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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | More hot air at climate summit -Jairam Ramesh

More hot air at climate summit -Jairam Ramesh

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published Published on Sep 29, 2014   modified Modified on Sep 29, 2014
-The Hindu


India must recapture its capacity to proactively provide both intellectual and political leadership on climate change

The United Nations Climate Summit just concluded in New York. Such a conclave was taking place after a gap of five years. Expectations were low even though public rallies took place before the summit. The usual brave speeches were made but there were no dramatic announcements. U.S. President Barack Obama outlined the country's plans and programmes that are being driven entirely by executive action now and reiterated the goal of reducing U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. The crux of the U.S.'s approach is to set and enforce carbon emission standards state-wise for power plants which contribute over a third of its emissions.

China's evolving stance

But it was China that everybody wanted to hear. Although represented only by its Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, China did give further indications of its evolving stance on global climate change negotiations. The Vice Premier spoke of how renewable energy capacity as a proportion of electricity generating capacity has already reached 24 per cent in China (as compared to around 13 per cent in India) and how China is well on its way of reducing its emissions intensity (emissions per unit of GDP) by 40-45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 (as compared to the Indian target of a 20-25 per cent reduction). But the more interesting part of his speech was the statement that "China will take on international responsibilities that are commensurate with its national conditions." This is a significant nuancing of its traditional hardline position.

Actually, the Chinese have been giving enough signals over the past year and a half that they are looking at the climate change negotiations in a pragmatic manner, quite unlike India. This is because of two reasons. First, China is acutely conscious that it is now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. In 1990, China's share was 11 per cent, below that of the U.S. (22 per cent) and that of the European Union (19 per cent). Latest estimates are that China's share has zoomed to 29 per cent, while the U.S.'s share has fallen to 15 per cent; the European Union's to 11 per cent. In the same period, India's share incidentally has doubled to six per cent. The Chinese are more than aware that they are under global scrutiny. Second, environmental issues have come to dominate the public discourse as concerns on air and water pollution and chemical contamination have grown in the media and in the public as well.

Health-related effects of the deleterious environmental impacts of rapid economic growth have led Chinese authorities to demonstrate greater sensitivity. Civil society movements are carefully controlled by the Chinese government but in the area of environment, the country has been very responsive - undoubtedly because of public worries and protests as well.

Last year, China and the U.S. agreed jointly that the phase down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) should be negotiated under the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are substitutes for the ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) that are used largely in refrigerators and air conditioners but now their very powerful global warming potential and their rapid build-up in the greenhouse gas inventory has come into sharp public focus.

India and China have traditionally taken the view that HFCs should not be discussed under the Montreal Protocol which deals with ozone depletion, but under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which deals with greenhouse gases. But the Chinese stance has clearly changed leaving India isolated, a position that is definitely not in our enlightened self-interest. An international agreement on the phase down (as different from a phase out) of HFCs under the highly successful Montreal Protocol could prevent a global average temperature increase of 0.5° Celsius and go a long way in reducing global warming.

India at the summit

China has also started talking informally about when its emissions will peak, plateau for a while and then actually decline. The subject was taboo till a few years back but now there is no reluctance on its part, unlike us, to engage in at least a conversation on the issue. There are different estimates worked out by Chinese think tanks but the consensus "peaking year" may fall between 2030-2035. After introducing seven regional pilot carbon markets last year, China also just announced plans to move to a national emissions trading system by 2016 that would be about twice the size of the present European system although it will, in the initial five years, cover around four per cent of total emissions. With this, the Chinese have clearly sent a message that they are not against the use of market-friendly instruments to enforce environmental regulations and standards.

India's statement at the summit was functional. It contained the ritual laudatory genuflections to the Prime Minister but also highlighted some of the ongoing domestic actions that emanate from the 2008 National Action Plan on Climate Change. But it is not at all clear how these actions fit into the government's overall perspective on ecology and growth. With the formation of a committee to review, in just two months, the entire gamut of existing laws that protect and preserve our environment and forests, Mr. Modi's administration has clearly indicated where its preferences and priorities lie. Pressures to dilute standards have already started mounting. For instance, with great difficulty, mandatory fuel efficiency standards for passenger cars that have environmental impacts as well were finally notified in January 2014 to be effective from April 1, 2016. Already there is a move to postpone this date by a year. Nobody can be against time-bound clearances (and hopefully at times rejections as well) done in a transparent manner but this must not be at the cost of essential due diligence and pressing short term and long-term concerns that relate to health, livelihoods, pollution, climate change, etc. These are being ignored in the prevailing orthodoxy.

Flexibility

India must also begin to realise that while the BASIC quartet comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China meets every quarter and issues a joint statement, increasingly the other three countries are showing flexibility. South Africa, for example, has put forward a new proposal to reflect equity in the architecture of the final climate change agreement. This is of vital interest to us but we have opposed the South African initiative. China has engaged the U.S. at multiple levels and could well end up having some sort of a bilateral agreement in the run-up to the December 2015 Conference in Paris when it is hoped that an international agreement would finally become a reality. Negotiations are all about give and take, about working compromises, finding solutions. Clinging to old mantras when others are moving on in no way helps us. India must recapture its capacity to proactively provide both intellectual and political leadership as it did four-five years ago.

(Jairam Ramesh is a Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister.)

The Hindu, 29 September, 2014, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/more-hot-air-at-un-climate-summit-in-new-york/article6455093.ece?homepage=true


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