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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Too Hot to Handle by SL Rao

I have been an advisor to The Energy and Resources Institute or Teri, a distinguished visiting fellow there since 1996, except when I was the chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the director-general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, the chairman of the Institute for Social and Economic Change and on boards of management and economic research institutions. This disclaimer is intended to forestall motives being ascribed to me for what I now write.

The West, especially the United States of America and occasionally the United Kingdom, has experience of organized, systematic and vicious attacks by powerful and well-funded lobbies. These could be against individuals, organizations, governments or other countries. They are no-holds-barred attacks and use vicious comment and innuendo to destroy cases, and many times, personal reputations. In recent weeks, and especially after the Copenhagen conference, India is experiencing such an attack for the first time, initiated in the UK by conservative newspapers, picked up by similar publications across the world and unquestioningly reproduced by some of the more gullible sections of our press and television. Of course, many media outlets in India did their own research and came to their own, more balanced conclusions.

There is a concerted attempt to refute climate change by Western lobbies that are employed by industries. These industries will lose if climate change is accepted and policies changed to mitigate its effects. The policies will compel changes in lifestyles and aim to reduce carbon emissions. Such lifestyle changes will also damage the future of many industries, which today have vast resources as well as stakes in continuing present consumption styles.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report wrongly draws dramatic conclusions beyond available data that Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035, an obviously gross overstatement. But it is one (perhaps there may be others as well) in a large and complex report from thousands of scientists who worked on it. The conclusion that Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than they did before is incontrovertible. Mitigating the effects must be initiated while trying to reduce the pace of the melting of glaciers.

The anti-climate change lobby has mounted a vicious personal attack on R.K. Pachauri, the director-general of Teri, on the United Nation’s IPCC, which he heads, on Teri of which he is chief, and thus on the credibility of the IPCC and its reports on climate change. It challenged Pachauri’s integrity and questioned his earnings from the counselling of many organizations around the world. Pachauri gives all payments made to him in connection with such work to Teri. Then it charged him with using his positions to help fund Teri and to “divert” research to Teri — a charge that many heads of research institutions are guilty of. It asked Pachauri to resign from the IPCC because of the “Himalayan” blunder. Though this attack has not been extended to smear the credibility of all Indian scientists and Indian science, the Indian ‘experts’ who said Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 must be dealt with by the Indian scientific community.

Teri is perhaps the best managed research-consulting-action institute in the country. It has combined social with scientific research and applied it for the common good. Teri now employs more than 500 capable scientists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, microbiologists, engineers of all types and from a host of other disciplines who work in teams. Most are young and take responsibility for important research while older and more experienced researchers oversee their work. This model has led Teri (like other leading institutions) to develop expertise in combining natural and social sciences for developing policies and methods to promote sustainable development. Thus Teri innovated with green (low energy using) buildings in its campuses in Delhi and Bangalore. It developed low-cost gasifiers (in use in the glass industry in Ferozabad). Microbiological work in Teri has enabled the discovery of microbes that ‘zap’ oil spills. It has done pioneering work in plant genetics to develop energy-efficient plants. It has developed policies for governments on independent regulation of infrastructure sectors, energy security, climate-change mitigation and legislation in a number of areas. Teri’s publications, films, TV programmes and other communications have helped build public awareness for sustainable development.

This broad range of Teri’s work over decades has been funded by many private and public organizations from India and overseas. Teri’s administrative and financial procedures and discipline, and tight cost control have enabled it to build substantial assets that help to further propel Teri’s work. Teri University aims to educate and train young people in management and research into energy, environment, and other areas in both the physical and social sciences.

It is a constant battle to raise resources in a research institution in India, while adhering closely to a programmatic mandate. Teri has achieved this successfully. The head of an Indian social science research institute has a difficult job raising funds for the work it wants to do and retain its objectivity and independence. One looks for agencies to fund projects. Pachauri must be praised for doing this successfully for Teri.

Any social or scientific research based on observation and data has many pitfalls. The observer may not be thorough, focused, diligent all the time or even sufficiently knowledgeable to evaluate observations. The data might have been collected for too short a time, might not be representative of the whole area of study, or analysed properly. The findings might be presented badly and conclusions drawn that are striking but not representative. Any good research institution will have supervisory and review procedures that are designed to prevent such errors. The IPCC (like Teri) has excellent procedures. However it did employ a researcher and a reviewer who were inexpert on Himalayan glaciers. Such errors will occur in all research and must be caught and corrected. In this case, the inexpert work does not take away from the conclusion that climate change is melting Himalayan glaciers faster.

The anti-climate change lobby aims to discredit Pachauri, and also Teri, a unique Indian interdisciplinary research-cum-action organization. The attack on Teri is at the most vulnerable point of any research organization, its funding sources. We in India must be aware of this well-financed and vicious plot by international agencies on a distinguished head of a research institute and the institute itself.

Obviously, the IPCC and all research organizations must be ever vigilant in the quality of the people it employs, the quality of supervision and review. The work of two Indian ‘glaciologists’ must not be allowed to bring disrepute to Indian science. But we can be certain that the anti-climate change lobby will persist in trying to discredit the IPCC’s work, its president and others in the IPCC as well as the research organizations that they head.
 
The author is former director- general, National Council for Applied Economic Research