India must be firm on its climate stance
0 
The controversy over India's stand on climate change has now been set at rest, with statements from the government and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh that the country's position remains unaltered. It is necessary nonetheless to examine the importance of the letter Ramesh wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, mooting drastic revision of India's stand.
Ramesh's suggestions were based on the premise that India should dump the G77 grouping and align itself with the G20 bloc of industrialized countries in an attempt to get closer to the US in the pursuit of some larger geopolitical objectives. To achieve this end, he suggested that New Delhi junk the Kyoto Protocol and unilaterally take on binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
He also suggested that India not tie its position to clean-energy technology transfers and funding from developed nations, all of which are part of the GHG emission-cut regime envisaged jointly by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.
These suggestions, made in a confidential letter to Singh, came soon after Ramesh had suggested that India voluntarily open all mitigation programs undertaken by it, even those undertaken voluntarily without any external assistance, to the international community.
The Indian team of climate change negotiators and the nation as a whole were appalled when the story broke in the press - the prime minister's office issued clarifications over two days, first saying Ramesh's letter was just one input and then declaring that India's position remained unchanged.
Ramesh first issued a vague response before clarifying the next day that there had been no change in India's position on climate change - in effect saying that the commitments enshrined in the Bali Action Plan and the Kyoto Protocol remained intact and would be the basis for negotiations at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.
Despite the clarifications, those who want the solidarity among developing nations to remain intact and further negotiations to proceed on the basis of well-defined and broadly accepted principles enshrined in multilateral negotiations have reason to be worried about the trajectory of Indian policy on climate change.
Ramesh's position, to begin with, is hardly likely to be random and completely personal - there is the likelihood that he would not have dashed off a letter to the prime minister that completely and comprehensively contradicts the established policy without first having sounded at least some people off at some point of time.
Combined with the prime minister's climb-down at the G20 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, recently, which in itself did not perhaps signal any radical revision of New Delhi's stand, Ramesh's letter is alarming. It is to be hoped, however, that his letter has been buried and that India will remain committed to the cause of the developing nations and not break rank.
While this is important for the developing nations as a bloc, it is more important for India specifically. Whether or not India defects to the G20, it is extremely probable that other developing nations will quite correctly stick to established positions - that includes the other emerging nations like China, Brazil and South Africa, as well as other developing countries. All that India will achieve is a kind of isolation and, more importantly, it will seriously compromise its development programs and its efforts to eradicate poverty.
There is no need to go into all the arguments and principles embodied in international agreements and used by the developing nations. Briefly, there is the historical argument that developed nations have emitted the bulk of GHGs over the past two centuries that have caused (and are still causing) climate change and must, therefore, cede "emission space" to other countries so that they can industrialize and develop. And there is the equity argument, which says that since developed countries emit much more GHGs per capita, they must first reduce their emissions.
What the Indian establishment and Ramesh in particular must appreciate, however, without even going into these arguments is that India's GHG emissions are still a small fraction of America's, meaning that Washington just cannot link actions by emerging countries to its own mitigation programs.
If India were to take on binding GHG emission cuts its industrialization program would be doomed. Given the level of India's emissions, efforts to use clean technologies and improve energy efficiency will not succeed in bringing down emission levels. All such measures can do is arrest the rate of growth of emissions as the country's industrialization program expands, which of course it must.
It shouldn't take much research and reflection to realize that India is still a poor country with its own priorities and set of challenges to overcome. It is not in the interest of the country to pretend that it is in the G20 league and that it must play ball with the big hitters.
The problem, of course, is that over the past decade or so, India has been too committed to forging a "special relation" with the US. While there is little doubt in terms of realpolitik that having the world's only superpower on your side makes sense, India has been chasing that objective at the cost of compromising its self-interest.
There is also the point that in trying to forge this relationship, New Delhi has been wont to take on board uncritically the prescriptions embodied in the so-called Washington Consensus and open itself up to the pressures of multinational lobbies. A good case in point is the recent green light flashed to genetically modified (GM) eggplant without adequate independent testing, relying solely on data provided by its maker, a subsidiary of GM seed giant Monsanto.
The author is a veteran journalist and commentator based in Kolkata, India.
Comments