Re: Global Warming, Indian Views: Sid Harth
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.
...and I am Sid Harth
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
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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.
bademiyansubhanallah
Morpheus reloaded
Rupa Sengupta7 December 2009, 12:00am IST
"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans...move to
an area and you multiply...until every natural resource is consumed
and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area." Ergo,
the human race is a "virus". Thus spake Agent Smith, virtual villain
in The Matrix (1999), one of the slickest Hollywood sci-fi flicks ever
made. The Machine - artificial intelligence - keeps humanity's
suicidal folly in check, Smith derisively tells Morpheus, leader of
the Resistance against the Matrix's simulated world. Delicious irony,
for self-replicating humans who think they can beat everything from
Malthusian hypotheses to the climatic tipping point.
Protesting enslavement by virtual reality, we humans back Morpheus. We
cheer his Saviour-elect in battle galactica: Neo versus the Con.
Smith's comeuppance - his body electric becomes a light-emanating
cross - excites us especially. But why does this celluloid baddie
disturb us? Is it simply his ability to project the power of an
alternative reality as seductive as it's fake? Yet when Morpheus
famously tells Neo, "Welcome to the real world" outside the Matrix,
that human world's nothing but scorched Earth. 'Emancipation', then,
is awaking to war's detritus, remains of a fateful day when man
blacked out sun and sky. If Morpheus incarnates freedom as the courage
to 'see' a seemingly unchosen human predicament, shape-shifting Smith
complements him. Antithetical mirror, he reflects truths humanity
proactively circumvents.
Cut to the visiting alien in the shoddy sci-fi, The Day the Earth
Stood Still. He doesn't come in peace either: he's to rid Earth of
humans, a species on self-destruct mode. But we prefer him to the
implacable Smith. He's an entity with an 'open mind' about us. Seeing
how humans mourn loss and families feel love and other squishy
emotions, he's persuaded they need saving. Moral of the story: only at
world's end can dysfunctional humans redeem themselves. So, planetary
collateral damage notwithstanding, give the poor dolts a chance.
Many Copenhagen-bound personages today or WMD-disarmers tomorrow will
agree. We earthlings aren't outsiders circumstantially drawn into the
complex web of our strengths and failings. We're insiders, clinging to
life-belts from assumed dominance over nature to post-doomsday
biospheric bailouts. Besides, when our hubris breaches tolerable
levels - nuclear threat, ecological damage or a spot of genocide here
and there - we renew multilateral vows to stop walking down suicide
alley.
To what end? Whether you herald man's annihilation (Smith) or
redemption (Morpheus), either way you need unsentimental lucidity.
Whether you back the pessimist's take on humanity or the optimist
convert's, objectivity vis-a-vis human nature can only be had from
vantage points.
Extrapolate from the thought experiment of physicist Schrodinger,
whose famous cat has a 50-50 chance of life or death inside a sealed
box. Poisoning or survival being quantum probabilities, the feline's
fate is revealed only when the observing eye looks into the
experimental box to find reality collapsed into one state or another.
But though 'entangled' in the sense of forcing an outcome, the
dispassionate eye has no stake in the aliveness or deadness of the
thing observed. In contrast, the protagonist in the box, contingently
implicated, can't but live as if his hair's on fire, as the Buddhist
saying goes. Even if he wants to save the cat (read: humanity), he
can't but act as if his hair's on fire.
Lucidity demands distance. Rationally speaking, we can't but apprehend
the finite, transitional and - some say, anomalous - nature of the
human species. Given the additional evidence of its destructiveness,
it may even be argued that the only possible philosophical counter is
reduced stakeholding in humanity's fate even as we work for the best
outcome. Far from a moral cop out, that's an intellectual imperative
if we're to arrive at the courage to 'see', to contextualise human
life as one random pirouette in a larger cosmic dance. Our true
redemptive powers lie in recognising that we're part of a vast
universe of abiding generosity - and inhuman resilience. More, this
macrocosm preceded us, escapes us and will one day wink at our
passing. Realising this doesn't diminish us. To use Morpheus-speak, it
sets us free.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/subverse/Morpheus-reloaded/articleshow/5308640.cms
bademiyansubhanallah
'Science suggests that high-carbon growth kills itself'
2 December 2009, 12:01am IST
Johan Rockstrom is the executive director of Stockholm Environment
Institute (SEI) and Stockholm Resilience Centre. In a path-breaking
paper, he and a team of 28 scientists from around the world have
discussed how to deal with climate change. On a visit to India, he
tells Meenakshi Kumar that 'we are subsidising our living standards to
a level which the planet cannot afford':
What are the planetary boundaries that you and a team of 28 scientists
have identified in a recent research?
The nine boundaries identified include climate change, stratospheric
ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean
acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and
oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. What the study
suggests is that three of these boundaries climate change, biological
diversity and nitrogen-phoshorus cycles may have already been
transgressed. Interestingly, these have a 'Three Musketeer' behaviour-
crossing one may threaten the safety levels of the others. So, it's
essential that we emphasise on sustainable development if we want to
save the planet.
You once said, 'we're running the planet like a subprime loan'. What
do you mean by that?
We could apply the same logic behind the recent financial crisis to
the present environmental challenge. The financial crisis happened
because we allowed housing loans way beyond the stock levels that were
available. Similarly, we are subsidising our living standards to a
level, which the planet cannot afford. This environmental problem is
not just about climate change, it's also about our forests, seas,
rivers, fishes, from which we are taking out at such a great speed to
subsidise our lives. We have to be careful about that.
Who is the bigger culprit the developed or the developing world?
It's 20 per cent of the world's countries, which are driving the
enormous risks to the planet. And these are the old industrialised
countries. The rest 80 per cent are keen to improve and that's quite
heartening. The developing countries are paying the biggest price. The
boomerang effect is hitting them disproportionately. What's amazing is
that the developing countries are not in a blame game even though they
have to pay the price. Imagine, some countries, like Maldives, have to
think of relocating its people to some other land because of climate
change. Yet, i don't find the Maldivian president Nasheed blaming the
developed world.
What role can India play in saving the planet?
Domestically, it should realise we are in it together. India should
move towards a low-carbon future. Science suggests that high-carbon
growth kills itself. India should invest in new technology. It should
be very tough on the world community in requesting lots of money for
climate adaptation.
bademiyansubhanallah
Hindustan Times
December 06, 2009
First Published: 23:33 IST(6/12/2009)
Last Updated: 23:35 IST(6/12/2009)
As Copenhagen gets off the ground, many across the world are finding
new meeting grounds. The Nepal cabinet has chosen the lofty elevation
of 18,192 feet in the Himalayan range to hold a meet — following the
opposite altitude that the Maldivian cabinet took when it dived to the
ocean floor for a conference last month. The purpose of taking such
high and low grounds is to draw attention to the perils of climate
change from melting glaciers (for Nepal) to rising sea levels (for the
Maldives). So, can we, as the big wheel around these parts, be left
out?
In India’s case, we’re spoilt for choice. If it’s mountains, well,
there is no dearth of high places. If forests are your fancy, what
better place than a meeting in Maoist-infested woods? If we want to
really highlight the environment, a Cabinet natter in the Union
Carbide factory could show the world that we are not put off by a bit
of toxic shock. Or move to the banks of the Yamuna where the river
foaming with chemicals languidly trickles past.
India should show the world that even with our environment falling
apart, we can cock a snook at those with their snouts in the trough at
Copenhagen. We editorial writers, too, are considering moving to a
vantage point from which to bring you our gems highlighting our
concerns that should be yours too. We’d prefer the Bahamas or
somewhere on the Mediterranean coast line.
chhotemianinshallah
Copenhagen: Amid concerns that many countries may be compelled to sign
an incomplete political document to get a deal at the U.N. climate
meet, top Indian official Shyam Saran on Wednesday said no “uncooked”
paper should be presented at its final leg as he left to brief the
leadership back home.
“All the G77 and China members have made it very clear that they are
not envisaging that there could be any kind of uncooked paper which
would go up to the heads of state and the government,” Mr. Saran told
journalists before leaving for New Delhi to brief Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh whom he will return with for the end of the conference.
“Whatever has to be adopted by the heads of state and government
should have been finalised before the 18th. So this is a very strong
message that has been conveyed,” said Mr. Saran.
Political document
There has been talk that if a legally binding agreement cannot be
reached, a political document could be signed by the leaders of 100
countries who arrive next week for the last week of the conference
including Prime Minister Singh, U.S. President Barack Obama and
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. — PTI
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/10/stories/2009121052991400.htm
Sid Harth
Easing change in the climate will be costly
John M. Broder
In energy infrastructure alone, the transformational ambitions the
Copenhagen meet is expected to set will cost more than $10 trillion in
additional investment.
If negotiators reach an accord at the climate talks in Copenhagen it
will entail profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how
and where people live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry
and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution
credits.
So what is all this going to cost?
The short answer is trillions of dollars over the next few decades. It
is a significant sum but a relatively small fraction of the world’s
total economic output. In energy infrastructure alone, the
transformational ambitions that delegates to the U.N. climate change
conference are expected to set in the coming days will cost more than
$10 trillion in additional investment from 2010 to 2030, according to
a new estimate from the International Energy Agency.
As scary as that number sounds, the agency said that the costs would
ramp up relatively slowly and be largely offset by economic benefits
in new jobs, improved lives, more secure energy supplies and a reduced
danger of climate catastrophe. Most of the investment will come from
private rather than public funds, the agency contends.
“People often ask about the costs,” said Kevin Parker, the global head
of Deutsche Bank Asset Management, who tracks climate policy for the
bank. “But the figures people tend to cite don’t take into account
conservation and efficiency measures that are easily available. And
they don’t look at the cost of inaction, which is the extinction of
the human race. Period.”
Whatever global warming’s effects — and most scientific projections
are less dire — there are also varying estimates of the economic costs
of failing to act to address the problem soon, some of them very
high.
In Copenhagen, some of the most intense and difficult discussions for
negotiators centre on any potential agreement’s near-term financial
arrangements. Some of the poorest and most vulnerable nations are
calling for a gigantic transfer of wealth from the industrialised
world to island nations and countries in Africa, Asia and Latin
America that are most likely to feel the ravages of a changing
climate.
Many poor nations are insisting that wealthier nations make deeper
cuts in their emissions and contribute more money to help the poorer
countries, a split that widened in Copenhagen on Tuesday as competing
documents of a potential agreement circulated.
Over time, some of the hundreds of billions of dollars the poorer
countries are demanding will begin to flow, as global carbon markets
become established and governments in rich countries begin to open the
spigot of public spending.
But in the meantime, the industrialised countries have proposed a
relatively modest fund of about $10 billion a year for each of the
next three or four years to help poorer countries adapt. Even that
effort remains the subject of conflict over which countries should
contribute how much, what body should oversee the spending and how to
determine which projects qualify for finance.
Short-term fund
President Barack Obama’s spokesman said last week that the President
supported a short-term fund to aid developing nations and that the
United States would pay “its fair share.” In many multilateral
efforts, the United States picks up a quarter to a third of the tab.
“Providing this assistance,” the White House statement said, “is not
only a humanitarian imperative — it’s an investment in our common
security, as no climate change accord can succeed if it does not help
all countries reduce their emissions.”
The money would be used to help developing nations reduce emissions by
switching to renewable energy sources like wind and solar and by
compensating landowners for not cutting down or burning forests, a
major source of carbon dioxide emissions. Other funds might be used be
used to adjust to effects of a changing climate like rising sea
levels, by building flood walls or relocating settlements to higher
ground.
Mr. Obama will travel to Copenhagen on December 18 to attend the final
day of the meeting, a sign that the White House believes that a far-
reaching accord, including deals on some of the sticky financial
issues, is possible.
“This is the question that is being posed in Copenhagen,” said Robert
N. Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard
University. “How much money do the developed countries have to put on
the table to bring developing countries into the conversation?”
Stavins said that the bulk of the money would have to come from
private investment because, he said, it was “inconceivable” that the
governments of the wealthy countries would come up with adequate
financing and also because private entities spent money much more
efficiently.
The climate and energy legislation passed by the House in June sets
aside roughly $8 billion a year for assistance to developing countries
by 2030, Stavins said. That figure, he suggested, represents the upper
limit of public financial support from the United States.
The perspective from the developing world is, not surprisingly,
somewhat different. Alvaro Umana Quesada, the leader of Costa Rica’s
climate delegation, said that it was important to the developing world
to have early resources and a predictable flow of long-term financing.
He said that the $10 billion in so-called quick start financing that
was now on the table was adequate but that such spending had to rise
to roughly $80 billion to as much as $150 billion a year by 2020.
“That is not very much compared to the size of the world economy or
the financial crisis bailouts,” he said. “There are great needs for
adaptation, where the small island nations are really at risk. Some of
them are one severe weather event away from disappearing.”
The European Union has endorsed a fund of that size; the United States
remains noncommittal. The Obama administration has asked for $1.2
billion in climate-related financing in the 2010 budget, far below the
needs being discussed at Copenhagen. But administration officials said
they would seek more money for international climate programs in
future years.
Project Catalyst
Perhaps the most detailed analysis of the financing needs of any
climate change agreement comes from Project Catalyst, an initiative of
the European Union and ClimateWorks, a foundation-supported policy
group based in San Francisco. The group’s work has helped shape the
negotiations in Copenhagen.
The group estimates that roughly $100 billion will be needed by 2020
to finance climate change programs in the developing world. About half
could come from the growing global market in carbon emissions credits
under a cap-and-trade system, which will be worth an estimated $2
trillion a year by 2020.
A cap-and-trade system is already operating in Europe and is under
consideration by Congress. Such a system sets a ceiling on the carbon
emissions of a given country or industry and allows trading of
pollution permits within the cap. As the overall limit on emissions
grows tighter, the price of pollution permits rises, creating a
sizable market in carbon credits.
Countries would grant some of the carbon market allowances directly to
energy and environmental programs in the developing world, with other
funds coming from a relatively small fee on each transaction. An
additional $10 billion to $20 billion would come from taxes on fuels
used in aviation and shipping. The rest, perhaps $25 billion to $35
billion, would be loans and grants from industrialised nations to
poorer countries, split roughly three ways among the United States,
the European Union and Canada, Japan and Australia. “The good news is
that everybody now is supporting our proposal for financing,” said
Umana, the Costa Rican delegate. “The bad news is that it’s happening
15 years too late. Without real money on the table, this will be a
disaster.”
— © 2009 The New York Times News Service
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/10/stories/2009121051260900.htm
Sid Harth
COPENHAGEN: As delegates of 193 nations started tough negotiations on
a climate change deal here, India said it was not acting under
pressure to help work out a new agreement and that it would stick to
the fundamental elements of its position.
As for its decision to cut carbon emissions by 20-25 per cent by 2020,
Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran said on
Tuesday the government was not acting under pressure from the
international community. “We should be aware that there are certain
fundamental elements that should not change. In terms of those
fundamental principles, the Indian stand has been quite consistent,”
he told PTI.
According to him, the fundamental elements are the principle of common
but differentiated responsibility; the legally binding quantitative
emission reduction target resting on the developed nations, not on the
developing nations; and mitigation action taken voluntarily by the
developing nations should be backed by financial resources and
technology. — PTI
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/09/stories/2009120955041100.htm
Sid Harth
Agencies
Posted: Dec 10, 2009 at 2019 hrs IST
New Delhi Ahead of the Copenhagen Summit on climate change, Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
to discuss a joint strategy for the conference where pressure is
mounting on major developing countries on greenhouse gas emission
reduction.
The two leaders exchanged views on the Copenhagen Climate Change
Conference, the Prime Minister's Office said.
"The two leaders agreed that the two sides would keep in touch with
each other in the run-up to this important Conference," it said.
The telephone call by Wen came in the backdrop of growing pressure on
India and China, along with other major emerging economies, by the
developed world to do more on emission cuts.
Both Singh and Wen will be attending the Summit to be held in the
Danish capital on December 17-18.
Wen called up Singh hours after negotiators of China and the US had a
heated exchange of words at Copenhagen.
The two Prime Ministers talked a day after a tiny Pacific island
nation Tuvalu seemed to cause a rift within the grouping of developing
nations as it pressed for discussions on legally-binding amendment to
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Sid Harth
Agencies
Posted: Dec 10, 2009 at 1750 hrs IST
Copenhagen With the US asking emerging economies to "wrap up" their
national emission reduction commitments into a global pact, India on
Thursday made it clear that it would not accept any internationally
binding agreement and that its climate change targets were not up for
review.
"We already have an agreement... we are quite prepared through our
national communications to report what we are doing, but that is for
the purpose of information only," Chandrashekar Dasgupta, senior
Indian negotiator at the climate change meet here, said.
"It is not subject to review, to verification, to re-negotiation, to
dialogue or any such thing. It is a nationally determined voluntary
target ... nothing less, nothing more," said Dasgupta, who has also
served as the Indian ambassador to China and European Union.
India has set a goal of 20 to 25 per cent reduction in carbon
intensity by 2020, compared to the 2005 levels.
Dasgupta's remarks came a day after US special envoy on climate
change, Todd Stern, said here that emerging countries like India,
China and South Africa would not be given a "pass" on carbon
emissions.
Stern said the developing countries had made "significant" proposals
but these would have to be "wrapped up" in a global agreement and not
captured in a "press release domestically."
He emphasised that putting such commitments in a legally binding
agreement was essential for "transparency" in the international
community, which could then gauge how the crisis was being resolved.
In the BASIC draft prepared by India, China, Brazil and South Africa,
countries taking nationally voluntary measures are obligated to report
on how these are going through national communications to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the implementation
of these targets are up for internal domestic review only.
Stern, the US climate change chief, also said that while China had
made significant commitments, the world would like to see more. He
urged Beijing to make "a real commitment," highlighting that while the
US emissions were flattening out and then going down, China's
emissions were steadily rising.
The US announced carbon emission cuts in the range of 17 per cent
below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 per cent by 2050.
China is aiming to reduce carbon intensity by 40 to 45 per cent by
2020, compared to 2005 levels.
The Indian side noted here that if the US was assessing the "adequacy"
of China's commitment, India could be up next for this assessment,
which negated the basic fact that these announced targets were
"voluntary" and could not be subjected to an adequacy check.
"What Todd Stern said yesterday about China's target of reduction in
emission intensity is very significant because it shows how an attempt
will be made to re-negotiate these upwards," Dasgupta said.
"The same thing could be done to our domestic voluntary target of
reducing carbon intensity by 20 to 25 per cent by 2020. If it is
subjected to considerations of so-called adequacy, attempts would be
made to force us to renegotiate this upwards," he said.
bademiyansubhanallah
Chetan Chauhan , Hindustan Times
Copenhagen, December 10, 2009
First Published: 16:32 IST(10/12/2009)
Last Updated: 16:51 IST(10/12/2009)
The Climate conference currently on at Copenhagen is in disarray with
none of the countries willing to budge from their States' stand.
So, when US President Barack Obama and Indian PM Manmohan Singh meet
on December 17 and 18, the big question is whether there would be any
strong political statement, leave along any binding agreement,
actually declared.
Most climate analysists have now started saying that a weak statement
would emerge at best. Hope for a conclusive stand on global climate
change now has just a week left.
SHARE4:40 am
The Mahatma's update to non-violence: sufficiency, not waste. And not
independence but interdependence is the solution to the problem facing
us. The world’s economic system is governed by a waste which has
created our pollution and constitutes a danger to the well-being of
all. A sustainable economy is required that supplies the needs of all
within the possibilities of the planet’s health. Everything, according
to Maitreya, is interconnected. Every atom is related to every other
particle throughout cosmos. Therefore, what happens in one aspect of
creation inevitably has an effect on another. Humanity is part of its
nature. Our atom is the atma.
SHARE3:39 am
Under the tuition of Maitreya and the Mahatma's, humanity will
understand that what we call God, nature, our environment, and what we
call humanity are one. We are past the age of 19th century
industrialization and its refinement in the 20th century, and we do
not know what lies ahead. There must be the creation of goods, but it
will take a completely form which will not despoil the planet.
Anupam3:35 am
It's all an eyewash and mere time pass guys..............They are
discussing climate change in air-conditioned halls after traveling in
Jumbo-jets..............!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Climate-conference-in-disarray/H1-Article1-485011.aspx
chhotemianinshallah
Aroon Purie
December 10, 2009
Call it the clash of civilisations but that is what the global summit
on climate change at Copenhagen is down to. Barely two days into the
conference the battle between the developed world and the developing
world is out in the open. Media leaks, backdoor meetings, broken
promises, accusations and counter-accusations are turning the summit
of 192 countries into a farce and raising the possibility that this
could be the costliest lost opportunity in history. Last year, we
invited former US vice-president Al Gore to speak at the INDIA TODAY
Conclave. He showed us his award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient
Truth, on the damage to our planet due to environmental degradation
and the enormity of the challenge and consequences of global warming.
Since then, every schoolchild now knows about the burning issues,
quite literally, surrounding climate change. The problem seems to be
that world leaders are sharply divided on critical issues.
Magazine's June 1992 cover
There have been almost three years of negotiations leading up to
Copenhagen and yet little seems to have been achieved to bring about
an equitable global agreement that can save the planet from
catastrophe. The so-called Umbrella Group, the rich countries, and the
biggest polluters are already going back on the Kyoto Protocol and the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which makes a distinction
between the worst polluters and those who need the right to
development. The earlier agreements had worked out legally binding
cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for developed countries as well as
financial and technological aid to developing countries. None of that
is in evidence. Global emission levels have increased by 14.6 per cent
between 1990 and 2006. What is in evidence is an attempt by the
industrialised countries to gang up and commit less contribution and
action on their part while asking the developed world, in particular
India and China, to do more by way of emission reduction and targets.
They want all countries, rich or poor, to avoid legally binding
targets and pledge to take unilateral action domestically. A great
escape clause for the rich, disaster for the poorer nations.
What that has done is to identify the countries which are, as our
cover line says, Enemies of the Earth. Our cover story, put together
by Managing Editor Raj Chengappa, analyses the impact the looming
Copenhagen disaster could have on the world and our collective future.
We also look at the controversy surrounding India's stand and the
commitments made to Parliament by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
India needs to be pro-active and demonstrate sincerity but without
falling into the trap set by the Umbrella Group. Ultimately, tackling
climate change is as much to do with government as it is to private
individuals and corporations. Our cover package also identifies Indian
entrepreneurs and citizens who are at the forefront of the
environmental battle.
Copenhagen represents a unique opportunity because the world is at a
tipping point as far as global warming is concerned. Failure would be
a catastrophic but like Shakespeare's tragedy, the unwelcome ghost at
the Prince of Denmark's banquet is haunting the summit they
optimistically labelled Hopenhagen.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/74471/Editor%27s%20Note/From+the+editor-in-chief.html
bademiyansubhanallah
Like my grandmother, India is dignified and wise. But it must live in
the present and press the US and Europe on climate change
Leela Raina guardian.co.uk,
Friday 11 December 2009 15.00 GMT
India, where I come from, is beautiful, dignified and wise – just like
my grandmother, Nani ma (grandmother in Hindi). The insight and depth
of argument India brings to the table at the climate change conference
in Copenhagen is well researched and reflects its experience in
negotiating for years.
When India was young, developed countries were busy polluting the
world and India, now that it is coming of age, is calling for them to
take ambitious binding commitments as per their historical
responsibilities and to help India age gracefully by giving it
adequate finance and technology to grow, but on a low-carbon pathway.
India is the second most populous country in the world and releases
the fifth largest amount of emissions – yet I would argue that it has
almost negligible per capita emissions, as most of the population is
so poor. Poverty has actually grown over years, no doubt down to our
inability to correlate growth with better standards of living, which
is perhaps why we figure very low on the Human Development Index
compared to other developing economies. So it's somewhat unfair to
club us together with China – we're neither as old nor as polluting as
our next-door neighbour.
Despite all this India really has behaved more maturely than its age
might suggest. Recently in parliament, Jairam Ramesh, our environment
and forests minister, announced that the country would reduce the
intensity of carbon by 24% by 2020. India has also ratified the Kyoto
protocol and come out with a national action plan on climate change,
which has eight missions, one of which is among the most ambitious
solar projects, to generate about 20 gigawatts of power by 2022 and
another to enhance renewable energy sources.
But my grandmother always tells me how much money she has, but she'd
never allow me to search her purse. Similarly India will give biannual
reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) about its emissions reduction actions but will never allow
international scrutiny for its domestically funded actions. It would
also like all the finance offered to be additional and not as a
Christmas gift (read official development assistance).
Grandmothers also hold on to traditions. India has always put forward
its view that the text being negotiated in Copenhagen is not in line
with the convention (UNFCCC body principles) and the Bali Action Plan
which was enforced by parties at the landmark COP13 in Bali. It feels
that the text favours rich countries and most of the statements try to
move away from the principles that have been agreed upon.
This was again reflected in the recent tussle between the small island
states and the advanced developing economies on whether to start
discussions on amending the Kyoto protocol and bring in a new
protocol. Since the Kyoto protocol acknowledges the differences
between rich and poor nations with individually tailored
responsibilities (one of the only global negotiations where this holds
true), India will continue to defend it and block any move that would
enable the richer countries to buy time and commit less and the
conference to deviate from its core agenda.
I often remind my grandmother that you need to accept we live in a new
world. I urge the Indian government to see that it is putting so many
people's lives at risk, including many of my own friends from the
island nations. Could it not do anything to get a more ambitious deal?
Could it not push the US harder, take the mike and make a bold
statement that the European Union should show leadership?
I am sure that the reasons for it blocking Tuvalu's proposal to amend
the Kyoto protocol is not to escape from its own responsibilities but
to make sure that developed countries' overdue obligations are
committed first and attention from them is not diverted .
India wants to ensure a deal in Copenhagen. When your grandmother
needs to convince you, she would try to use all the ploys she could.
India needs to do the same. It should empower its stakeholders to
raise their voices and aggressively engage with the Indian media,
civil society, youth and indigenous communities to progressively put
pressure on the developed nations to deliver on their
responsibilities.
Be vocal and bold. That's all I ask.
jamesbro
11 Dec 2009, 3:15PM
Very nice, balanced article.
Recommend? (3)
SunnyAshawan
11 Dec 2009, 3:15PM
India must speak out at Copenhagen.Shhh, dont tell them we are also
there. Let us watch the whole monkey dance in peace.
As a citizen of this world, all I see is regional bias/ opputunistic
allies/ hypocrite partners/ illogical obstinancy/ hidden agendas/
monetary benefits/ reputations & egos/ doubts of validity. Why can we
not keep it simple, keep it real.
Recommend? (2)
AntonyIndia
11 Dec 2009, 3:21PM
C02 output in metric tons per capita per year: (2006)
India 1.3
China 4.6 (3.5 X more)
UK 9.4 (7.2 X more
Denmark 9.9 (7.6 more)
US 19 (14.6 X more)
India has plenty of problems; CO2 output is not one of them. Leave
this country in peace.
Recommend? (8)
JPSharma
11 Dec 2009, 3:43PM
India with its collective strength of the G-77 plus China should
display exemplary courage while calling the bluff of the industrially
developed countries led by the US, who seem to be hell bent to scuttle
any reasonable climate change accord at Copenhagen, that could mark an
improvement on the earlier Kyoto Protocol and the Bali action plan,
laying down a just and equitous principle of common but differentiated
obligations of carbon emission reduction for the nations with clearly
apportioning the historical responsibility for the carbon foot print
on earth, which the developed countries bloc want to escape from by
employing all the dirty tricks to drive a wedge among the developing
countries in order to prevent any consensus to emerge, as also to push
through their own selfish agenda on climate change without any real
commitment for.carbon emission cuts or the financial-technological
assistance to the developing and less developed countries. It is as if
they would like to have cake and eat it too.
Recommend? (1)
skinhead69
11 Dec 2009, 3:43PM
"Poverty has actually grown over years, no doubt down to our inability
to correlate growth with better standards of living"
Not exactly beautiful, dignified or wise^^^
Recommend? (9)
Betteryet
11 Dec 2009, 3:57PM
Dear Leela,
As a layman and with very little nowledge about the details of
Copenhagen Summit, these are my views.
When you dont know the solution, it is better to keep quite in a world
gathering.
The whole concept of monetary compensation by developed countries to
the poorer nations as compensation is flawed. The poor countries
should be compensated but practically looking,the monetary
compensation will not work mainly because of corrupt politicians in
all poor countries. So basically monetary compensation by developed
countries looks like a bribe to the leaders of the poorer countries to
sign wherever. But they are so far ahead in this idea that saying
anything is useless and we will be called spoilsports.
So how should the poorer countries be compensated for stopping the
development in order to save climate change? I dont know.
Also the Indian public at large looks at everything with suspicion.
What if all this Climate change shouts are not true and this is just a
new way by the developed country to bring economic restrictions on
developing countries for strategic financial benefits.
What if despite all our efforts, the Mother Nature decides to go its
own independent way anyway and laughs at our puny efforts.
What if after a few years the Climate change pundits of today claim
success of betterment, which would have happened even if we had done
nothing.
This may sound amazing but this is exactly how majority of Indians
actually think.
As I said in the begining of my comment. When you dont know the
solution, its better to keep quite. It is better to get your own house
in order. Its common sense to take care of the nature around you.
Recommend? (1)
SalamKushtia
11 Dec 2009, 4:05PM
Thanks Leela Raina to present a nice story. Bangladesh was also the
part of india in one time. So, this story consigned to our country
also. In addition I would like to say that 144 million people, is
exceedingly vulnerable to climate change. The frequency of floods,
droughts and cyclones has already increased and it,s common phenomenon
in Bangladesh. World leaders must consider to pledge money in
Bangladesh by legally binding agreement in Copenhagen so that the poor
and climate vulnerable country can get enough funds to fight global
warming.
Money would be spent on dredging the country's rivers to keep saline
sea waters at bay, building and raising embankments and roads,
constructing thousands of shelters and planting trees with improvement
of existing forest across the coast and hill tracks across the
country. A series of cyclone has been hit the coastal belt and world
largest mangrove forest Sundarbon, world knows it. In view of this
aspect I would like to draw a kind attention of world rich leaders to
invest in Bangladesh to development of environmentally damaged
infrastructure. Please consider Bangladesh. With best regards..Engr
Salam, Kushtia, Bangladesh.
Recommend? (4)
ludumdiaboli
11 Dec 2009, 4:14PM
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be
deleted. Constituent
11 Dec 2009, 4:23PM
A big part of the pollution is personal cars.
India could usefully set up a good public transport system with
trains, buses and minibuses according to usage, and discourage the use
of personal vehicles.
I know that Homer and Marge Simpson, in the cartoon series, have a car
each, but they are supposed to be stupid figures of fun.
A wise man learns from the mistakes of others, and does not copy
them.
Best of luck, India.
Recommend? (5)
gwillikers
11 Dec 2009, 4:23PM
Copengagen and any plan notrequiring all countries to cut emissions
will fail. A requirement for the industrialized nations, while China
has no requirements means one thing and one thing only: America opts
out. I'm not suggesting this makes anyone happy, or that its right,
although I believe it is. I am just stating that we're not destroying
our economy to benefit China. Any treaty along these lines isa waste
of everyone's time.
Recommend? (1)
GreenLake
11 Dec 2009, 4:26PM
My grandmother was a spiteful old hag. No, really. Mean, bigoted and
ignorant. Maybe there's a lesson there, too.
Recommend? (4)
guardianreeda
11 Dec 2009, 4:31PM
India is the second most populous country in the world and releases
the fifth largest amount of emissions ? yet I would argue that it has
almost negligible per capita emissions, as most of the population is
so poor.
I.e. India is an environmental timebomb starting to go off.
As indians turn from peasants into people living developed lives,
their impact on the planet will start to grow dramatically. Even if
they live 'eco' developed lives, they'll end up having ten times the
impact.
The same story is true in China and other mega-populations emerging
from poverty and peasantry.
People across the globe have been breeding like there's no tomorrow,
and the result is that it will be impossible for everyone to live a
decent developed life.
I don't blame Indians or anyone else for bettering themselves, but the
human race is going to ensure that the earth is much less nice a place
to live in when it's done.
Recommend? (9)
frontline8
11 Dec 2009, 4:36PM
If your Grandmother were alive she would probably say to you not to
buy this scam. Do yourself a favour and read both sides of the
arguement.
Recommend? (1)
grahamjt
11 Dec 2009, 4:37PM
@AntonyIndia
C02 output in metric tons per capita per year: (2006)
India 1.3
China 4.6 (3.5 X more)
UK 9.4 (7.2 X more
Denmark 9.9 (7.6 more)
US 19 (14.6 X more)
China's carbon emissions have risen from 0.61 in 1968 to 4.6 in 2005 -
a rise of more than 700%. In the same period, India's per capita
emissions rose 400% When do you see this slowing down?.
India's population rose from 357,561,000 in 1950 to 1,103,371,000 by
2005 (projected 1.6 billion 2050)
China's population rose from 554,760,000 in 1950 to 1,315,844,000 by
2005 (projected 1.4billion 2050)
Do you think that China and India who collectively will soon represent
about a third of the entire world's population are right to aspire to
western per capita levels of carbon emissions?
Do think Leela is right to mulltiply her carbon footprint by 760% by
coming to the UK?
Recommend? (5)
zeelus
11 Dec 2009, 4:50PM
I don't blame Indians or anyone else for bettering themselves, but the
human race is going to ensure that the earth is much less nice a place
to live in when it's done.
Well the Indian and Chinese should be lifted out of poverty ...but if
the cost of that is going to be large scale cuts in my style of living
then I dont want it.
Thats basically what the west is saying. All that gibberish about
helping poor nations ,aid and all the rest croc of **** doesnt really
matter when things hit close to home. What hypocrites.
I think commentators like these should do and live the kind of lives
that some (a lot) of people in India and China live. Grinding poverty
and hunger is no joke. I am serious when I say I would prefer some sub
merged pacific islands and major coastal cities if growth in under
developed nations would mean they can escape some horrors. And screw
the western hypocrites.
Recommend? (5)
Cellarman
11 Dec 2009, 4:55PM
With India soon to become the worlds most populous nation and its
continuing modernisation measures taken to minimise already admirably
low carbon emissions are to be welcomed.
This Copenhagen business beano could be reflected as a gin-addled
grandmother, pre-Xmas promising so much, ultimately delivering so
little. .
Recommend? (2)
Sazzad
11 Dec 2009, 5:01PM
Can you ask your Nani-ma ......
How can nations like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan have
any say in front of the giant neighbors like India and China?
Recommend? (1)
savvymum
11 Dec 2009, 5:06PM
Contributor Whilst living for a year in India I saw, all over, wooden
ploughs harnessed to bullocks, ploughing the soil of self sustaining
and subsistence farms.
These people are to be thrown off their land to make way for
agribusness and export crops. Read Arundati Roy - she seems to see the
same things I do.
India is not 'shining' in her villages, and that is where India really
lives. Life goes on as it always has, but for 'infrastructure' IMF
loans and 'development'.
Leave India's villages and self sustaining lifestyles alone. What they
do has been done since agriculture was first discovered by man, and
many are doing it the same way. I don't want these people dragged into
the 21st century, into some slum, as agribusiness takes over their
land with government approval and coercion. it's sure as hell is not
going to be better for them is it? prosperity and lifted out of
poverty my backside!
Leave rural India alone. Let's have something in this world that isn't
broken, displaced, screwed up, chewed up and spat out because of
money.
Recommend? (8)
biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 5:32PM
Nice -ish middle school essay.
Recommend? (3)
albertjazz
11 Dec 2009, 5:38PM
Climate Change in an industry out of control.
The Third World wants handouts,to then spend money on military
schemes.
Its the Emporers Suit of New Clothes yet again
Recommend? (1)
vakibs
11 Dec 2009, 5:50PM
India has the most ambitious plan amongst all countries with regards
to sustainable energy. It has a 3-stage nuclear power program that is
well into its 2nd stage of operation. The 3rd stage will commence
shortly with wholesome deployment of Fast Breeder Reactors, that use
nuclear fuel very sparingly and have no long term waste issues.
As India has some of the world's most extensive Thorium reserves, such
breeder reactors will power India for several hundreds of thousands of
years. In fact, with breeder reactors, nuclear fuel supply is not a
critical issue at all, and depleted Uranium reserves (also known as
U-238, which remains after the fissile U-235 is extracted from natural
Uranium) that are sitting in the world today themselves can power the
entire world for a thousand years without even the necessity to mine
for a single speck of Uranium.
These breeder reactors are India's long-term answer for energy
security. However, there is a catch. Like a matchstick that lights up
firewood, fissile material such as U235 is required to kick-start a
breeder reactor that later runs exclusively on Thorium or U238. This
fissile material is in very low supply in India. Due to the global
distrust after the 1974 nuclear tests, there have been trade sanctions
on India with respect the sale of U235 and on the sharing of nuclear
power technology. Despite all these sanctions, purely by indigenous
research, India has advanced to its current status as one of the most
advanced nations on nuclear power research.
What pains India is that western countries which have ample supply of
U235 (and who indeed have accumulated massive stockpiles of nuclear
weapons) refuse to use nuclear power and instead rely on coal. Except
for France (which uses nuclear power for 80% of its needs), no other
western country has truly converted to a non-carbon economy. USA has
wantonly murdered a research effort in the 1990s (the Integral Fast
Reactor) before it has become ripe enough for deployment.
It doesn't matter whether western countries use nuclear power or
renewables. The need of the day is to shut down coal plants and revert
to a zero-carbon economy. The economies that are of the biggest size
(and are the most industrially intensive) need to act more quickly and
earnestly. So far, it has been just a talkshop from these countries.
Due to its tropical location, India is more affected by climate change
than many other countries. There is no massive distrust in India on
scientific consensus or on the urgency of acting towards mitigating
carbon emissions. An overwhelming 90% of the people believe in this
urgency, as opposed to just 40% in the USA. It is ridiculous that this
type of distrust prevails more in better educated and developed
countries of the west.
Recommend? (5)
biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 5:56PM
There are of course quite a few million educated, informed and capable
people in India who could write about CO2 and Copenhagen without
having this KPMG sponsored school girl drivel.
India, where I come from, is beautiful, dignified and wise ? just like
my grandmother
Did she mention that she and her grandmother must come from some tiny
elite class?
Did she mention the missing women of India? How beautiful and
dignified they might have become if they hadn't been killed at birth?
No! As part of the pandered elite she probably doesn't know of their
very brief existence and quick death (if they weren't buried alive).
No doubt this article will have been twittered and picked up by every
Indian IT nerd in the world. Watch out for 1000 hits
here............... .
.
For crying out loud Guardian.
Recommend? (3)
biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 5:59PM
By the way .... it's often the grandmother who helps the young mother
smother her daughter ... is it not?
Recommend? (3)
Erdington
11 Dec 2009, 6:04PM
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a pollutant.
Plants depend on it to thrive. The increase in CO2 levels my be one of
the factors enhancing crop yields over the past fifty years.
I am more concerned with real pollutants like mercury in coal fired
power stations, mercury in tooth fillings, pesticides and hormones
used in meat production which are harmful to our health.
biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 6:11PM
@Erdington
Most people in the world never see a dentist nor do they eat meat.
Those same people WILL be buffeted by changing rainfall patterns that
will flood or dry their food crops and leave them hungry and
starving.
Now fuck off back to suburbia and worry yourself over plastic bottles.
Recommend? (1)
biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 6:12PM
YEEEEESSSSSS!
i'M IN A BAD MOOD!
abuse
Clip | Link biba4mejico
11 Dec 2009, 6:20PM
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a pollutant.
You could argue that you're right .....
Sea water isn't a pollutant ... not even when it hits you at 150kmph
in the form of a 6M high tsunami ...
Recommend? (1)
kaarbaali
11 Dec 2009, 6:42PM
@Leela Raina
"India must speak out at Copenhagen"
Nepal's reliance on China and India stifles criticism at Copenhagen
But my grandmother always tells me how much money she has, but she'd
never allow me to search her purse......
Indeed, very interesting story of your grandmother!
But don't you think, stifling the voices of other grandmothers like
Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan is undemocratic? My grandmother wouldn't
do that. She is not only wise and beautiful, but also generous. She
would always encourage other Grandmothers to speak and she would
listen to them patiently -- no matter how small or poor they are --
very judicious and democratic.
Recommend? (1)
TheGreatRonRafferty
11 Dec 2009, 6:56PM
India has four of the world's richest ten people, nuclear arms, and a
space programme.
Maybe India has the funds, but not the wisdom?
Recommend? (2)
Celtiberico
11 Dec 2009, 7:39PM
India, where I come from, is beautiful, dignified and wise
Sorry to sound cynical, but I'm finding it a little hard to find how
the caste system could be described as beautiful, dignified or wise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/11/india-copenhagen-climate-change
bademiyansubhanallah
Press Trust Of India
Copenhagen, December 12, 2009
First Published: 09:07 IST(12/12/2009)
Last Updated: 09:58 IST(12/12/2009)
India will not agree to a concept of "peaking" year as there is a huge
backlog of development in expanding rural electricity in the country,
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said, as he ruled out
compromise on previously stated "red lines".
On his first day at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Ramesh
also said that India's national voluntary domestic measures to tackle
climate change were not up for international scrutiny and progress on
these measures would be checked by country's Parliament.
India was here to facilitate a legally binding deal and "has come here
to play a constructive, facilitative, leadership role to ensure and
effective and equitable agreement," Ramesh said.
"But at the same time we will not agree to a concept of peaking year
for India because we have huge backlog of development particularly in
expanding rural electricity supply."
The minister highlighted that not only was India announcing voluntary
target of reducing carbon intensity by 20 to 25 per cent from 2005
levels by 2020 it was also taking a "nationally accountable mitigation
outcome," which means that implementation and progress on these
domestic measures would be checked by Parliament, civil society and
media.
"There is no place on Earth that has domestic MRV (Monitoring,
Reporting, and Verification) as boisterous, intensive an aggressive
that in India."
bademiyansubhanallah
Press Trust Of India
Copenhagen, December 12, 2009
First Published: 13:28 IST(12/12/2009)
Last Updated: 13:32 IST(12/12/2009)
India and the EU on Saturday clashed at the climate conference over
the contentious issue of making domestic commitments legally-binding,
with the European bloc pressing for "verifiable" targets saying no
country had the "right to pollute".
On the fifth day of torturous negotiations here, a debate erupted
between India and the European Union at a press conference where both
sides expressing their views on issues of climate justice.
The director-general of environment for the European Commission Karl
Falkenberger, made it clear that EU expected India, China and other
emerging economies to report on their national mitigation programmes,
which would have to be incorporated in an international treaty, a
demand India has strongly resisted.
"We need these contributions from everyone. We need them in a legally
binding manner from everyone. Differentiated commitments we can accept
but it has to be verifiable," he said.
The remarks drew objection from India, with senior negotiator
Chandrashekar Dasgupta noting that Falkneberg's position fell short of
climate justice.
"There are two things that we are seeking climate adequacy and climate
justice (equity)," Dasgupta said.
"Our position has always been very clear... every human being has an
equal right to resources of the atmosphere; therefore you have to take
the per capita approach taking also into account the historical
emissions," he said.
Sid Harth
Agencies
Posted: Saturday , Dec 12, 2009 at 1132 hrs
Copenhagen:
'India was here to facilitate a legally binding deal', said Jairam
Ramesh.
The pounds are flying offHow many more?Lets change IndiaSanskrit
Festivals India will not compromise on its basic positions on climate
change while playing a constructive role for evolving an effective and
equitable global pact on emission cuts, Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh has said.
On his first day at the climate meet here, Ramesh also said India's
national voluntary domestic measures to tackle global warming were not
up for international scrutiny and progress on these would be checked
by country's Parliament.
Ramesh told journalists here that his discussions were focused on the
various drafts of potential treaty from the Working Groups on Kyoto,
the African group and Alliance of Island States (AOSIS) that have been
circulating at the climate meet in Copenhagen.
"In all these discussions I have had ... the basic objective was to
highlight not only what India has done in recent weeks pro-actively,
voluntarily but also to underscore the basic positions India will not
compromise on even as it engages in constructive negotiations," he
said.
While ruling out any dilution of previously-stated "red lines" drawn
by India, the Minister also made it clear that it will not agree to
the concept of "peaking" year as it will adversely impact the
development of rural electricity in the country which is already
facing a huge backlog in this area.
India has asserted that every individual has a right to an equal
atmospheric space and feels the rich countries are trying to deny this
to poorer populations of Asia and Africa. It says there cannot be an
international treaty which creates a group of haves and have-nots.
India wants to facilitate a legally-binding deal and "has come here to
play a constructive, facilitative, leadership role to ensure and
effective and equitable agreement," Ramesh said.
"But at the same time we will not agree to a concept of peaking year
for India because we have huge backlog of development particularly in
expanding rural electricity supply."
The draft prepared by the Danish government, also the chair for the UN
climate negotiations here, contains a clause demanding that India and
other emerging economies 'peak' their emissions by 2025, an issue on
which India has strong reservations.
The minister highlighted that not only was India announcing voluntary
target of reducing carbon intensity by 20 to 25 per cent from 2005
levels by 2020 it was also taking a "nationally accountable mitigation
outcome," which means that implementation and progress on these
domestic measures would be checked by Parliament, civil society and
media.
"There is no place on Earth that has domestic MRV (Monitoring,
Reporting, and Verification) as boisterous, intensive and aggressive
as that in India," he said.
New Delhi has raised objections to a move it believes is intended to
help rich countries get out of their commitments on emission cuts as
negotiators from 193 countries struggled to find common ground at
climate talks in the Copenhagen summit.
Opening a new front, small island nations floated their own draft
which is seen by India as an attempt to bracket developed and
developing nations together by junking the 1997 Kyoto Protocol under
which rich nations have to undertake legally-binding emission cuts.
The new draft follows the Danish proposal and BASIC (Brazil, South
Africa, India and China) document.
The BASIC draft circulated at the start of the conference has been
contested by the groups representing the Least Developed Countries and
Small Island States on the ground that it did not reflect their
special vulnerabilities to climate change.
India has said it will not accept any changes or extension to the
Kyoto Protocol, which is the only legally-binding document that
imposes emission reduction targets on industrialised countries,
excluding US.
Environment Secretary Vijay Sharma said the new proposals sought to
"bracket" rich countries and emerging economies and weaken legal
obligations of developed nations under Kyoto protocol.
Ramesh stressed that all action supported by international finance was
subject to MRV but unsupported action was exclusively India's
business.
The minister said that while India and China were coordinating very
closely at Copenhagen, the two countries should not be compared in
terms of emissions with China being number one and India being five.
"We are not in the same boat," he said.
Comments (3) |
Relax For Balanced Draft
By: Madan Menon Thottasseri | 12-Dec-2009
Todd Stern%u2019s point is that the United States has to remain
steadfast in demanding certain commitments to curb emissions from
India and China taking into account that all future increase in
emissions of greenhouse gases in the coming decades is anticipated to
come mainly from China , of course India too. Thus the draft plan has
to a balanced as a whole with due application of futuristic judgement.
I think that India and China have to seriously take this point and can
address it by relaxing the unbending attitude to some extent , get
along U.S and pave the way for achieving a result.India and U.S can
jointly prevail on EU and AOSIS to win at Copenhagen
Give Indian's the basic rights and then everything will follow
By: freddie | 12-Dec-2009
India need to sort out the problem where the basic need of India
people are not met. India is world worst place to avoid following
safety rules. India is world's worst place for road accidents. India
is world's worst place for railway accidents. Mr.PM please let the
Indian know what basic step have you taken to tackle this problem.
Climate change will follow accordingly
India not to budge on basic climate positions: Ramesh
By: Dr. S. Vaid | 12-Dec-2009
Dear Sir: I hope our delegation to Kopenhagen, including the Prime
Minister and the Minister do not crack under the immense pressure from
USA and EU and agree to some deals which are not in the interest of
India. India is at the beginning on the road to developement - it is a
long way to go. It should not accept blocks on its way to a reasonable
standard of living for its 1.1 billion citizens, which the western
countries already have. At this stage it is important to compare the
per capita emmissions and not the total emmissions per country, which
the developed nations would like to be the basis.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-not-to-budge-on-basic-climate-positions-ramesh/553320/0
bademiyansubhanallah
Arati Jerath
Sunday, December 13, 2009 2:22 IST
Rarely has an Indian delegation to a multi-lateral negotiation been as
bitterly divided as the one fighting the climate war raging in
Copenhagen these days. It's the talk of the town, not just here in New
Delhi but in the Danish capital too, with hard-headed negotiators of
the developed countries looking to exploit to their advantage the
faultlines between environment minister Jairam Ramesh and his team of
officials. Here's one fissure that hasn't healed despite Manmohan
Singh's efforts to play peacemaker. The PM's special envoy on climate
change, Shyam Saran, took the unprecedented step of flying home the
day Ramesh boarded the plane to Copenhagen.
The ostensible reason: Saran was coming back to brief Singh and
prepare for next week's gathering of top world leaders which the PM
will attend. But the grapevine says they didn't want to share the same
space, given their mutual hostility.
Sparks may still fly in Copenhagen because Ramesh is at loggerheads
with the rest of the team as well. Although he has gone with a tight
brief marked by deep red lines, there is apprehension here about the
kind of pressures he may come under once he retires to the green room
with ministerial representatives from other countries to hammer out an
agreement to put up to Obama and company next week. Enter CPI(M) MP
Sitaram Yechury. He will probably play gatekeeper to ensure there's no
deviation from the accepted national position. Significantly, Yechury
has delayed his return from Copenhagen by a day so that he is there
when the final document is released on December 19. He just wants to
make sure there's no last-minute hanky-panky. Who would have thought a
dry subject like climate change could lend itself to cloak-and-dagger
games!
* * *
While Jairam Ramesh bore the brunt of an opposition walkout in the
Rajya Sabha last week, another minister, also in the thick of
fractious multi-lateral negotiations, won a vote of approval cutting
across party lines. Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma was
applauded, if grudingly, for his stand at the ongoing WTO talks by
another WTO veteran, Arun Jaitley, who served as commerce minister in
the Vajpayee government. Sharma's secret: he has kept the opposition
in the loop about the negotiations. Sharma regularly sends a team of
officials to brief Jaitley, Yechury and D Raja of the CPI, as he
disclosed in his reply to the discussion. Ironically, while climate
change negotiations have become the prerogative of a few people, a
group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee
oversees the trade talks to keep a consensus going. Maybe the PM
should consider a similar mechanism for climate change so that India
can present a united face for the difficult post-Copenhagen round.
* * *
TAILPIECE
What is YSR's son Jagan Reddy up to while Andhra Pradesh burns over
Telangana?
Those who monitor his Telugu television channel Sakshi are intrigued
by the kind of play being given to the demand for a separate Telangana
state. They feel that the coverage has fanned the flames and they've
conveyed their concerns to the top leadership of the Congress party.
Is that why Pranab Mukherjee met Jagan for a one-on-one chat instead
of receiving him with the rest of the Andhra MPs? Jagan has made no
secret of his ambition to be chief minister, even at the cost of
destabilising the incumbent, K Rosaiah, who has just been officially
confirmed in the post.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/comment_cloak-and-dagger-in-copenhagen_1323076
Sid Harth
Aggressive India to make a political statement at Copenhagen
PTI 13 December 2009, 08:56pm IST
COPENHAGEN: Ruling out any compromise in its stand, environment
minister Jairam Ramesh on Sunday pitched for a strong political
statement at the end of the climate change talks and asserted that a
deal must be reached by next year.
Speaking to reporters here, he made it clear that the text of the
political statement would be ready before Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and other world leaders reach Copenhagen for the final leg of
the 12-day talks.
"I have clearly and categorically stated on behalf of the government
of India that our Prime Minister is not coming here to negotiate the
text," he said.
Singh is due to arrive here on December 17. "India would not
compromise on 'teen-murti' (United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan)," Ramesh said
ahead of tomorrow's high-level segment which would see participation
of environment ministers from across the globe.
"We must get an agreement in 2010," he said, adding that the text of
the political statement should be ready by December 15.
bademiyansubhanallah
PTI Sunday, December 13, 2009 20:28 IST
Last updated: Sunday, December 13, 2009 20:32 IST
Copenhagen: Ruling out any compromise in its stand, environment
minister Jairam Ramesh today pitched for a strong political statement
at the end of the climate change talks and asserted that a deal must
be reached by next year.
Speaking to reporters here, he made it clear that the text of the
political statement would be ready before prime minister Manmohan
Singh and other world leaders reach Copenhagen for the final leg of
the 12-day talks.
"I have clearly and categorically stated on behalf of the government
of India that our Prime Minister is not coming here to negotiate the
text," he said.
"India would not compromise on 'teen-murti' (United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan),"
Ramesh said ahead of tomorrow's high-level segment which would see
participation of environment ministers from across the globe.
"We must get an agreement in 2010," he said, adding that the text of
the political statement should be ready by December 15.
Informal talks among the environment ministers on the draft deal,
criticised by rich nations and emerging economies, continued over the
weekend with the hope that they could agree on a text that could be
put before the heads of state and government assembling for the
plenary here later next week.
The highlight of the past week was an attempt by tiny Pacific Island
nation Tuvalu to stall the negotiations by staging a walkout as the
chair of the conference refused to take up its proposal for limiting
the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius from the pre-
industrial years.
However, Danish minister Connie Hedegaard, chairing the talks,
insisted that procedural advances in the first six days had been
"fantastic."
"The core discussions... have really started," she said adding the the
delegates "still have a daunting task in front of us over the next few
days."
Ramesh, who is here to participate in the ministerial meet, has said
India will play a constructive role in the climate negotiations but
slammed efforts of rich nations to make domestic emission reduction
claims by developing nations legally-binding and verifiable.
bademiyansubhanallah
R Jagannathan
Thursday, December 10, 2009 8:32 IST Email
India's unilateral decision to undertake a reduction in the carbon
intensity of its growth is, on the face of it, a farsighted decision.
Despite the brouhaha about how it will affect industry and future
growth, it's the right thing to do because no country -- howsoever
poor -- can deny responsibility for the environmental damage it
inflicts through careless growth.
However, we have no blueprint for action. Neither Manmohan Singh nor
Jairam Ramesh seem to have a gameplan on how we're going to achieve
what is promised. On the contrary, in the last five years, Singh's
government has done everything possible to promote the use of carbon
fuels -- by subsidising them. It's difficult to see how the prime
minister is going to get his politically-tough policy choices
implemented when he has been fighting shy of raising fuel prices for
much of his first term. He paid for the fuel subsidies by looting our
own public sector oil companies.
Bringing down carbon intensity calls for a systemic response which
will have many, many consequences -- all of them political. The easy
part is to direct investment towards energy-saving and green
technology. For a government which can gift away several hundred
thousand crores of rupees in needless subsidies to the non-poor, spend
over Rs1,86,000 crore to revive growth, and write off over Rs71,000
crore to farmers, it should not at all be difficult to redirect
resources towards research on solar and wind energy, energy-saving
devices, and the works.
Spending brings political dividends, but the shift in energy intensity
goalposts will bring more losers than winners. Many energy-intensive
industries will decline. Prices will rise in the short run, as the
cost of turning green is passed on to consumers. And the short run can
stretch for years. We should be prepared to see a deceleration in
growth -- for higher prices and costs will have to be combined with
deflationary policies.
The big question: are we prepared for the 'butterfly effect' of policy
on polity? The term butterfly effect comes from chaos theory, where
final outcomes can be completely unexpected given a very small initial
impetus. Metaphorically, it is said that a butterfly flapping its
wings in the Gulf of Mexico can cause a typhoon in Texas.
The 20-25% cut in carbon intensity promised by 2020 will create a
butterfly effect that will hugely impact Indian politics. Several
populist programmes will have to be rethought. The crown jewel in the
UPA's pot of populist programmes is Nrega -- the national rural
employment guarantee scheme. But it has a direct impact on carbon
intensity and green policies.
When money is handed over to the poor, they spend more on food. This
is the prime reason why food prices are zooming. As the poor earn
more, small and marginal farmers suddenly find that labour costs also
rise -- and this becomes a spur for further food price increases. In
cities, food prices are becoming a big political issue. When this
boils over, there will be pressures to invest more in agricultural
productivity, which means more fertilisers and pesticides. The green
way out would be to emphasise organic farming, but this means reducing
food output in the short run (unthinkable), raising fertiliser prices,
and removing subsidies. Which government will volunteer to do this?
Fertilisers come largely from carbon-based feedstocks.
Now think energy. If green power has to be given greater play, power
costs will rise. Feeding solar power into the grid will cost at least
four times as much, which means higher power subsidies, unless we
raise power prices for homes and industry. If this is somehow pushed
through, the sticker prices of industrial and consumer goods will go
up. Which government will have the gumption to weather the urban storm
as a result of this? And we haven't even talked about fossil fuels.
The only way to go green on energy is to raise the prices of petrol
and diesel, and restrict the subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene.
Which politician will handle this hot potato?
Scores of industries -- from automobiles to engineering, steel and
cement to chemicals -- will see costs rise as they adjust to the new
norms on carbon intensity. The pressure to trim costs elsewhere may
result in downsizing labour, and urban consumers will be a disgruntled
lot. Thousands of old automobiles will have to be junked -- and we
know how everyone resists the idea of scrapping any vehicles.
These are only a few of the consequences of reducing carbon intensity.
One does not know what caused Manmohan Singh and Jairam Ramesh to make
a bold dash to climate heroism. But the nation will pay a heavy price
for something they haven't yet been told anything about. We are on a
whim and a prayer -- Manmohan and Jairam Ramesh's whims and everybody
else's prayers.
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/column_on-a-whim-and-a-prayer_1322097
chhotemianinshallah
Nitin Sethi, TNN 14 December 2009, 04:52am IST
COPENHAGEN: At 55 degrees and 43 minutes north, the winter sun sets
early in Copenhagen, plunging the city into a cold grey gloom that
only Christmas celebrations can lift. But on Sunday, the chilling news
that climate change talks could break down completely spread far
deeper dismay in the Danish capital.
Negotiators and ministers from 192 countries took the day off from
formal talks to discuss the looming possibility that they could fail
the world in its search for an equitable and scientifically adequate
agreement to prevent disastrous climate change. The chances of a
stalemate loomed large as governments went into informal huddles over
the weekend.
The ministerial round that began on Saturday only added to the fear
that industrialised countries were not ready to budge from their
stands and the negotiations were headed towards a collapse.
The Indian and the Chinese governments made it clear that their
leaders, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Wen Jiabao, were
not going to come in at the end of the talks to crack the fine
details, they would agree only if the industrialised world was ready
for a deal by December 16.
Many industrialised countries remained firm in their stand that Kyoto
Protocol must die and emerging economies must undertake international
obligations under one name or the other regardless of their historical
burden of emitting greenhouse gases, or the lack of it.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh, in between an array of parleys and
closed-door discussions, came out to say, “The UN draft on low-term
cooperation (LCA) can become the roadmap for fighting climate change,
provided the clauses of peaking year for emissions, cutdown on
emissions by all and a review of domestic mitigation actions are not
there.’’ However, he added that a few agreed on the point.
Rumours flew fast and thick that if the US could not secure a weak
“pledge and review’’ kind of agreement that it had been supporting for
months, President Barack Obama may give the meet a miss.
The industrialised countries want to hammer out a large part of the
deal on the last day when the heads of states arrive. "It is
ridiculous to expect the heads of states of poor countries to have the
capacity to deal at such detailed level. It’s a ploy to slip in
provisions that are not amenable to developing country efforts. It’s
playing dirty,’’ said an African negotiator. “Europe and Japan have
refused to sign any agreement without the US on board with strong
mitigation commitments and the latter refuses to be part of Kyoto,’’
Ramesh said. “India will not allow Kyoto to be discarded and India
wants an agreement.’’
Ramesh has rejected the Australian proposal that the heads of states
and ministers should decide the final text for the political statement
to be made on December 18, a day after they announce their domestic
climate plans.
On Sunday, when most negotiators rested and waited for Monday, it
became evident that all the positive domestic announcements of
emerging economies like India, China, Brazil and South Africa, days
ahead of the talks, had still not got Obama to turn less Bush or for
the Europeans and other industrialised countries to depend less on the
US president for deliverance.
Neo
> http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/BJP-fumes-Congress-steers-clear/4...
>
> 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.
The trend toward global warming will cause increase
regional flooding. It will also increase the size and
power of typhoons and tropical storms. The changes
will likely cause problems in the fishing industry
and in agriculture.
I don't believe that anything can be done to prevent
this from happening now - the window of opportunity
to implement any change which could have made
a difference is over.
The question is how will society adapt to the new
global climate and the higher sea levels?
Sid Harth
PTI 14 December 2009, 06:43pm IST
COPENHAGEN: Toughening its stand on climate change, India along with
China and two other countries on Monday briefly walked out of
negotiations, apparently unhappy over developed nations reneging on
their commitments under the Kyoto protocol to undertake emission
cuts.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who is leading the Indian
delegation, along with his counterparts from China, Brazil and South
Africa walked out of the negotiations to meet Connie Hedegaard, the
Danish President of the COP, and convey their protest.
All formal meetings at the Summit here were put on hold following the
development.
Though there was no official word on what led the leaders to stage a
walkout from the ministerial-level talks, sources said the development
followed a disagreement between the developing countries and the
developed nations on the second commitment period after 2012.
It is understood that the four countries also protested that enough
focus was not being given to the second commitment period under the
Kyoto Protocol that puts obligations on developed nations to undertake
emission cuts.
After a 35-minute meeting with Hedegaard, the ministers emerged out,
with Ramesh indicating that the issue had been resolved.
Asked if the issue had been resolved, Ramesh said: "I think so...I am
heading to the plenary now".
Ramesh also said India's proposal to set up a network of climate
innovation centers in various countries for developing and sharing
green technologies has been accepted and will form the basis of the
final Copenhagen agreement.
"It is my understanding that the Delhi Declaration on technology
development has been very substantially accepted and will form the
basis of the Copenhagen agreement when it is finally released," Ramesh
said.
The climate innovation centres are aimed at identifying and developing
local technology requirements and also for facilitating dissemination
of current technologies.
Meanwhile, China's vice foreign minister He Yafei indicated that
Beijing might not seek a share in the funding flowing from developed
countries to poor nations to reduce carbon emissions.
"Financial resources for efforts of developing countries (to combat
climate change are) a legal obligation... That does not mean China
will take a share - probably not," He told Financial Times.
Around 100 Presidents and Prime Ministers, including Manmohan Singh,
are expected to attend the final leg of the 12-day Summit on December
17-18.
Sid Harth
14 December 2009, 03:59am IST
It is a week into the Copenhagen climate conference. The clock is
ticking to Friday, when heads of state will descend, all to sign a
global ‘accord’ or at least some pact on how the world will cut
emissions. Things are deadlocked, seemingly stalled. But this is only
for the eyes of the uninitiated.
The fact is that the spin-masters are at work, feverishly building
momentum for the blame-game to culminate — finger-pointing to
countries, which are blocking the deal, destroying the one chance the
world has to save the planet. India is already moving to the top of
that list.
This when the industrialized world has refused to put anything
meaningful on the table — no reduction at home, no money or technology
transfer agreements. Instead, the two draft agreements for
negotiations only harden their position. They demand, first, that
developing countries (India) take on emission reduction targets,
without any financial assistance. That is not a problem.
Our minister has already ‘offered’ that India will cut its carbon
intensity by 20-25% by 2020. We have accepted the white man’s burden
as our own.
But what the minister did not perhaps know is that he has now stepped
on a slippery slope. The next demand is already ratcheting up.
Industrialized countries have now demanded in no uncertain terms that
all actions done domestically must be internationally monitored,
reported and verified. The reason is simple as by doing this, domestic
targets become legally binding global commitments. The language is
getting nasty as well. ‘‘We cannot trust these nations,’’ is what US
envoys said. Others repeat.
The call is growing that India wants its right to pollute. In all
this, the worst fears of the Indian establishment are bound to come
true: we will get isolated and blamed for the failure of the global
agreement. We will be hated in the rich man’s world.
This situation is of our own making. The fact is that when the
minister declared the domestic target in Parliament, he changed the
goalpost. He accepted that India must switch sides to join the league
of polluters, instead of being able to demand its right to
development. He accepted that there is no distinction between the
countries which have been historically responsible for creating the
problem, and the rest, who need funds and technology to make the low-
carbon leapfrog so that the world can avoid emissions. He, therefore,
also implicitly rejected the notion of an agreement based on equal-
burden sharing.
The carbon sums are clear, any which way: From 1890 to 2007, rich
countries contributed some 60% of the carbon dioxide emissions into
the atmosphere; India some 3%. US, with just 5% of the world’s
population, alone is responsible for some 30% of the carbon dioxide in
the global atmosphere.
But forget the past. If you factor in the targets of the rich world
(and US), which Copenhagen is poised to endorse, industrialized
countries will still occupy some 50% of the global carbon budget till
2020. US, assuming for a moment that their Senate endorses the 3%
reduction over its 1990 levels, will still use up a fifth of the
world’s carbon budget between 1890 and 2020.
Worse, India with its self-imposed domestic target will get some 4% of
the global carbon budget between 1890 and 2020 for its people who add
up to 17% of the world’s population. This agreement, therefore, will
freeze inequity in the world. This when it is known that these
negotiations are about the right to development. No country, as yet,
has delinked the growth of its economy from emissions of carbon
dioxide.
So, we can now cry wolf. But this is an outcome of the ‘pragmatic
global diplomacy’ that many in the government believe is the need of
the day. They openly reject the idea that global agreements can and
should be based on principles of equity or justice. They say this is
old-fashioned and idealistic, not fit for the real world. Their world
is about global deals that give and take. The question we in India
must ask is what did we get: other than the official stamp of a third-
class citizen of the world?
The circle has closed. Gandhi took on the British Empire when he was
thrown out of the first-class compartment. He refused to be a third-
class citizen. In Copenhagen we may just decide that we must wear that
shame forever.
Sunita Narain
bademiyansubhanallah
Aarti Dhar
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet his Chinese
counterpart Wen Jiabao at Copenhagen on the sidelines of the climate
summit later this week to discuss a common strategy for climate
change.
The two are expected to meet on Thursday when they arrive in the
Danish capital for the concluding session of the United Nations
climate summit, Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan told a group of
journalists here. Mr. Zhang said that Dr. Singh and Mr. Wen had
discussed, during telephonic talks last week, how the two countries
could work together to achieve positive results from Copenhagen.
Describing India and China as “emerging powers” and the “future of the
world,” Mr. Zhang said the two countries should mobilise developing
nations to achieve a “win-win” result wherein development is not made
to suffer at the cost of tackling global warming.
Speaking to The Hindu, Indian officials said Dr. Singh’s bilateral
engagements were still being worked out.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/15/stories/2009121557700100.htm
Sid Harth
15 Dec 2009, 1552 hrs IST
Hope for political draft recedes in Copenhagen after wide cracks
between rich and developing nations have emerged in the last 24 hours.
The world has to unite in Copenhagen today for Prime Minister Dr
Manmohan Singh to visit the summit.
But, latest reports from the summit suggest a political draft is
highly unlikely. No major political breakthrough looks likely by the
end of today and the Heads of state meeting will in all likelihood be
a largely ceremonial affair. The pullout by African nations put
negotiations on political draft on the back burner.
Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh speaking exclusively to TIMES
NOW's Political Editor Navika Kumar on receding hope for a political
draft at Copenhagen said that the boycott by the BASIC countries was
legitimate thought they missed a chance to put forth their stand. He
also said that abandoning Kyoto Protocol was not on their agenda
though some of the countries expressed strong feelings against it.
The minister also expressed hope that they worked out a compromise and
also negotiations when they met Danish hosts.
He said, "There is some confusion and lack of clarity. When we met the
Danish hosts regarding what was to be the output of the conference,
they said there were two drafts being prepared - one on long term
cooperative action and another draft on the Kyoto Protocol, which
would then be submitted at the heads of state meeting. Others have
mentioned a third, a political declaration as well. But as of now we
only expect two texts finished by Thursday which will be given to the
heads of state. The Chinese foreign minister, myself and others have
repeatedly said that the PM and President must come here only to adopt
what has been agreed to by us. They cannot be in a position to sit
across the table to negotiate."
He further added that the crux has to come out of the process of
ministerial level negotiations.
Key areas of India's concern still remain
TIMES NOW 's Political Editor Navika Kumar spoke exclusively to
India's key climate negotiator Pradipto Ghosh who said that India is
losing optimism that climate issues will be resolved in the next two
days.
Ghosh said, "The inclusion of peaking year and international checks on
domestic projects still remain. Not optimistic that these issues will
be resolved in the next two days."
Points of contention:
- The developed block want the Kyoto Protocol track junked while BASIC
block and G77 are for its advancement.
- The developed nations demand the commitment to emission cuts be
binding something India and developing world do not agree to.
The overall climate negotiations are moving under two tracks -- the
first track is the LCA under Bali Action Plan that requires parties to
produce a legally binding treaty before the first commitment period of
the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
The second track is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol into the
second commitment period from 2013 to 2018 where developed countries
listed under Annex B will have to take binding cuts. The United
States, however, is not a party to the Protocol.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Its-official-no-political-draft-at-Copenhagen/articleshow/4334299.cms
bademiyansubhanallah
Warming It Up
Prince Mathews Thomas, 12.15.09, 06:00 PM EST
India believes that talk of the Himalayan glaciers melting is only a
myth. The world isn't convinced.
Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh caused quite a stir in
environment circles when he said there is no conclusive evidence to
prove that Himalayan glaciers are melting due to climate change. His
ministry published a discussion paper, which claims that while
glaciers such as the Siachen are advancing, others including Gangotri
are retreating slower than before. Now, that is a question worth
pondering on the eve of the Copenhagen summit.
Climate Indicators
"Glacier retreat is probably the most obvious and easily understood
proof of climate change," says Paul Brawn, the noted environment
writer in Global Warning: The Last Change to Change. He quotes a
Utrecht University study showing 142 of 144 glaciers under observation
decreased in length in accordance with the change in climate. Recent
studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says
the same of Himalayan glaciers.
The IPCC Viewpoint
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman IPCC called the paper "arrogant" and
"nonsense." Two years ago the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report on
Climate Change said glaciers were "most visible" indicators of climate
change. It added that the Himalayan glaciers were receding faster than
any other and at this pace, risk disappearing by 2035. "The Arctic is
melting because of climate change. What is so special about Indian
glaciers?" asked Pachauri.
Perennial Gift
The Himalayan mountains are home to 9,500 glaciers and are an
important source for India's Ganges river, China's Yangtze River,
Nepal's Karnali and Pakistan's Indus. Almost 1.5 billion people depend
on them. True, glaciers contribute only about 10% of the water that
flows in these rivers, but are important to keep them perennial.
The Global Story
Study papers by the World Wildlife Fund Glaciers have noted that there
are about 100,000 glaciers in the world and have been retreating since
the end of the Little Ice Age. Some like James Hansen of NASA say a
new world order in climate has already taken place. The coldest
regions are supposed to be the most vulnerable and the Artic ice is
said to have shrunk from 7.5 million square kilometers to 4.5. A week
after the Indian report, scientists in New Zealand came out with
reports that the Kiwis have lost half of their ice and snow in just 30
years!
Eye on Copenhagen
The timing of the report has not been lost on anyone. Climate change a
political issue as much as an environmental one. In December, world
leaders will assemble in the Denmark capital to "develop a framework
to slow global warming" and India has made it clear that nations
causing maximum emission, should shoulder most of the
responsibilities. The report, if anything, reflects the aggressive
stance that India is expected to take at the meet.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/15/forbes-india-global-climate-himalayan-glaciers.html
chhotemianinshallah
Foreign Secretary Rao. PTI Photo Photograph (1)
India to keep trying for good outcome at Copenhagen: Saran
STAFF WRITER 15:3 HRS IST
New Delhi, Dec 16 (PTI) Amid fears of collapse of climate talks in
Copenhagen, India today said it will keep trying for a "good" outcome
and is working with other countries in this direction.
"We are working along with other countries to try and see whether we
can get a good outcome. So, we will keep trying," Prime Minister's
Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran told reporters outside
Parliament.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to Copenhagen tomorrow to
participate in the summit meeting on Friday which will be attended by
over 100 world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
The climate talks appeared to be on the brink of collapse with
ministers keeping out all contentious issues out of the draft treaty,
including agreeing on setting carbon emission cut targets.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/426182_India-to-keep-trying-for-good-outcome-at-Copenhagen--Saran
chhotemianinshallah
STAFF WRITER 15:34 HRS IST
Copenhagen, Dec 16 (PTI) Serious differences have emerged between
India and Australia over the direction of talks at the climate summit
here with Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh lashing out at Canberra,
dubbing it as an "ayatollah" for its one-track approach.
"Australia is sort of the ayatollah of the single track," Environment
Minister Jairam Ramesh was quoted as saying by the 'Sydney Morning
Herald'.
Developing countries are arguing that Australia and its allies are
trying to push the outcome of talks away from the Kyoto Protocol, and
Ramesh called it "a recipe for disaster".
Ramesh, who cancelled a meeting with Australia's Climate Change
Minister Penny Wong aimed at breaking the deadlock yesterday, told the
daily that he had not "pulled out... as he was unfortunately too busy"
to hold the meet.
"Penny Wong remains a good friend of mine, a very valued colleague,"
he said.
http://www.ptinews.com/news/426246_India-says-Aus-acting-as--ayatollah--in-climate-talks
Sid Harth
With three days remaining at the Copenhagen climate talks, India's
government is expressing its disappointment with the proposals put
forth so far.
Steve Herman | New Delhi 16 December 2009
Photo: AFP
Indian Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao (file photo)
Officials are also maintaining India will keep to its hard-line stance
of not compromising on what they call New Delhi's "non-negotiable
positions."
On the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's departure for the U.N.
climate conference in Copenhagen, government officials did little to
hide their frustration and pessimism with the talks.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao expresses hope for a bridging the gap
between developed and developing countries, but acknowledges there has
been little progress.
"The numbers put on the table, so far, unfortunately are
disappointing," Rao said.
Rao reiterates Prime Minister Singh will not be negotiating on certain
issues that are at the core of India's stance.
"We will not accept a legally-binding emission reduction cut," Rao
said. "We will not, under any circumstances, accept an agreement
which stipulates a peaking order for our emissions."
India also maintains it would not allow any international scrutiny of
whatever voluntary mitigation actions it funds domestically with its
own money.
Mr. Singh's special envoy on climate change, Shyam Saran, says India
is still trying to reach an accord with other countries for what he
terms a "good" outcome at the talks.
And the top Indian negotiator on site at the meeting in Denmark tells
reporters the current global emissions treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, "is
in intensive care, if not dead."
Supporters of the 1997 agreement have been hoping the current talks
would pave the way for extending or toughening the pact which
obligates 40 rich countries to limit carbon emissions. The Kyoto
accord expires in 2012.
The Copenhagen negotiations, in which nearly 200 nations are
participating, are deemed to be deadlocked. That is dashing hopes a
meaningful deal - or even a political agreement - can presented by
Friday to Mr. Singh and other key heads of government, including U.S.
President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Sid Harth
India's Copenhagen Envoy Unyielding on Costs
India is the world's fourth-largest polluter but environment minister
Jairam Ramesh says the burden of meeting climate targets should fall
mostly on the U.S. and Europe Asia
By Gaurav Singh and Jim Efstathiou Jr.
(Bloomberg) — For Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, United
Nations climate-change talks in Copenhagen are as much about easing
poverty in his country as preventing the world from overheating.
India, home to 1.2 billion people, is the fourth-biggest polluter from
burning carbon-based fuels as the nation promotes industrial growth to
lift more of its people out of impoverishment. Because India has
contributed little in the past to emissions blamed for global warming,
Ramesh remains an unyielding figure at talks among 193 nations
struggling to agree on ways to fight climate change.
"Since the first and overriding priority is for poverty alleviation
and sustainable development, we cannot accept under any circumstances
the concept of a peaking year" for developing countries, Ramesh said
yesterday in an interview. "So we must limit the global goal to a
temperature increase."
India endorses a proposal to limit the increase in global temperatures
to within 2 degrees Celsius (3.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial
times. The burden of meeting the target should fall on the U.S. and
Europe, countries that have contributed most to historical carbon-
dioxide emissions.
India has offered to voluntarily reduce carbon-dioxide emissions per
unit of the country's gross domestic product provided developed
nations such as the U.S. reduce pollution 40 percent by 2020. When
President Barack Obama arrives for the last day of the Copenhagen
talks on Friday, envoys say he will offer a cut in the range of 17
percent.
"It is a unilateral, domestic, non-legally binding offer and it
strengthens our negotiating position to demand greater cuts from the
West," Ramesh, who leads the Indian delegation of about 30 at the
climate talks, told Parliament on Dec. 7.
'Not in Position'
"We are not in a position to better what we have done unless there are
substantial emission cuts made by the developed countries, unless
there is a substantial financial package offered by the developed
countries and unless there is a substantial liberalization of
technology flows to the developing countries," Ramesh, 55, said.
India and China are seeking at least $200 billion a year to help
developing states grow without growing their emissions. So far, the
U.S. has not offered contributions near that level and no amounts for
funding climate aid beyond 2012 were included in the latest draft of
the accord.
The former trade and power minister said India's voluntary offer to
reduce emissions intensity won't slow economic growth or hamper its
plans to provide electricity connections to the poor. India's economy
expanded 7.9 percent in the three months that ended September, highest
in 1½ years and beating analyst estimates.
'Economic Realities'
"Jairam has a good understanding of business and economic realities,"
Rajendra K. Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize- winning
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said. "He won't take a
rigid view without looking at the problem."
Ramesh has been building regional deals ahead of the United Nations-
led climate summit, including an agreement that India and China signed
in October to collaborate on renewable power and energy-efficiency
projects. Both countries reject limits on their emissions proposed by
richer nations, saying that hurts them right when their developing
economics are growing.
"If developed countries are going to thrust things like peaking year,
emission cuts, all that is not acceptable to us," Ramesh said in a
Nov. 30 interview. "We want to engage the world, we want to be
proactive but there is a limit to which we can go."
India and neighboring countries that make up the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation may sign a regional environment
treaty next year, Ramesh said in October.
Alternative Proposal
Ramesh, who studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of
Technology in Mumbai where his father taught, told parliament Nov. 24
that India is most vulnerable to climate change and has to respond
"creatively and aggressively" on mitigation and adaptation.
Ramesh is a member of the Congress Party, which leads the ruling
federal coalition government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and was
elected to the upper house of parliament from the southern state of
Andhra Pradesh.
He studied public management at Carnegie Mellon University in
1975-1977 and later spent a year at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology studying technology policy, economics, engineering and
management.
Leaders from 193 countries, including India, started negotiations in
Copenhagen on Dec. 7 for a new global climate accord to replace the
expiring Kyoto Protocol.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gaurav Singh in New Delhi at
gsin...@bloomberg.net. Jim Efstathiou Jr. via Copenhagen at
jefst...@bloomberg.net.
1 comments
Spooky Smokey
Dec 16, 2009 4:49 PM GMT
India is not talking about Industrial and vehicular pollution. India
is a culprit on this front. What India is talking about is smoking. US
and UK are smoking too many Indian cigars and cigarettes and they are
asking you to pay the dues. Maybe cigarette importers in the west are
not paying up their bills. Maybe western minds became so much after
getting used to Indian cigars that they forgot paying bills. Well,
actually that is apparent in the development pattern in the past two
decades. You got so many cigars from India and you lost all your jobs
and software industry to them.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2009/gb20091216_417541.htm
Sid Harth
Agencies
Posted: Dec 16, 2009 at 1813 hrs IST
New Delhi As climate talks remain deadlocked, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh travels to Copenhagen on Thursday to pitch for a "balanced,
equitable and ambitious outcome" of the UN climate summit which would
see participation of over 110 heads of state or government.
Singh is expected to make an intervention at the plenary on Friday
which would be addressed by Denmark Prime Minister Lars Loekke
Rasmussen and UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon.
World leaders, including US President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, will also be at the
plenary where they would try to reach an agreement to tackle global
warming.
Another session of the heads of state is expected to take place in the
post lunch session on Friday where the leaders are expected to find an
"equitable outcome" on the 12-day climate talks.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Wednesday made it clear that India
would neither agree to legally binding emission cuts nor a peaking
year for its carbon emissions. Any international review of India's
voluntary and domestically-funded mitigation actions would also be
unacceptable, she said.
Rao gave enough hints that the climate talks would continue beyond
Copenhagen and an agreement may be within reach before the next
meeting of the Conference of Parties in Mexico in 2010.
Sid Harth
REUTERS 16 December 2009, 06:56pm IST
COPENHAGEN: World leaders took the stage at the largest ever climate
talks on Wednesday as ministers scrambled to rescue troubled
negotiations on a pact to avoid dangerous global warming.
Police using truncheons and pepper spray detained 230 people outside
the conference centre in Copenhagen as hundreds of protesters
demanding tough action on climate change tried to push through
barricades, a Reuters reporter said.
Inside, frustration was growing over the lack of progress after nearly
two weeks of talks to try to agree on steps by all nations to try to
expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol.
India's environment minister said the Kyoto pact was in "intensive
care" two days before heads of state from around the globe are
expected to agree a deal to slow rising temperatures set to cause heat
waves, floods, desertification and rising seas. He blamed rich nations
for trying to sideline the pact.
A formal summit of more than 120 world leaders will be held on
Thursday and Friday to try to break the deadlock on who should cut
greenhouse gas emissions, by how much and who should pay.
But some delegates in the main plenary meeting on Wednesday said an
agreement was far away.
"Tuvalu is extremely disappointed by the lack of progress on extending
the Kyoto Protocol," said Ian Fry. Tuvalu is among the most vulnerable
low-lying island states at risk of disappearing as seas rise.
"It's time to save this process," he said. Leaders including
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe
and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown were set to give speeches at
the Dec. 7-18 climate meeting, until now dominated by environment
ministers.
At stake is a deal to transform global economies by putting greater
curbs on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning
fossil fuels, from 2013 after Kyoto's first phase ends.
But deep mistrust has mired the two-year talks launched in Bali,
Indonesia, in 2007, that set a deadline for Copenhagen to yield a
legally binding climate deal from 2013.
Instead, hosts Denmark expect a politically binding agreement on the
way forward will be signed by Friday and some delegates and greens
feared leaders will be given weak negotiating text.
Developing countries are demanding rich nations promise much deeper
emissions cuts and substantial money to help them fight climate change
and green their economies.
"It's a pretty uphill struggle here," British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown told BBC television. "There is a goodwill, there are huge
barriers but they are not insurmountable."
US President Barack Obama expressed confidence a climate deal can be
clinched, a White House spokesman said.
Others were less confident. "The current position is nearly hopeless.
We can only hope that today and tomorrow the heads of government are
going to deliver," said Habibur Rahman Shiraz with the delegation from
Bangladesh, one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of a
changing climate.
China, the United States, Russia and India are the top emitters and
have all set goals for curbing emissions in recent months. But rich
and poor nations are demanding more than the other side is willing to
give.
A major hurdle is that the United States has not yet passed
legislation capping its emissions -- unlike all its main industrial
allies.
All nations needed to set tougher targets, U.N. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon said.
"We are just three days away from final deal in Copenhagen. I am
reasonably optimistic," Ban told Reuters Insider television.
But he said finance was key and called on rich nations to spell out a
2020 target for climate aid for the poor. At a minimum, nations should
also agree on halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said developing countries
want rich nations to be held to their Kyoto obligations, and sign up
to a second round of tougher commitments from 2013, as the current
pact provides for.
But he said many developed countries were "vehemently opposing" the
protocol and some of them wanted a single new accord obliging all
nations to fight global warming.
China told the plenary it was resolutely opposed to any attempts or
efforts to water down or scrap Kyoto.
Conservation group WWF said little of substance had been decided into
draft negotiating texts to be passed to ministers and leaders.
"In many ways the final sessions have produced more disagreement
rather than less on key issues as negotiators dig in," said Kim
Carstensen, head of WWF's global climate initiative.
Sid Harth
REUTERS 16 December 2009, 03:53pm IST
COPENHAGEN: The Kyoto Protocol which binds nearly 40 rich nations to
limit carbon emissions is in "intensive care" and global negotiations
to extend the pact have stalled, India's environment minister Jairam
Ramesh said on Wednesday.
More than 190 countries are meeting in Copenhagen to agree the
outlines of a new global deal to combat climate change, hoping to seal
a full treaty next year to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
Developing countries want rich nations to be held to their Kyoto
obligations, and sign up to a second round of tougher commitments from
2013.
But Jairam Ramesh said many developed countries were "vehemently
opposing" the protocol and some of them wanted a single new accord
obliging all nations to fight global warming.
"The sense we get is that Kyoto (Protocol) is in intensive care if not
dead," Ramesh told reporters.
bademiyansubhanallah
(01:31) Report
Dec 3 - Rising sea level threatens Indian Archipelago inhabitants.
Watch Video
Sanam Shantyaei reports.
bademiyansubhanallah
(Source: IANS)
Published: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 at 10:03 IST
New Delhi: India remains committed towards protecting the environment
and willing to do more to fight climate change but cannot do so at the
cost of perpetuating poverty among developing nations, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh said Thursday.
In a statement ahead of his visit to Copenhagen for the climate change
summit, the prime minister said India looked forward to working with
the rest of the world to preserve and protect our environment.
"This is our common heritage and this is what we must bequeath to our
succeeding generations. At the same time, climate change cannot be
addressed by perpetuating the poverty of the developing countries," he
said.
The prime minister said global warming was impacting most heavily on
developing countries like India and, as a responsible member of the
international community, the country will do its bit to protect the
environment.
"It is in keeping with this principle that I had earlier announced at
Heiligendamm (Germany) in 2007 that we will maintain our per capita
emissions at a level lower than the average per capita emissions of
developed countries," he said.
"I look forward to constructive deliberations in Copenhagen which meet
the collective aspirations of all humankind and enable us to move
forward in the global efforts to combat climate change."
The prime minister also listed some initiatives taken by the country
as a responsible member of the international community:
-Commitment to reduce growth-linked emissions intensity by 20-25
percent over the 2005 levels by 2020
-Comprehensive action plan on climate change
-Eight national missions set up on various facets of climate change
and protecting environment
-Willingness to do more if there are credible arrangements for
additional financial support and technological transfers from rich
nations.
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, along with Prime Minister's Special
Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran, are among senior officials
accompanying the prime minister to Copenhagen on the two-day visit.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is already heading the Indian
delegation at the summit - formally called the 15th Conference of
Parties of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change
(UNFCCC).
http://www.samaylive.com/news/india-for-collective-responsibility-towards-environment-pm/670792.html