Stop saying ‘you go first’

India is among the regions that will be most adversely affected by climate change. Yet India has consistently held that it is the West which is morally obliged to move first on significant carbon caps, given their historic responsibility in polluting the world.

But now environment minister Jairam Ramesh has announced that India should learn from China and become proactive, as it is in its own interest to adopt climate-friendly policies.
But for India, the challenge is to do this without foregoing the necessity of development, elimination of poverty, and securing a better life for its people.

India does have in place a national action plan on climate change (NAPCC) and government officials believe that India has a more far-sighted climate change plan compared with China. They point out that India’s action plan focuses on energy security while China’s plan concentrates only on emission reduction. Besides, they add, China’s emissions have risen to match those of the US, whereas India is neither a major emitter, nor would it get there.

Using the argument of ‘climate justice’, India and China have rejected any legally binding targets for cutting emissions, since the developed world is primarily responsible for the present levels of greenhouse gases, Justice therefore demands that they pay their environmental debt and reduce GHG emission levels. 

As Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment puts it, “One US citizen is equal to 20 Indians in GHG emissions. If you take the world as one for tackling climate change, you should give equal claims or rights to each human being.”

Environmentalist Himanshu Thakkar, however, sees the NAPCC as “essentially a collection of business-as-usual plans”. Unlike China, it sets very few quantitative targets except in one or two cases. “While India need not bind itself to cuts internationally, it could make commitment to its own citizens,” he said. On the other hand, China’s National Climate Change Policy (CNCCP) makes a good beginning with measurable goals to be achieved in stated time frames. It targets a “20 percent reduction of energy consumption per unit GDP by 2010, and consequently reduce CO2 emissions.”

Thakkar lists steps India can easily take without depending on foreign financial or technological assistance: reduction of transmission and distribution losses in power sector, ground water recharge, proper cropping patterns and practices, and promoting organic farming.

“We have had a Pollution Control Act since 1974. But it has not worked in a single city. The river action plan has a new authority directly under the prime minister, but it has not met in months. We’ve been talking of rainwater harvesting for years, but no targets have been set,” said Thakkar.

All these could be done within the existing allocations, but the will is lacking. For instance, India’s presentation to the UN said agriculture accounts for 20 per cent of its GHG emissions. “This comes primarily from fertilisers. We give subsidy for fertilisers but do not promote organic farming, which does not need fertilisers,” says Thakkar.

In fact, business interests and populist politics both come in the way of environment-friendly steps. The notification of Dahanu as an eco-fragile area was repeatedly attacked by local industrialists and former oil minister Ram Naik. Jairam Ramesh has also talked of state governments rushing ahead with environmentally questionable projects without impact assessments. 

In a memorandum to the prime minister, 15 noted environmentalists found fault with the NAPCC, pointing out that “while the mission for the Himalayan ecosystem talks about the vulnerability of millions in mountain environs, the ongoing and proposed initiatives on hydropower projects... [are] not only threatening the lives and livelihoods of these people, it is also hastening the process of glacier melt.” Similarly, the initiatives on thermal power projects and mining (including coal, bauxite) proposals are threatening India’s water resources at numerous sites.

However, shortcomings apart, India’s initiatives will add weight to it’s insistence that the developed world take proactive action for a more drastic reduction in emissions.

Appreciating India’s initiatives, special US Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern  told American lawmakers at a Congressional hearing, “In some cases, they (the countries) are taking action at the federal level that outstrips our own.” This, he added, despite the fact that developing countries tend to see climate change as a problem not of their own making and are being asked to fix in ways which, they fear, could stifle their ability to lift their standards of living.