Political games shape Copenhagen agenda

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.