With only a few weeks to go for the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, PM Manmohan Singh gave the assurance: “We are committed to ambitious and time-bound outcomes that will increase energy efficiency of our economy, the share of clean energy including nuclear power in our energy mix, and our forest cover.” But he added, “We will do more if there is global support in terms of financial resources and technology transfer.” This is the bone of contention in the case of developing countries meeting emission standards. Hunger, poverty and disease are more urgent problems for developing countries like India to tackle than emission norms. Therefore, India’s stand has been to do more on climate change if developed nations lend a helping hand by way of financial support and technology.
India-US agree on Climate Change
The reason that climate change effects arise from the global stock of carbon, the distribution across countries of their contributions to that stock, including the initial stock, is totally irrelevant from the perspective of efficiency. Again since only total emissions of each country and hence of all countries together add to the global stock of carbon, whether the same total emissions of a country is the result of low per capita emission multiplied by a large population or vice versa is again irrelevant from the perspective of efficiency.
Population policy choices do affect the welfare of the current and future populations. Any trade-off between larger population and lower emissions or vice-versa would naturally fall under considerations of inter-generational equity within nations and deep philosophical issues are involved in doing so. National welfare becomes the focus of all national policy choices, including population policies, which are reflected through their effects on national welfare in any international agreement that reflects equity consideration across countries appropriately. Thus, from the perspective of international agreement, only aggregate and not per capita emissions are relevant.
China and India are sitting on vast stocks of coal, which push the amount of their emissions above those of older polluters in the west. Forests offer untold wealth to millions in poverty in Indonesia and Brazil, if only trees can be chopped down, and at the very top of the carbon food chain sit western consumers unwilling to part with easy luxuries like cheap weekend flights and two cars. When they stop buying cars or other durables, our economies grind to a halt. The developed world has become accustomed to ever-increasing levels of material consumption. Cutting carbon emissions is therefore inextricably linked with wider questions of the pressure on all natural resources, land and water.
This is a task that only governments can undertake and it is not as if they have not already had enough time to do it. The meeting that created the Kyoto protocol has convened in 10 other countries and cities since. The immensity of the task ahead is probably more apparent to world leaders than it was a decade ago. But time is running out. To prevent the global average temperature from increasing by more than 2C, there will need to be a global cut in emissions within the next five years or so.
Therefore, to reach these reduced levels a country like India needs to use green technology on substantial scale. This is not possible unless the developed countries share their know-how and technology so that India can work towards a cleaner, greener country. However, the need for proactive action from the national and state governments is needed to tackle the problem of climate change. In cities like Kolkata, where auto rickshaws blatantly violate pollution norms and the government dithers on bringing them to book, the road ahead seems treacherous. There should also be a consensus among nations at Copenhagen that developing countries receive the transfer of ‘green technology’ at reduced prices so that they can manage their emissions more efficiently. The more time the world takes to reach a legally binding target the more it will become difficult to meet the target of 2020. Thus, the clarion call is to act fast and act decisively.
However, the argument that the per capita emission levels as the basis for binding emission cuts is of no use is apparently rational but politically loaded. In that sense, the pragmatic approach will still involve a significant cost to developed nations, but will help make some headway in saving the earth from global warming.
However, the disparities in levels of per capita consumption and therefore, emissions, will not go away – unless the entire world commits itself to an unequal international order forever which does not look likely in near future.
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