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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

No more just a dire warning: Climate change-Urmi A Goswami
-The Economic Times

Get ready for an era of widespread droughts, super storms, flash floods, excessive rainfall, high food prices, higher levels of migration and higher outlays to survive extreme weather.

The events of the past year make it clear that this is no longer a dire warning. Climate scientists predict extreme weather will become more common in the coming years if the world doesn't act decisively to address climate change.

Yet, governments have been anything but decisive in their efforts to formulate a plan to tackle climate change. Science has moved far ahead of politics. At Doha, governments will have another chance to catch up with science, to fashion a global regime that takes science into account and not just pay lip service.

Since the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science of climate change has become more predictable. In the last fortnight, several reports drawing on science have warned that the world is set for temperature increases to the tune of 4° C by 2060, and 6° C by the end of the century.

The extreme weather events of the past year provide empirical evidence that science is on the right track. Yet, global climate change negotiations remain oddly oblivious of science. The Durban Platform, which put into play a new global climate change regime, wasn't a breakthrough.

It allowed countries to largely protect their non-negotiable positions, ensuring that real action on climate change was postponed. Governments appear more interested in preserving status quo than effecting a change to safeguard development and improved standards of living. The world can no longer afford the careful politics of status quo.

Politics needs to move ahead of science. This is unlikely to be easy and will require sacrificing certain dearly-held positions that developed and developing countries have espoused over the years.

The United Nations Environment Programme's 2012 report on the emissions gap has stressed that the world needs to do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Industries will rise.

Industrialised countries, which are clearly ahead, can offset some of this increase by provisioning higher levels of public finances and making innovative mitigation technology accessible to the developing world.

It will require sacrifice, especially in the current economic situation. But such an effort would be worth it if it helps tackle global warming. Developing countries too need to do some soul searching.

Developing and developed countries cannot be treated alike. But neither can all developing countries be treated the same way. There are developing countries that can shoulder a higher burden than those with lower levels of economic growth and human development indices.

Higher burden could be in the form of greater emission reduction efforts or contributing to shouldering the financial burden. Newly industrialised countries and developing-country members of the OECD should take the lead.

This means breaking the ranks of the developing countries, but preserving unity should not be an end in itself.

Taking out-of-the-box decisions on climate has its risks and costs. There is a first-mover disadvantage, but the cost of protecting one's principled positions and not taking any action is far higher. The cost of climate change is higher for developing countries.

India, with 300 million people living in abject poverty and 500 million with no access to electricity, can't afford to ignore the real impact of unchecked climate change.

For countries like India, it means sacrificing some of the current high growth and avoiding a situation that hampers growth. No single block of countries needs to make the grand sacrifice.

Neither the developed nor the developing world need take the other hostage — such a plan has proved to have little impact. The willingness to let go of dearly-held beliefs could provide the basis of a grand bargain.

In doing so, countries could secure for themselves both the principled moral high ground and the developmental space to safeguard the future. Governments need to be pragmatic on climate change. Principles and grandstanding will not secure the fate of the planet and the future of the very people on whose behalf governments claim to act.