah
'A Himalayan double whammy'
Q&A: Maharaj K Pandit, director of the CISMHE
Latha Jishnu / New Delhi November 20, 2009, 0:40 IST
For almost a decade now, Maharaj K Pandit has been spending a lot of
time in the eastern and western Himalayas studying the changes to the
fragile ecology brought about by large-scale development projects. The
current research of Pandit, who is the director of the Centre for
Inter-disciplinary Studies of Mountain & Hill Environment (CISMHE) as
also the director of the School of Environmental Studies at the
University of Delhi, is tracking the biological signatures of climate
change in the Himalayas. In a forthright response to the controversial
report released last week by the Ministry of Environment and Forests
(MoEF) which says the glacial retreat is not linked to climate change,
Pandit says India oscillates between “a conspiracy of silence and a
conspiracy of denial” on critical issues. Although his specialisation
is biology, Pandit has been conducting multi-disciplinary research on
the changing Himalayan environment and has come up with some startling
findings. In an interview to Latha Jishnu, he says India cannot afford
to ignore the warning signals of the glacial melt. Excerpts:
The report released last week by the MoEF says there is no evidence to
suggest that the Himalayan glaciers have retreated because of climate
change, and that they have not in any way exhibited an abnormal
retreat.
Can you cite any authoritative study to confirm this?
One of the more interesting studies comes from scientists at the Key
Laboratory of Biodiversity and Biogeography in Kunming, China, who
collaborated with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development. There is also the study by KK Rupa. The Chinese study
says the challenges of climate change in the Himalayas can be
addressed only through regional collaboration in scientific research
and policy-making.
What are the other controversial points in the report?
It talks about a decreasing change in glacial retreat from the Western
to Eastern Himalayas — higher in Kashmir and the lowest in Sikkim. It
is a bit of a contradiction. On the one hand the report says that
glaciers closer to sea levels are depleting faster (disregarding the
latitudinal aspect), and on the other, it states that Eastern
Himalayan glaciers, which are closer to sea level, are better off.
This anomaly needs careful deliberation. Overall, the data is
inadequate to draw any conclusions. In such critical cases, it is
better to err on the side of caution rather than on misplaced
optimism.
What have your own studies shown?
I am not an expert on the geophysics of glaciers. What we are doing at
CISMHE is to find out if there are any biological signatures to this
climate change, that is, if species are showing any change to changing
patterns of climate. And we have found something startling. Some 115-
odd plant species in Sikkim’s Lachung Valley have shown a significant
northward shift of 500 feet to 1,000 feet in the past 200 years. This
is an indication of how sensitive the Himalayas are. In the Alps, the
average rate of such a shift is 65-100 feet. What we are witnessing
here is colossal change, proof that the Himalayas are more sensitive
to climate change.
Why is there so much controversy here about the glaciers?
There is little credible data available. Regrettably, most of the
research institutions belong to the government and work under several
political and bureaucratic constraints.
In which case, is the government’s plan to set up an institute of
glaciology a good one?
The important thing is that it should be a credible institution
consisting of independent scientists. If it’s made of the same
administrators and the same government scientists, there is no point.
It is essential that we involve the international scientific community
in this endeavour because science is a global enterprise. It’s also
important that we set up the institutional framework for it right
away. Otherwise, 20 years hence when the crisis would be closing in,
we would still be debating whether the glacial melt is happening and
how serious it is.
If an official report says the glaciers are not retreating because of
climate change, what is the message?
Although the fact that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and retreating
is widely accepted, the timing of such a report makes it seem part of
the politics of the global climate change negotiations. Perhaps, it is
to suggest there is no correlation between carbon emissions and
climate change, and climate change and glacial retreat? The public
response will oscillate between the “conspiracy of denial” and
“conspiracy of silence”, depending on what suits you.
In the ultimate analysis, does it matter whether glacial retreat is
because of global warming or other factors?
You are absolutely right. My own finding is that number of other
factors such as urban heat island effect, deforestation, expansion of
agriculture and human settlements, and a quadrupling of the population
density in the Himalayas since Independence would have contributed to
changes in the regional climate. As I have said in my paper published
in Conservation Biology, all these factors combined with global
warming are a double whammy for the Himalayan ecosystems, including
glaciers.
What are the other factors that are making the Himalayan ecosystem
more vulnerable?
Forests are being cut down, urban expansion and development works are
accelerating and so is agriculture. As many as 280-300 small and large
dams are likely to be built on rivers across the five Himalayan
states. Then there is this neo-religious tourism. What was once a
trickle of a few thousand people making the trek to Amarnath, Gangotri
and Yamunotri has now turned into a sea of devotees crowding these
areas. This upsurge brings in a train of huge problems. Government
policies are directly responsible for all of this.
Are there no integrated ecological and hydrological studies of the
Himalayas?
In this country, rigid attitudes have prevented us from getting
together and making a sense of how the natural ecosystem behaves.
Sciences have been compartmentalised and there is little crossing-over
of ideas between ecologists and hydrologists. We tried in a small way
to bring these disparate issues together in the carrying capacity
study of Teesta Basin and were able to conclude that integrated and
inter-disciplinary studies were crucial for arriving at informed
planning and administrative decisions.
Sid Harth
Global warming: India in a fix as China pledges big emission cuts
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 26 November 2009, 09:30pm IST
BEIJING: China has announced that it will cut emissions by a drastic
40-45 per cent compared to 2005 levels by the year 2020. The pledge,
which is far ahead of the promises made by the United States, is also
expected to cause jitters in New Delhi and raise questions about the
efficacy of the India-China deal on the issue.
There is also a sense that Beijing has pre-empted other developing
countries as it made the announcement a day before it was set to hold
dialogue on Friday with India, South Africa and Brazil on preparations
for the Copenhagen conference on climate change in December.
Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh is set to meet Chinese
premier Wen Jiabao and Xie Zhenhua, deputy head of the powerful
National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing. This meeting
follows recent discussions on climate change held by US president
Barack Obama with Chinese leaders and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh.
China’s emission levels are a lot more than India, which may be
expected to set lower targets. But New Delhi has been reluctant to
announce any targets at all. Beijing’s announcement will put pressure
on India, South Africa and Brazil to announce targets if they wish to
stick with China in a joint front at the Copenhagen meeting, sources
explained.
It is Xie, who made the announcement that China would aim to cut
carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of
gross domestic product — by a range of 40% to 45% by 2020. It came a
day after Obama said the US intends to cut its greenhouse-gas
emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83% by 2050.
Xie also said premier Wen will attend the global climate change summit
in Copenhagen next month. He also indicated Beijing will use the
meeting to push developed nations to be less miserly in sharing green
technology and contributing funds.
“So far we have not seen concrete actions and substantive commitments
by the developed countries," Xie said at the press conference. "As
we've made this commitment, well, Chinese people stick to their word,"
he further said suggesting China was ready to stand by its promise.
But it is not clear if Beijing was prepared to allow outside world to
carry out investigation on the implementation of its environmental
program. Both India and China had earlier opposed any outside
interference on this issue.
China has proposed that developed nations contribute 1 per cent of
gross domestic product to subsidize efforts by poorer nations to cut
carbon-dioxide emissions. That translates to more than $140 billion
for the US alone. Of course, Washington is far from accepting it.
"Appropriate handling of the climate change issue is of vital interest
to China's social and economic development and people's fundamental
interests, as well as the welfare of all the people in the world and
the world's long-term development," the Chinese State Council said in
the statement.
Sid Harth
PM clears air, says West must pay for green tech
TNN 23 October 2009, 04:05am IST
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday cleared India's
position on climate change, stating that "equating GHG emissions
across nations on a per capita basis is the only just and fair basis
for a long-term global arrangement on climate change which is truly
equitable".
The PM was speaking at a two-day international climate change
technology conference hosted by India. In a speech as eagerly awaited
at home as aboard, Singh, renewed India's call for a deal at
Copenhagen that adheres to the Bali Action Plan and the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change.
With doubts being raised about a shuffle of Indian stance on climate
change negotiations, the PM's speech helped reset the Indian position
before senior delegates gathered from more than 30 countries,
including many from the G77 group of countries and China. It was amply
clear that the speech was as much oriented for a domestic audience as
well as a signal to the rest of the world that India had not budged
from its position ahead of the semi-final round of negotiations in
November at Barcelona.
In a speech peppered with statements echoing India's position on key
elements of the negotiations, Singh said, "We believe that
continuation of the process of incentivizing the adoption of climate
friendly technologies in developing countries in the second commitment
period of Kyoto Protocol should be a priority concern."
He also lobbed the ball back in the industrialized countries' court,
saying, "I have no doubt that if developed countries make a serious
effort to bring their per capita emissions within tolerable levels,
they will unleash large resources directed towards research. This will
generate an upsurge of technology that will make it much easier for
other countries to follow suit."
The point was not lost on the gathering. The industrialized countries
have been demanding for a while now that emerging economies like India
sign on to a deal that obliges them to take emission reduction
obligations at their own cost in coming years. Painting India as
`obstructionist', the industrialized countries have so far shied away
from offering either credible money or commitment for deep emission
cuts. Urging India to take `leadership' and become a `deal maker' on
climate change is the euphemism often used to convince the government
to take `emission control obligations'.
Touching on the crucial issue of intellectual property rights, and
citing the example of the compulsory licensing in the case of HIV
treatment, the PM said, "The IPR regime applied to those (climate
friendly) goods should balance rewards for innovators with the need to
promote common good of humankind."
The conference, crucial in its own right, for attempting to produce a
political statement of important countries on technology transfer
issues, had gathered greater significance with the political storm
that enveloped the Indian climate agenda but had the radars of
observers up across the globe watching for any loosening of the Indian
stance.
Sid Harth
Rich countries keep polluting, blame India
TNN 22 October 2009, 12:34am IST
NEW DELHI: The rich countries blame India and other developing nations
for the world's rising emission levels. Here is proof that the boot is
on the other foot. Fresh data released by the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change says greenhouse gas emissions from the rich nations
increased by 12.8% between 1990-2007, the latest period for which
figures are available.
While the industrialized countries are now gunning for India and China
to take on stronger commitments and obligations under the new deal to
be possibly thrashed out by the Copenhagen round of UN negotiations in
December, the data from UNFCCC showed that most of the reductions had
come from the "economies in transition" -- mostly eastern European and
Balkan countries whose economies have crashed.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the US increased by 20.2% between
1990-2007. US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol as it refused to
enter a regime which would have obliged it to reduce its emissions by
a fixed percentage below 1990 levels. The US, even after Barack Obama
took over the presidency, has not shifted from its Bush-era stance and
has refused to sign on to the protocol.
Even as it played the blame game, its own targets for the period
closing 2020 would not even reach the 1990 levels. Developing
countries, in contrast, have stated that the science demands US and
other developed countries take emission reduction cuts of at least 40%
below 1990 levels to keep temperatures under control.
Carbon dioxide emissions, embarrassingly for Denmark, increased by 1%
between 1990 and 2007. With the carbon space in the atmosphere already
swallowed, even small percentage increases are seen as a serious
threat and with Denmark being the host country for the final round of
negotiations this year, the statistics will not help convince emerging
economies that rich nations are doing enough.
Turkey's emissions grew at 118% while that of Spain by 60% and Japan's
at 14%. While these are high-growth or developed economies, India has
argued that they have had more than their fair share of the carbon
dioxide budget.
"The continuing growth of emissions from industrialized countries
remains worrying, despite the expectation of a momentary dip brought
about by the global recession," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of
UNFCCC, said in a press statement.
Emissions are explicitly linked to the levels of economic activity of
a country as higher production levels require greater fossil fuel
based energy. While some countries like UK have been able to achieve
some gains, these have come out of one-time events such as switching
much of its energy source from coal to gas. Experts warn that these do
not reflect a declining long-term trend or the rich nations having
drawn long-term trajectories towards emission decline.
Putting the countries on low-carbon pathways can have substantial
impact on economic activity and most of the rich nations have shown
reluctance to take any actions that may hamper lifestyles as it
remains politically unfeasible for them.
Sid Harth
Global warming eroding Goa beaches: Governor
IANS 23 November 2009, 05:35pm IST
PANAJI: Goa Governor S.S. Sidhu Monday warned that the ill-effects of
global warming were fast knocking at the state's doors and eroding its
beaches.
Speaking at a civic reception in honour of President Pratibha Patil,
Sidhu said: "Goa has started feeling the heat of global warming. Some
of our beaches are being washed away."
Sidhu's statement comes in wake of nearly 10% of Goa beaches such as
Calangute, Candolim and Baga being eroded by the rising sea.
According to a recent report compiled by the state Water Resources
Department (WRD), the residence of Goa governor, Cabo Raj on a
hillside which overlooks the sea, is under threat of erosion.
Remedial measures for protection of Cabo hill slopes in form of
installation of cable anchors, inclined micro piles and vertical piles
are already being undertaken on war footing to prevent the erosion.
Goa's 105 km long coastline invites nearly two million tourists to the
state annually. Tourism is one of the most important sectors in Goa's
economy.
Sid Harth
No study to prove adverse impact of climate change on crops
PTI 23 November 2009, 05:32pm IST
NEW DELHI: The government on Monday said there is no conclusive
scientific study to substantiate that the recent floods in coastal
areas, drought and shortfall of rain in crop producing states is due
to global warming.
"The studies conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) do not reveal confirmed findings about the adverse impact of
climate change on Indian agriculture," Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
He said the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, which is one
of the eight missions envisaged in the National Action Plan on Climate
Change (NAPCC), aims at developing strategies to make Indian
agriculture more resilient to climate change through development of
new varieties of thermal resistant crops.
bademiyansubhanallah
India warns against protectionism under a green label
2009-11-28 10:30:00
Port-of-Spain, Nov 28 (IANS) Amid growing pressure from developed
countries to accept carbon curbing targets, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh Friday pushed for 'an ambitious, substantive and equitable
outcome' at the UN summit on climate change but warned developed
countries against pursuing 'protectionist policies under a green
label'.
In a strong message barely ten days before the Cophenhagen conference,
Manmohan Singh said it was 'unfortunate that the global discourse on
climate change has become enmeshed with arguments about maintaining
economic competitiveness or level playing fields'.
'Climate Change is becoming the pretext for pursuing protectionist
policies under a green label. This would be contrary to the UNFCCC
(United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and a
violation of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) as well,' he said.
'India and other developing countries will strongly resist this,'
Manmohan Singh said in his intervention at the special session on
climate change at the 53-nation Commonwealth Heads of Government
meeting.
Pushing for 'a global and a collaborative response,' Manmohan Singh
pushed for 'an ambitious, substantive and equitable outcome' at the
Dec 7-18 UN summit on climate change.
He said: 'India has repeatedly emphasised the need for the Copenhagen
outcome to be comprehensive, balanced and above all, equitable.'
Explaining India's negotiating stance, the prime minister asked
developed countries to resist 'a partial outcome' and pushed for a
legally binding instrument based on core principles of the UNFCCC and
the 2007 Bali Action Plan.
'It must be comprehensive in the sense that it must cover all the
inter-related components of mitigation, adaptation, finance and
technology. This means we should resist a partial outcome,' he said at
the summit meeting.
'Furthermore, there must be balance and equal priority given to each
of the four components,' he said.
'And most important from our perspective, is the need to ensure an
equitable outcome corresponding to the principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,' the
prime minister said.
The prime minister repeatedly placed equity at the centre of
international negotiations on climate change.
'India is willing to sign on to an ambitious global target for
emissions reductions or limiting temperature increase but this must be
accompanied by an equitable burden sharing paradigm,' he said.
Amid pessimism among some countries about the outcome of the
Cophenhagen conference, the prime minister said: 'Our view is that we
should not pre-empt the Copenhagen negotiating process.'
'Whatever time is still available to us before the High Level Segment
meets from Dec 16, should be used to achieve as much convergence as
possible,' he said.
'If the consensus is that only a political document is feasible then
we must make certain that the post-Copenhagen process continues to
work on the Bali mandate and the UNFCCC continues to be the
international template for global climate action,' he said.
He went on to say that 'the attempts by some countries to dispense
with the Kyoto Protocol altogether has generated avoidable misgivings
and has been strongly resisted by all developing countries without
exception.'
'We hope that a legally valid instrument to which we too are parties,
will not be set aside in a cavalier manner. This will undermine
credibility in any future legally binding instrument.'
In his separate bilateral talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy
and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the sidelines of the
Commonwealth summit, Manmohan Singh also stressed emphatically that
India has a major stake in the success of the Cophenhagen conference.
The prime minister told the British and French leaders that it was in
India's interests to see a successful outcome at Cophenhagen, external
affairs ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said.
They all agreed on the need for a balanced, ambitious and equitable
outcome at the Cophenhagen conference, Prakash said.
Elaborating on India's position, the prime minister informed about a
slew of unilateral and voluntary actions taken by India to curb
greenhouse gas emissions and alluded to the national action plan on
climate change.
Manmohan Singh reiterated the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities of developed and developing countries for curbing
carbon emissions and stressed on the transfer of technologies and
resources to enable developing countries to combat climate change.
bademiyansubhanallah
India has major stake in success of Copenhagen summit: Manmohan
Manish Chand, Indo-Asian News Service
Port of Spain, November 28, 2009
First Published: 09:36 IST(28/11/2009)
Last Updated: 10:04 IST(28/11/2009)
With eight days to go for the Copenhagen conference, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh met French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown to push for "a balanced, equitable and ambitious
outcome" at the 192-nation UN convention on climate change next month.
In his separate bilateral talks with Sarkozy and Brown on the
sidelines of the Commonwealth summit, Manmohan Singh on Friday
stressed "emphatically that India has a major stake in the success of
the Copenhagen conference," India's external affairs ministry
spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said in Port of Spain.
The prime minister told the British and French leaders that it was in
India's interests to see a successful outcome at the Dec 7-18
Copenhagen confernece on climte change, the spokesperson said.
They all agreed on a balanced, ambitious and equitable outcome at the
Copenhagen conference, Prakash said.
Elaborating on India's position, the prime minister informed them
about a slew of unilateral and voluntary mitigation actions taken by
India to curb greenhouse gas emissions and alluded to India's national
action plan on combating climate change.
The prime minister mentioned that there were several proposals from
interlocutors and India was looking at them with an open mind, Prakash
said.
Manmohan Singh reiterated the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities of developed and developing countries for curbing
carbon emissions and stressed on the transfer of technologies and
resources to enable developing countries to combat climate change.
Only adequate transfer of technologies and resources can help
developing countries in the process of tackling climate change, the
prime minister told Sarkozy and Brown.
The 53-nation Commonwealth summit of former colonies of Britain opened
here Friday with a renewed push towards achieving "political
consensus" on climate change weeks ahead of the UN nations convention
in Copenhagen.
Putting climate change on top of the agenda at the Commonwealth
conference, Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma stressed
that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Body (CHOGM) will make a
restatement of "shared responsibilities towards the preservation of
our planet."
The Commonwealth summit is expected to send a strong consensus message
from the Commonwealth to the Copenhagen conference about the need for
a balanced and equitable outcome.
India has consistently maintained it wants developed countries to take
deeper cuts and refused to accept any reduction target on grounds that
such target would affect prospects of economic growth in developing
countries.
chhotemianinshallah
Caution buzzword for India on climate talks
M Madhusudan | New Delhi
Just a week to go for the much-awaited Copenhagen climate change
summit, ‘caution’ is the buzzword for India — especially, in the wake
of some major developments last week.
The US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, announced their
respective reduction targets, which — in Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh’ words — is a “wake-up call for India” to follow suit. The
announcement also holds the prospect of an increase in international
pressure on India to commit to an emission reduction target, which it
has so far vehemently and successfully been opposing.
Then again, China surprised everyone by leading to forge a new
pressure group inclusive of India, South Africa, Brazil and Sudan. The
new group has reiterated its resolve that it is all for the Kyoto
Protocol bindings to remain in force beyond 2012, something which the
European Union, the US and even Australia have been out to junk.
“India’s alignment with China in the new pressure group is welcome.
But at the same time, it could well provide a new reason to
industrialised nations to pressurise India into emulating its partner,
China. The possibility can’t be ruled out,” said a Government
negotiator.
And at the 53-nation Commonwealth Summit in Trinidad and Tobago,
countries like the UK and France may have stressed the need for a
multi-billion dollar fund to help out developing countries to tackle
climate change but alike India, countries like Canada, one of the
world’s top 10 emitters of greenhouse gas, have also not been too keen
at announcing emission reduction targets.
“The US has announced an absolute reduction target of 17 per cent
below 2005 levels by 2020, which translates into a mere 3 per cent
reduction below the 1990 levels when actually science demands that the
developed countries cut their emission by 40 per cent below 1990
levels. Worse, the US targets remain domestic targets and they are not
under a multi-lateral legally binding agreement,” said Kushal Yadav,
Coordinator of the climate change centre of the Centre for Science and
Environment.
“China plans to reduce its energy intensity per unit of gross domestic
product by 40-45 per cent by 2020. The International Energy Agency’s
2009 World Energy Outlook predicted that under a business-as-usual
scenario, Chinese emissions would grow by about 88 per cent between
2005 and 2020. Therefore, this energy intensity by GDP target of 40-45
per cent reduction by 2020 means emission reduction is not much more
significant than business-as-usual,” Yadav maintained.
India’s chief climate negotiator and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
special envoy Shyam Saran, however, told a private news channel on
Sunday that there cannot be any emission cuts (by India) and asserted
that India was not under any pressure to commit to legally binding
emission reduction targets.
On China’s announcements, he said: “China has essentially not
announced an emission reduction target but a slowing down of its
emission growth. That (what China is doing) is not very different from
what India has been saying that even though its energy efficiency is
already quite impressive, it is in position to continue with this
improvement in its energy efficiencies and probably reach a figure of
about 25 percent by 2020.”
Though the recent developments, the Government negotiator said, have
revived some hopes of an outcome at Copenhagen notwithstanding the
fact that it has only added to the complexities, India will have to
exercise utmost caution in making any commitment. For, even a
political declaration as being planned, if not studied carefully,
could adversely impact us, he said adding the chances of a global
consensus continue to remain bleak what with the rich and poor divide
continuing to exist.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/219338/Caution-buzzword-for-India-on-climate-talks.html
Sid Harth
Political games shape Copenhagen agenda
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr'Tuesday, December 1, 2009 0:20 IST
\
The crisis in climate change is not the issue at the UN summit at
Copenhagen beginning on December 7. It is about political games which
different groups are involved in playing to remain important and
dominant players. In the 1970s, their numbers were small. Now they
have attained critical mass. We are not sure whether polar ice sheets
are melting because of human activity in the industrial era. But we
can be quite sure that the climate-change lobbies comprising some of
the scientists and many of the green groups have been able to impress
and convert a few of the political leaders and business corporations
about this.
This does not mean there is some truth in all this talk about how
climate change is going to destroy civilisation as we know it. Many of
the green activists are aware that they are overstating the case but
they believe that it is a necessary strategy to bring on board the
political and business classes which have to take the decisions and
put in the money to back their agenda.
In reality, the climate crisis has pseudo-scientific validity because
it is based on evidence that is as yet incomplete. There is need for
further inquiry. No scientific study ever strikes the note of finality
as the panel of scientists which has set itself as the final arbiter
in the matter has done. The intelligent conjectures and projections
that are being made are partly motivated by political preferences and
partly by blinkered sentimentalism. Scientists are not to be trusted
when they argue politics or when they speak from the heart instead of
on the basis of hard evidence.
The most mischievous and the more dangerous are of course civil
society groups looking for a cause -- any cause -- to muscle their way
into the influential circles of decision-makers. These nearly-demented
green fanatics want to enjoy power without social responsibility.
We can recognise these groups clearly in India. The group of climate
scientists is represented by the chairman of the UN Inter-Governmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), RK Pachauri, elder of the group who as
chairman of the IPCC shared a Nobel Peace prize with former US vice-
president Al Gore. Here is a man whose views and arguments have to be
taken with more than a pinch of salt because he is not the rigorous
number-cruncher. He is more an ecology planner rather than a climate
scientist. Then we have organisations like the New Delhi-based Centre
for Science and Environment (CSE), founded by Anil Aggarwal, and now
headed by Suneeta Narain. The CSE is not a science research institute
like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) or the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc). The CSE has proved to be an effective and
successful campaigner. But campaigns have nothing much to do with
truth.
In the government we have the Union minister of state for environment
and forests Jairam Ramesh and special advisor to prime minister on
climate Shyam Saran. Ramesh is an enthusiast for ideas and campaigns;
Saran is a seasoned diplomat with a grasp of the technicalities of his
brief. But Ramesh and Saran are out of their depth with regard to the
real issues concerning climate change. They understand the political
and policy implications of the issue which is important but it is not
the heart of the matter.
The situation is similar to the positions that India took during the
run-up to the setting up of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The
issues were too complicated for our diplomats and bureaucrats. There
were not enough experts on board then. The same thing is happening
again. Climate change is a natural phenomenon. It will occur whether
there are human beings around or not. We will have to reckon with
changes in climate because it affects our lives and livelihoods.
Playing political games is not the way to meet the challenge but that
is all the participants know.
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/column_political-games-shape-copenhagen-agenda_1318594
chhotemianinshallah
Saibal Dasgupta, TNN 28 November 2009, 07:29pm IST
BEIJING: Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for environment and forests,
on Saturday rejected speculation in some quarters that China would do
a side deal with the United States before the Copenhagen talks in
December and betray the cause of other developing nations like India.
“After today’s discussions, it does not appear China will ditch us,”
Ramesh said. It is China, which has brought the four developing
nations to form a joint front, he pointed out.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is himself involved in the discussions
making it nearly impossible for Beijing to backtrack from its stance
now, he said.
Critics have said that China is so closely linked to US companies that
it might do a side deal with Washington in order to get access with
green technology and a range of unrelated benefits.
A European Union official recently told TOI that she feared Beijing
might enter into a “under the table agreement” with Washington to
weaken the resolutions at the Copenhagen meet so that US companies do
not have to make major emission cuts.
“They are playing for long stakes for leadership in the green
technology movement,” he said talking about the Chinese leadership.
“China knows that with 23 per cent (carbon) emissions it is the
world’s biggest emitter,” Ramesh said suggesting that the Chinese
leadership is extremely conscious of its international
responsibilities.
China already a major supplier of power equipment and contributes 20%
of the new electricity generating sets being put up in India, he
said.
chhotemianinshallah
Nitin Sethi, TNN 3 December 2009, 02:33am IST
NEW DELHI: Seeking to match China in public diplomacy over climate
change negotiations, the Indian government is likely to announce on
Thursday its plan to reduce the carbon/energy intensity of the Indian
economy.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh is likely to indicate in Parliament
a broad target range for reducing either carbon or energy intensity by
2020 as a voluntary measure. The minister's reply to a calling
attention motion on India's stand on climate negotiations will lay out
its plan for a low-carbon economy.
An agency report said that the government has decided to reduce the
carbon intensity by 24% from 2005 levels by 2020. However, according
to government sources, no specific number has yet been worked out and
the minister on Wednesday may merely indicate a range, as in China's
case, to retain flexibility.
Days before the climate talks begin in Copenhagen, the PMO has moved
towards putting a range of carbon emission numbers on the table to
blunt any perception that it was lagging other emerging economies like
China and Brazil on climate commitment.
Government is yet to hold widespread discussions on the issue that is
bound to impact the economy at large, and experts and officials have
cautioned against undertaking even a voluntary ``carbon intensity
reduction target'' in haste as that might have unintended impact on
economic growth.
But with the PMO keen to produce some ``reduction offer'', the
government is now divided between taking a carbon or an energy-based
target with pros and cons of each being intensely debated.
Energy intensity measures the amount of energy the country consumes
for every rupee of national income it adds to the GDP, while carbon
intensity measures the tonnes of carbon — the most important
greenhouse gas — the country generates for every rupee of its national
income. Experts say that for a growing economy, it's much easier to
project the energy intensity of future years but it is extremely
difficult to set carbon intensity targets without impacting growth
options.
There have been intense discussions on the issue in the PMO over the
past 24 hours, involving the Planning Commission, the power ministry,
PM's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran and environment
minister Jairam Ramesh.
So far the Indian government has preferred not to benchmark its
efforts in terms of carbon emissions but said it would only take
actions that enhance `energy security' and brought `co-benefits' of
climate change mitigation. In fact, it had even opposed the automobile
industry when it lobbied for a carbon efficiency-based rating and
instead decided in favour of an `energy-efficiency' based rating of
four wheelers.
The government had also fended off international pressure at bilateral
and multilateral levels to convert its actions, such as the solar
mission and the energy efficiency mission into numbers of carbon
emissions they would help save. Such benchmarking, negotiators had
warned, would set the base for emission cuts being demanded of it in
future.
The Indian economy has been even in normal course becoming less energy
and carbon intensive.
Government projections show that even after China achieves its carbon-
intensity reduction targets and India continues on its normal economic
course, by 2020 China would still remain substantially more carbon-
intensive than India.
``It would be a mistake to compare ourselves with China. They have
gone far ahead, built all their infrastructure and have a powerful
manufacturing sector which has caused emission intensity to rise.
China is now at a stage of the growth curve where it can undertake
some actions. Even after these actions, it remains more polluting than
India. Why should that force India to act?'' a negotiator in the
Indian delegation told TOI.
Another negotiator warned that ``such showcasing of domestic action at
the moment won't get any concession from the industrialized world at
Copenhagen''.
``Initially, the idea was that the costly parts of the national action
plan, like the solar mission, should be part-funded by industrialized
countries. We gave that up. Now if we are undertaking a carbon
intensity target beyond the national plan and existing schemes, we
should make it contingent on international finance and technology
transfer,'' the official added.
Last week, reacting to the Chinese announcement, an Indian negotiator
had told TOI, ``China's move was targeted towards the industrialized
world. India has no diplomatic need or economic logic to follow
suit.''
But with the PMO seen keen to match the Chinese in the climate PR
game, and the Planning Commission already working on a `low carbon
growth plan', the decisive shift in Indian stance is imminent.
Experts have pointed out that the biggest impact of a steep carbon-
intensity reduction target would fall on the manufacturing sector,
especially the labour-intensive small and medium scale enterprises,
and 80% of the rural population who use wood, agricultural residue and
other biomass for heating and cooking.
``India has not done a detailed carbon-profiling of its economy. This
is a much more difficult task and takes time. Once that is done, one
needs to understand the impacts of altering this profile in coming
years. UK and others advanced countries have taken years just doing
this and yet they are finding it hard to achieve their targets. India
should not act in haste and trap its own economy into a carbon bind,''
said a senior government official close to the moves.
bademiyansubhanallah
IANS First Published : 02 Dec 2009 09:16:01 PM IST
NEW DELHI: Indian officials have calculated that the country will
reduce its carbon intensity by 24 percent by 2020, compared to 2005,
if the effects of its National Action Plan on Climate Change are
quantified, sources in the environment ministry said Wednesday.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is likely to announce this in
parliament on Thursday, an official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. With the Copenhagen climate summit starting next Monday,
the Lok Sabha is slated to discuss India's position on Thursday.
The sources said the reduction in carbon intensity could go up to 37
percent by 2030, compared to 2005. Carbon intensity is the amount of
carbon dioxide for each unit of industrial activity that goes into the
calculation of a country's gross domestic product.
Officials in the ministries of environment and new and renewable
energy, who made the calculations along with colleagues in Planning
Commission and statisticians, said the figures were provisional, since
all eight missions under the NAPCC had not been firmed up.
As a result, India is likely to present a range of carbon intensity
reduction at the Copenhagen talks, rather than a specific figure.
A few days ago China announced a 40-45 percent carbon intensity
reduction from 2005 levels while Brazil announced 38-42 percent.
India's scope for reducing carbon intensity is not as high, because it
is lower already, and has been going down steadily since the 1980s.
India, the world's fifth highest emitter of greenhouse gases, has been
under pressure from developed countries to announce what it will do to
control emissions.
The emission of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is leading to
climate change, which is already affecting farm output, making
droughts, floods and storms more frequent and more severe and raising
the sea level. India is among the worst affected countries.
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=India+to+reduce+carbon+intensity+by+24%+by+2020&artid=HgDBG4L3u88=&SectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&MainSectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&SectionName=pWehHe7IsSU=&SEO=climate
change, un summit, copenhagen, india, carb
Sid Harth
BJP raps govt for its negotiation strategy on climate change
PTI
Terming Government’s decision to announce unilateral cuts in carbon
emissions as a “bad” negotiation strategy, BJP today accused it of
succumbing to the pressure of developed countries.
“BJP has serious reservations against the unilateral cuts in emissions
announced by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh during the Lok Sabha
debate on climate change yesterday.
“It is bad strategy on the eve of Copenhagen summit to announce
unilateral stance without waiting for the approach of the developed
countries,” Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley told
reporters here.
To a question on the reason behind the decision to unilaterally
announce the cuts, Jaitley simply said the government succumbed to the
pressure from developed countries. “It could be pressure from the
United States and China. I am not very sure,” he added.
When asked if the stand adopted by Ramesh was that of the Government,
Jaitley merely said the Environment Minister had remarked in Lok Sabha
yesterday that his stand on the issue was that of the Prime Minister
and if he (Ramesh) deviates, he would lose his job.
The BJP leader also found it “curious” the insistence of the developed
countries that the PM should attend the Copenhagen meet.
Jaitley also slammed Ramesh for "rubbishing" India's earlier approach
as “do nothing approach”. “The argument that our earlier approach was
'that we are not responsible for climate change and we have a right to
emit as much as developed countries have done' makes a mockery of the
programmes undertaken by successive governments in the past with
regard to environment protection,” he said.
The BJP leader referred to the inputs from the Planning Commission and
"other sources" considered by the Environment Minister before
formulating the country's changed position and wondered whether he was
willing to share the data with the common man.
“Is he merely referring to reports prepared by international
consultants who have an inherent interest in the economies of the
developed countries?” he said.
The BJP also accused the minister of being “carried away by the
bandwagon effect of some nations announcing unilateral cuts.”
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article60151.ece
bademiyansubhanallah
chhotemianinshallah
REUTERS 6 December 2009, 01:25am IST
COPENHAGEN: For 20 years, as this crowded planet grew warmer, nations
have gathered annually to try to do something about it. History now
brings them to this chilly northern capital, and to a crossroads.
The world looks to Copenhagen “to witness what I believe will be an
historic turning point in the fight against climate change”, says Yvo
de Boer, United Nations organizer of the two weeks of talks opening on
Monday.
It may witness, instead, history put on hold. The change in US
administration had aroused hopes the long-running climate talks might
finally produce an all-encompassing package in 2009 to combat warming
and help victims.
Too little time and too little agreement, however, especially between
rich and poor countries, mean the 192-nation Copenhagen conference is
likely to produce, at best, a framework — a basis for continuing talks
and signing internationally binding final agreements next year.
Two key building blocks for that framework may take shape here:
Setting targets for controlling emissions of carbon dioxide and other
global-warming gases, including by the leading contributors, China and
US.
Agreeing on how much rich countries should pay for poor nations’ clean
energy technology and for seawalls, irrigation and other projects to
counter a changing climate.
Under the grand roof of Copenhagen’s modern Bella Center, delegates
will also deal with a heavy agenda of other issues: the technicalities
of protecting forests, measuring emissions, setting rules for “carbon
credits”, enforcing an eventual treaty, and other concerns.
Slow progress has marked climate talks since the 1992 Rio treaty
calling for voluntary controls on greenhouse gases. It took five more
years to get the Kyoto Protocol, which ordered emissions cuts by 37
industrialized nations, an accord the US rejected. While diplomacy has
inched along, climate change hasn’t waited.
Temperatures are rising by 0.19°C per decade and twice as fast in the
far north, melting Arctic sea ice at record rates.
...and I am Sid harth
chhotemianinshallah
TNN 6 December 2009, 02:03am IST
NEW DELHI: India’s move to push for a new line on climate negotiations
by announcing carbon emission cuts hit a major air pocket with key
negotiator Chandrashekhar Dasgupta deciding not to leave for
Copenhagen as scheduled on Monday. He will stay back for more
“discussions” within the government.
Sources said there were several meetings through Saturday with
negotiators like Dasgupta understood to be deeply unhappy with the
position on India accepting a 20-25% reduction in emission intensity
voiced by minister of state for environment Jairam Ramesh in
Parliament.
What has also come as a red rag is a White House statement which was
seen as an unsubtle indication that India acted in concert with the
US. “Following bilaterals and since US announced an emissions
reduction target that reflects progress being made in Congress towards
comprehensive energy legislation, China and India have for the first
time set targets to reduce their carbon intensity,” it said.
chhotemianinshallah
7 Dec 2009, 0437 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: BJP on Sunday used the unease among a section of the
country’s climate change negotiators over the government’s unilateral
announcement to cut its emission intensity to ram in the point that
India’s reflexes on the issue were being guided by external pressures,
and not by national interest.
“A 25% unilateral reduction in emission intensity by 2020 involves
huge costs. What have the developed countries done in reciprocation.
Obviously, every Indian, including our negotiators, are unhappy, but
the US President is pleased because India has come on board,’’ Leader
of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, who’s spearheading
the BJP’s attack on the government’s decision to shift the goalpost on
climate change, told newspersons on Sunday.
The Opposition leader asked the government to come clean on who will
bear the cost of these unilateral emission intensity cuts. He also
questioned the government on the issue of per capita principle on
climate change.
“Has the government of India abandoned the per capita principle, which
implies that every Indian has as much share in the carbon space as an
American does?’’ Mr Jaitley sought to know.
The BJP leader also held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s delayed
decision to go to Copenhagen to attend the climate change summit as
another evidence of the government succumbing to the US pressure on
the subject. The statement issued by the White House over the weekend
that India had, by announcing the emission intensity cuts, acted in
tandem with the US and China had only served to add more substance to
this charge.
``The prime minister has now decided to go to Copenhagen, which was
earlier not a part of his schedule. It was the developed countries
which have forced to him to change his stance. In the last two weeks,
they’ve stepped up their pressure on the prime minister to undertake
the trip to the Danish Capital,’’ Mr Jaitley alleged.
In the process, he maintained, Mr Singh would have skipped the month-
long winter session of Parliament ``thrice’’. The prime minister had
visited the US and Trinidad and Tobago in the last week of November,
and is currently on a visit to Russia.
While accusing the Manmohan Singh government of wilting under American
pressure on climate change, the BJP leader clarified that his party
too wanted good relations with the US, but this should not be ``one-
sided.’’
``While we all support close ties between India and the US, it cannot
be a one-sided relationship, where we succumb to all pressures,” Mr
Jaitley said.
Expressing concern at the steps announced by environment minister
Jairam Ramesh ahead of the Copenhagen summit, the BJP leader contended
that the nation is ``getting increasingly convinced that the
government is not following an independent policy on climate
change.’’
``There is not only a complete reversal of India’s position, but the
government of India is also rubbishing the position of all earlier
governments, including the position taken for five years by the UPA
during its previous stint,’’ Mr Jaitley said.
The BJP leader questioned the unilateral announcement on emission
intensity cuts, maintaining that it was bad strategy. ``It is bad
strategy on the eve of any multilateral negotiations to unveil a
unilateral stance without waiting for the developed countries to
reveal their cards. It is India’s experience in various international
negotiations, including the WTO, that unilateral concessions become
the starting point in India’s negotiations. Mr Ramesh’s announcement
has weakened India’s negotiating position,’’ Mr Jaitley argued.
chhotemianinshallah
7 Dec 2009, 0325 hrs IST, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: With a 'rebellion' by its Copenhagen negotiators rendering
the government vulnerable to attack from the domestic constituency,
environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday was forced to step in to
douse the fire with a promise that there would be no change in India’s
red marks at the climate change talks.
Two key Indian negotiators, Chandrasekhar Dasgupta and Pradipto Ghosh,
had raised the banner of revolt against the government’s ‘shift’ in
the negotiation position, prompting the government to convene a
meeting with them on Sunday morning.
The negotiators sought clarifications on issues such as the scope of
monitoring, review and verification of actions undertaken through
domestic finance and technology, the status of the assurances given to
Parliament on the reduction in emission intensity, and India’s
commitment to the equal per capita emission basis as a plank for
negotiations.
“We met to discuss negotiation nitty-gritty and other issues relating
to reciprocity from developed countries for our unilateral
announcements on emission intensity, equal per capita emission,
national communications,” Mr Ramesh said. The minister also assured
that both, Mr Dasgupta and Mr Ghosh, were on board. Stating that all
outstanding issues have been resolved, Mr Ramesh said: “Mr Ghosh is
scheduled to leave on Tuesday and Mr Dasgupta will leave on Wednesday.
Our negotiating team, headed by Shyam Saran, is already in
Copenhagen.”
On his part, Mr Dasgupta said he has been assured that there won’t be
any radical change in our negotiating positions. “I hold the minister
in high esteem. On the basis of certain assurances offered by him, I
now plan to fly to Copenhagen in the next few days, to assist our
delegation in whatever way I can under the circumstances,” he said.
Both negotiators stressed that a “full clarification” had been given
on all issues, and that there was now a “unified understanding in the
negotiating team”. Mr Ghosh said that he, along with the rest of the
team, would “negotiate from the official brief”.
Elucidating on the apprehensions that led him to delay his departure,
Mr Dasgupta said his main concern was that “we have been offering
unilateral concessions without obtaining any reciprocity”.
He added, “My other concern is over elements of the interview (by Mr
Ramesh in a Delhi newspaper) which seem to water down the prime
minister’s per capita approach, Mr Singh’s position on technology
transfer and IPR, and our rejection of international verification, or
review, of our domestically-funded mitigation actions”. Referring to
the verification of domestically-funded actions, Mr Dasgupta said the
minister had reiterated in Parliament that this was “a non-negotiable
element”.
Of particular concern was the doubt over the official position on
international verification of domestically-funded actions. On its
importance, Mr Dasgupta said: “Unlike many other international
agreements, the climate change convention doesn’t require reviews or
any other type of consultations for domestic actions of developing
countries.”
chhotemianinshallah
Copenhagen needs a strategic response
5 Dec 2009, 0151 hrs IST, Mukul Sanwal,
Print EMail Discuss Share Save Comment Single page view
Text:
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh got it right when he said that we
can no longer go on saying no in the climate negotiations. However,
the
government will get it only half right by agreeing to voluntary
emission cuts in terms of reducing the carbon intensity of growth. The
National Action Plan on Climate Change focuses on demand-side energy
management, and not on decarbonising energy.
Copenhagen should not be seen in terms of responding to a perceived
sense of isolation, but rather in terms of an opportunity to lay out
our own unique perspective to the issue. We must actively shape the
emerging shared vision and global goal for dealing with climate
change.
While the emphasis in developed countries is on the carbon market for
reducing costs, the preferred option for developing countries is
active industrial and agriculture policies to impact on the activities
that generate emissions and develop mechanisms for transfer of
technology, that do not depend on carbon pricing. Recent analyses also
conclude that market-based mechanisms will not drive innovation at the
pace or scale required to prepare the world for longer-term, deeper
emission reductions. Seeing everything in terms of carbon
oversimplifies a complex situation.
For example, recent analysis suggests that mitigation costs for the
developed countries for the most optimistic 17% emissions reduction
would not exceed 0.01-0.05% of GDP. This is insignificant compared to
a 42% increase in GDP that is assumed between now and 2020 for these
countries. At the same time, with fairly lenient targets, the carbon
prices would remain low and developing countries would not benefit
from offsets, which are also being considered as essential in reducing
costs.
The approach adopted by China and India for sustainable development,
on the other hand, has taken the first steps for an alternate policy
framework. Their focus on activities that generate global change,
placing resource conservation, environmental protection and economic
development on equal footing is showing good progress in making real
reductions in emissions.
The 11th Five-Year Plan of China (2006-10) has set a target to reduce
energy use per unit of GDP by 20% by 2010 compared to 2005. China has
more efficient coal-fired plants than the US and is becoming the major
world market for such plants, as well as for renewable energy. On
World Environment Day, June 5, 2009, China issued a nationwide call
for a “low carbon lifestyle”.
chhotemianinshallah
7 Dec 2009, 0332 hrs IST, ET Bureau
India’s negotiating position at the Copenhagen summit on climate
change that starts today, as outlined by environment minister Jairam
Ramesh in Parliament, is fundamentally sound. India will voluntarily
offer to slash the average amount of greenhouse-gas emissions required
to produce one unit of economic output by 20-25% by 2020, from the
2005 levels.
Such voluntary cuts in emission intensity have been offered by four
major developing countries acting in concert at Copenhagen: Brazil,
South Africa, India and China, who form a BASIC group. Such offers of
voluntary measures to reduce the impact of their inevitable and
desirable growth on the climate form a strategy far superior to
sticking mulishly to an earlier stand that a country like India, with
a very low level of per-capita emissions, need not do anything, and
that the burden of arresting/ reversing climate change should fall
exclusively on the present-day developed countries whose emissions
over the last couple of centuries have brought things to their current
pass.
Cutting emission intensity as promised has triple advantages. One, it
is entirely doable — in fact, there are some indications that India
can cut emission intensity much more without changing the current pace
of adopting energy efficiency and cleaner technologies.
Two, it is entirely in India’s domestic interest, on non-climate
counts as well, to make our growth more energy-efficient and
environment-friendly. Three, it turns the atmosphere at the climate
negotiations far more favourable for reaching an accord, as compared
to a stand that essentially says that our past record has been so good
that we refuse to do anything to save the climate now.
The BASIC group is also asking for funds and technology transfer from
the developed countries to implement abatement/mitigation measures.
This is how it should be. Growth that hurts the environment is also
growth that hurts the poor, who are most vulnerable to pollution and
have the least capacity to remedy its impact on their health. To argue
that India should continue to grow without concern for pollution and
climate change is to worsen the lot of the poor even as the rich grow
richer, without making an extra effort to reduce the damage they cause
to the environment while making their riches.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Basically-right/articleshow/5309176.cms
chhotemianinshallah
The Indian Express
Posted: Monday , Dec 07, 2009 at 0145 hrs
After much will-he-won’t-he suspense, it turns out that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh will attend the final stages of the Copenhagen summit
which starts today. Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao have also confirmed
their attendance. Why does their presence matter so crucially?
Because it has been understood for a while now that Copenhagen will
not throw up a “legally binding” clincher; thus, the best that can be
hoped for is an agreement on a roadmap to a legally binding agreement
at some unspecified future point, probably next year. In other words,
Copenhagen is expected to carve out a never-before international
“political agreement” — and for such an agreement to carry any weight
in the world, it must be solidly backed up by important heads of
state.
Copenhagen — or more precisely, COP15 (the 15th Conference of
Parties), attended by 193 nations — is likely to be a long and arduous
haul. Starting today with negotiators’ meetings, and then moving on to
ministerial-level discussions, it will be capped by the world leaders
meeting on December 18. Over the course of the summit, there is likely
to be much friction as different nations strike off each other to get
the best deal domestically. However, they must remember that public
opinion will watch for the outcome. This should not be an arena where
countries clash with cardboard swords to impress the folks back home —
it must be undertaken with the awareness that coming to a common,
consensual workplan is absolutely vital. Unlike trade talks, much
more stagey, and where one dramatic exit doesn’t really scupper global
economic integration, the Copenhagen climate summit is a much more
sensitive, delicate affair. It tests the very possibility of
international collaboration around a contentious and difficult set of
measures that are nonetheless imperative to our security and survival.
So while walking out in a huff might be emotionally satisfying, India
must be extremely careful in how it deploys that threat.
The Lok Sabha debate showed how political opinion here has begun to
coalesce around climate action and India’s responsibilities. Our
negotiators must translate all that parliamentary support offered to
the government into a meaningful agreement that we can all live with.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/agreeing-to-agree/550763/0
bademiyansubhanallah
Agencies
Posted: Monday , Dec 07, 2009 at 1302 hrs
New Delhi:
BJP staged a walkout stating that it was dissatisfied over the reply
by Jairam Ramesh.
Government on Monday said it will not compromise India's interest at
the Copenhagen climate change summit, but a dissatisfied opposition
walked out in the Rajya Sabha.
"There is no dilution in our stand...There is simply no compromise on
India's national interest," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said
during Zero Hour.
However, almost the entire opposition led by BJP staged a walkout
stating that it was dissatisfied over the reply by the minister, who
is leaving for the summit on Thursday. Ramesh described the walkout as
‘pre-planned’.
Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley said that by announcing unilateral
emission intensity cut by 20-25 per cent by 2020, India was following
a ‘bad strategy’.
He said the government was ‘totally altering’ its stand that India
would not accept any legally binding cuts and would strictly follow
the per capita cut principle.
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, who would be part of the Parliamentary
delegation for the summit, accused the government of coming under the
US pressure.
He said even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's participation was under
pressure from Washington which was evident from the White House
statement.
However, Ramesh rejected the charge, saying, "This was not done under
any foreign pressure."
About 193 countries are participating in the summit that began today
to reach an accord to cut global emissions
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/no-compromise-on-indias-interest-at-copenhagen-govt/550990/
bademiyansubhanallah
Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of
speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because
humanity faces a profound emergency. Unless we combine to take
decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it
our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent
for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past
14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is
melting, and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a
foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no
longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got
left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been
feeble and half-hearted.
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that
will endure for all time, and our prospects of taming it will be
determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the
192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into
dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the
greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight
between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west.
Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone. The
science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take
steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require
global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years.
A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect
to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into
desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of
people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished
treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of
President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US
obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of
American domestic politics, for the President cannot fully commit to
the action required until the US Congress has done so. But the
politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of
a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning
it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be
their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time
but we can’t afford a replay.”
At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and
the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate
change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious
resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before
the mercury rises to dangerous levels. Rich nations like to point to
the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing
giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far.
But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon
in the atmosphere — three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since
1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit
to deep cuts which will reduce its emissions within a decade to very
substantially less than its 1990 level. Developing countries can point
out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the
poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will
increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful
and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what
some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the
world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important
steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into
its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate
change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically
without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty
must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair
rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of
“exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more
equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and
those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed
on individual developed countries should take into account their
ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer
than “old Europe,” must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill
for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the
consequences of doing nothing. Many of us, particularly in the
developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of
flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to
a close. We will have to shop, eat, and travel more intelligently. We
will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it. But the
shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more
opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognised
that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs, and better
quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for
the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than
producing electricity from fossil fuels. Kicking our carbon habit
within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and
innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man
on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and
competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative
effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over
pessimism, of vision over shortsightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln
called “the better angels of our nature.” It is in that spirit that 56
newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If
we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree
on what must be done then surely our leaders can too. The politicians
in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this
generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid
that saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them
to make the right choice.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/07/stories/2009120757400100.htm
bademiyansubhanallah
Aarti Dhar
G-77 and China present BASIC draft at Copenhagen, saying it should be
the basis of negotiations
India has said it will be "flexible" at the climate meet without
compromising its national interests
"Developed nations shoulder greater responsibility for carbon cuts"
NEW DELHI: The draft proposal prepared by the host nation Denmark for
the climate change summit starting on Monday removes the distinction
between the developed and the developing countries and will be
disastrous for India and other developing countries.
Developing countries have maintained that given the fact that
emissions from industrialising developed nations over the last century
have been the primary cause of global warming, they should shoulder
greater responsibility for carbon cuts.
G-77 and China on Sunday formally presented the BASIC draft - mooted
by China and supported by Brazil, South Africa and India - at
Copenhagen and said it should be the basis of negotiations. The draft
is aimed at countering the Danish proposal and recommends extension of
the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties and establishment of a
mechanism for technology development and transfer to developing
countries.
India joined the U.S. and China in announcing voluntary emission
intensity cuts last week with Minister of State (Independent Charge)
for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh pronouncing a 20-25 per cent
target reduction of the country's carbon emission intensity by 2025.
India has said it will be "flexible" at the climate meet, while
ensuring that its national interests are not affected, but reiterated
that it will not accept any legally-binding emission cuts.
While the U.S. has made a proposal to cut its carbon emissions by 17
per cent, China has announced a target of carbon emission intensity
reduction of 40-45 per cent. Carbon intensity is the volume of
emission proportionate to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in Kyoto in 1997, sets legally binding
targets for developed countries to reduce emissions - a major feature
of the pact. These amount to cuts of an average 5 per cent below the
1990 levels by 2012.
Prior to the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nation Framework Convention on
Climate Change was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, but no mandatory
limits on emissions were set.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/07/stories/2009120766661000.htm
chhotemianinshallah
Jeremy Carl
Mon, Dec 7 05:28 AM
Sometimes in diplomacy what is not announced is more revealing than
what is. Such is certainly the case in India's recent climate and
energy negotiations with the US, as both countries prepare to head to
global climate talks in Copenhagen. The occasion of Manmohan Singh's
state visit to the US brought the announcement of a flurry of energy
and climate-related initiatives. These initiatives were a combination
of substance and political theatre, with potentially important
initiatives on environmental and regulatory capacity-building and
technology partnerships buried under a deep layer of bureaucratic
niceties.
What was more noticed was what was not announced: any agreement for
India to have a binding target for CO2 emissions reductions, something
US and European environmentalists have long claimed is necessary as
part of a global effort to stave off severe climate change. And while
the Indian government has eventually announced a targeted reduction in
what is known as "emissions intensity", CO2 emissions per unit of GDP,
that wasn't a big stretch, given India's current annual efficiency
improvements. Furthermore, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam
Ramesh has made it abundantly clear in Parliament that such targets
would be voluntary and not part of a binding international agreement.
With more than 60 world leaders in attendance, we can be assured that
Copenhagen will not end in public failure. But the better question is
whether the announced success in Copenhagen will have any practical
meaning other than determining that diplomats can spin a "success" out
of any actual events. Some Indian commentators have seemed to hope for
a "success" of that sort — fretting about India being outmanoeuvred on
the public stage by China and other developing countries that may be
able to strike a more cooperative posture.
While from a tactical standpoint, such concerns are understandable
(there is little reason for India to not commit to doing things it
would like to do anyway, such as developing more efficient power
plants or cars), from the perspective of actually taking leadership in
addressing the climate problem, they mean little. In some ways, India
is emulating the example of the US from the previous Kyoto climate
round: while the US certainly should have been more proactive and
engaged, at least the Americans had the integrity not to ratify an
agreement that they couldn't keep. Many other nations could not claim
that; they either missed their targets entirely, or resorted to bogus
accounting tricks to meet their goals.
That India is showing its seriousness by not making climate
commitments it won't live by should actually be seen as a mature and
responsible decision, not an intransigent one. Does anyone think that
China won't walk away from its promise if they have trouble meeting
their emissions reduction goals?
As an alternative to the hot air that is likely to come out of
Copenhagen, it is instructive to look at the potentially useful energy
and climate agreements the US and India did sign during the PM's
recent visit. The fact that clean energy was the second item listed
behind security issues in the joint communiqué announced by Singh and
Obama is clear evidence that both India and the US place a high
importance on this aspect of their relationship.
India and the US announced numerous programmes, from the joint
deployment of solar electricity in Indian cities to the strengthening
of India's environmental regulatory and monitoring capacity — which is
sure to be a critical step if India is to make serious and verifiable
long-term commitments to emissions reductions. Perhaps most important,
at least symbolically, was the announcement of joint scientific
R&D work for renewable energy technologies. The Indo-US Clean
Energy Research and Deployment Initiative, which promises joint
development of new energy technologies and the development of a joint
research centre with a public-private funding model, is one such
initiative.
Ultimately, despite the bluster of diplomats in Delhi, Washington or
Copenhagen, the solutions to the climate change problem must come
through a technological revolution in the world's energy
infrastructure. And it is here that India, with its burgeoning corps
of bright young engineers, could make the biggest impact on climate
change mitigation. Circumstances may not permit
India to lead the deal-making in Denmark, but if the Indian government
gets serious about turning more of India's brightest young minds
towards solving the clean energy problem, then India's contribution to
solving the climate change conundrum may be significant indeed.
The writer is a research fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of
International Studies at Stanford University, where his work focuses
on India
http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20091207/1241/top-better-left-unsaid.html
chhotemianinshallah
2009-12-07 15:40:00
Last Updated: 2009-12-07 15:46:02
New Delhi: There is no dilution in India's stance on climate change
and 25 percent reduction in emission intensity that New Delhi
announced ahead of the Copehnagen summit was purely voluntary, the
Rajya Sabha was informed Monday. This, however, did not satisfy the
opposition which walked out of the house alleging a sell out.
"There is no compromise on India's national interests. The 25-percent
reduction in emission intensity that we have announced is unilateral
and non-binding internationally. It will only strengthen our position
to demand more reductions from the West," Minister of State for
Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said in the house during the
zero hour.
This did not satisfy Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley, who had raised
the issue in the house.
"I am completely dissatisfied with the answer and I am walking out,"
he said.
chhotemianinshallah
Indian govt under fire in parliament over carbon pledge
2009-12-07 15:30:00
India's environment minister came under fire in parliament on Monday
for his pledge last week that the country would reduce its carbon
intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.
Jairam Ramesh's announcement came ahead of the start of talks in
Copenhagen on a new global climate treaty and reportedly upset many of
the Indian negotiators.
"It is bad strategy on the part of the government of India, we have
erased our base line," said lawmaker Arun Jaitely, from the main
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
"We are in a state of turmoil," he said. "Our negotiators appear to be
sulking."
New Delhi had earlier refused to commit to any emission cuts, while
demanding financial aid from developed countries to help them cope
with the effects of climate change.
In parliament, Ramesh on Monday defended the new position, saying
India's national interest had not been compromised by the non-binding
commitment.
"There is no dilution of our stand," he said. "I want to reassure this
house that while stands do evolve over time ... there is a certain
basic code that we are not violating."
India was under pressure to make a gesture before the Copenhagen
conference started on Monday, in response to the world's top two
polluters, China and the United States, putting numbers on the table
last month.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Brinda Karat slammed Ramesh,
saying that "on the eve of the summit, the minister has done a great
disservice by dividing the team that is going to Copenhagen."
Ramesh will head to the talks on Friday, with Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh attending on December 18 with other world leaders.
chhotemianinshallah
2009-12-07 15:17:57
Islamabad: The presence of the Indian army at Siachen is causing rapid
melting of the glacier, a report in Pakistani newspaper The Dawn said
on Monday.
Both Pakistan and India should take steps to ensure that the Himalayan
glaciers were not disturbed, said director-general of Pakistan
Meteorological Department Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, as quoted by the
newspaper.
According to Chaudhry, the presence of Indian army in the region was
causing rapid melting. Pakistan’s agriculture was dependent on
Himalayan glaciers and global warming and military presence could pose
risk to the country’s food security.
http://sify.com/news/pak-blames-indian-army-for-siachen-melting-news-features-jmhprVbajef.html
chhotemianinshallah
2009-12-07 13:20:00
Last Updated: 2009-12-07 15:03:02
New Delhi: Three growing powers - India, China and Brazil - have a
basic framework in place for negotiating cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,
Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said on
Monday.
'India, China and Brazil have a basic draft. I have a copy of the
basic draft... basic draft to form the negotiation,' Ramesh told the
Rajya Sabha.
bademiyansubhanallah
Nitin Sethi, TNN 8 December 2009, 12:46am IST
COPENHAGEN: The opening day of the meeting of 193 countries on climate
change at Copenhagen was meant to be an occasion for reinforcing
political rhetoric and niceties. But even before the meeting began,
dark news of cracks within the biggest bloc of developing countries --
G-77 plus China -- started showing up.
The G-77+China spokesperson told the gathered negotiators that the
developing countries were not at all happy with the ``common but
differentiated responsibilities principle'' being discarded. It is
also learnt that some member countries of the developing country bloc,
in internal parleys, have demanded that emerging economies also
undertake some form of commitments and get their actions scrutinised.
The signs of friction within this large and diverse group appeared
even as there was talk of the Association of Small Island States
(AOSIS) -- the group of nation-states that are most vulnerable to any
rise in sea levels caused by global warming -- preparing its own draft
of a political declaration at the end of the Copenhagen talks.
The four BASIC countries -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China --
had on Sunday shared their draft with the G-77 bloc hoping to get
their buy-in and finally table it before all the countries officially.
If the G-77 is able to come out with a single draft with the inputs of
all members, it would put tremendous pressure on developed countries
in the second half of the week when political-level talks begin. But
if AOSIS and other smaller groups put separate texts on the table,
G-77's bargaining position would be weakened, explained sources.
The BASIC Four's draft itself had come up, with China taking the lead,
as a reaction to host Denmark's proposal, which the emerging economies
had found contrary to the UN Convention and Climate Change (UNFCCC)
and the Bali Action Plan, which ensures the ``polluter pays
principle'' -- in other words, calls upon the developed West, which
has historically been the biggest polluter, to bear the bulk of
mitigation costs.
In order to get the backing of the more diverse G-77 group, the BASIC
Four had kept only the most basic and fundamentally agreed principles
in their text, hoping to convince the rest to sign on. The speculated
upon AOSIS draft, negotiators in the G-77+China block fear, by raising
indirect demands for commitments from large economies and scrutiny of
their actions, could create a cleft at a stage when they require a
united front and big numbers to put the developed countries on a
backfoot.
But sources said, the recent moves by the key players -- US, China,
India, Brazil and South Africa -- in what was seen in some quarters as
an early indication of the big guys cutting a deal outside Copenhagen,
had alienated the smaller economies in the G-77+China group. With the
declaration of a domestic target in Delhi, some partners are asking if
we have undermined formal negotiations at Copenhagen even before they
began. ``This creates a deficit of trust,'' said an Indian
negotiator.
``The tactic of our group is to ensure that the game is played in the
other group's half of the field. G-77+China would like to control the
negotiations from the start but a crack in the team will weaken its
defense,'' a G-77 negotiator from an African country -- himself a
football fanatic -- told TOI.
``A multilateral negotiation,'' he said, ``requires coordination.
Those who are perceived as leaders need to act with greater care.''
Another recent development has been worrying the G-77+China block. The
Europeans, especially the UK, have been at the forefront of diplomatic
maneuvers to carve out a separate voice of small vulnerable countries
such as Bangladesh and Maldives which would, in the name of strong
global action, put pressure on India and China to take commitments.
The UK government had recently part-funded and helped organize a
meeting of this group, called the ``Vulnerable 14'' countries, in
Maldives.
At the internal meet of the G-77+China block, Bangladesh and Maldives
have on some occasions taken up positions that would make the
Europeans happy, sources in the grouping told TOI.
bademiyansubhanallah
NYT News Service 8 December 2009, 12:44am IST
COPENHAGEN: Just two years ago, a United Nations panel that
synthesizes the work of hundreds of climatologists around the world
called the evidence for global warming "unequivocal".
But as representatives of about 200 nations began talks on Monday in
Copenhagen on a new international climate accord, they were doing so
against a background of renewed attacks on the basic science of
climate change.
The debate, set off by the circulation of several thousand files and
email messages stolen from one of the world’s foremost climate
research institutes, has led some who oppose limits on greenhouse gas
emissions, and at least one influential country, Saudi Arabia, to
question the scientific basis for the Copenhagen talks.
The uproar has threatened to complicate a multiyear diplomatic effort
already ensnared in difficult political, technical and financial
disputes that have caused leaders to abandon hopes of hammering out a
binding international climate treaty this year.
In recent days, an array of scientists and policy makers have said
that nothing so far disclosed — the correspondence and documents
include references by prominent climate scientists to deleting
potentially embarrassing email messages, keeping papers by competing
scientists from publication and making adjustments in research data —
undercuts decades of peer-reviewed science.
Yet the intensity of the response highlights that skepticism about
global warming persists, even as many experts thought the battle over
the reality of human-driven climate change was finally behind them. On
dozens of websites and blogs, skeptics and foes of greenhouse gas
restrictions take daily aim at the scientific arguments for human-
driven climate change. The stolen material was quickly seized upon for
the questions it raised about the accessibility of data to outsiders
and whether some data had been manipulated.