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Policy
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CLIMATE SUMMIT: ‘WASTE OF AN EFFORT’ DEFINED
The hilarity of a photo-op show!
There were few forums across the year that allowed unknown environment ministers of different nations to meet each other. And then someone worked out a brilliant concept of global warming meets! by anchal gupta
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 It’s extremely tough to understand the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP 15, if you please). But if you really wish to understand the COP 15 summit, you would have to first understand that it’s already an open secret that there is going to be no deal. To understand what does one mean by ‘the deal’, you would have to understand that post the Kyoto Protocal period (where developed nations allowed developing nations leeway in controlling their emissions), developed nations now wish developing nations to sign ‘the deal’ wherein all nations will undertake legally binding measures to control their future emissions. But before that you would have to understand that of the 192 nations attending the meet, key ones – including India – have already rejected the concept of ‘legally binding’ emission controls. And also that many have already formulated their internally acceptable voluntarily implemented emission control standards. And further that these countries have already communicated their stands to the other nation members through various channels and some, like India, have also clearly mentioned why they will not sign at all on a deal that is ‘legally binding’. That brings us to another question – why then have the summit? Steal a glance to the first line of this paragraph, and you will have the answer of how tough it is to understand...
One tends to believe extremely strongly that irrespective of whether global warming is really at work or not, the fact is that the climate and environment ministers of various nations – post the creation of the masterstroke called United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the latest fashionable name for the almost extinct Kyoto Protocol – or was it vice versa? Don’t bother if you don’t know) – now have a fashionably important portfolio and an all expenses paid tour schedule that they can look forward to throughout their tenure.
Imagine this scenario. Around fifteen years back, if you had been an environment minister in a developing nation in South Asia, you would mainly have had to worry about policies regarding cattle, livestock, forests (of course), and other nick nack. Cut to the present, and the environment minister’s post is perchance the most coveted one dealing with the ad nauseum claim of how to “mitigate the effects of global warming” (you’ll find this statement copied in many policy government documents in many nations) leading obviously to massive media exposure, public glory, global speech making and a sureshot future book.
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 Just for argument’s sake, take a test – try and identify your nation’s minister for mines, or the minister for textiles, or perhaps the one handling chemicals and fertilizers, or maybe culture, or better, rural development. Now try the same for the minister handling environment in your country. Get the spin?
Let’s face it, there is a huge lobby of intellectual and political experts denying man-made effects of global warming – but so does one particular Iranian the existence of the Holocaust. That said, reviewing even questionable findings, it does seem sensible to call for action on a war footing to save the most vulnerable and poorest communities on earth from annihilation. But the urgency with which the case for a follow-up to the Kyoto protocol was put forward by world governments in the summit at Bali has been substituted by hegemonic didactic of developed nations about equal responsibility of developing countries like India, China and Brazil to reduce carbon emissions as they are the fastest growing emitters. But developing nations are learning to return this sledgehammer serve of the developed world.
The fall out has been clamourous, complex and at times cynically hilarious. President Obama vows to reduce US emissions by 83% by 2050. It means 2050 US emissions will be at 1910 level when the US population was 92 million. However, with 420 million Americans in 2050, it simply means that US per capita emissions in 2050 would be the same as in 1875. South America’s histrionics mired in anti US propaganda continue especially with massive oil and gas discoveries in recent times which Latin American nations plan to sell to the entire world in coming decades.
China, the biggest emitter of Green House Gases (GHGs) recently declared that it has set a binding goal to reduce emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2050. At the same time, China is adding nearly two coal fired plants per week and its coal power industry is expanding at the rate of 50% for the last few years. India, suddenly realizing that its old position of equal yet differentiated responsibilities was being tossed around as a deal breakers’ whim, suddenly took big ‘brother’ China’s direction and declared to reduce its per capita emissions too – voluntarily, brother, voluntarily. Amazingly, amongst the trio (of US, India and China), China continues to have the worst energy intensity with amount of GHG emitted per $1m of GDP at 1152 metric tonnes (MT). The figures for US and India stand at 441 MT and 655 MT respectively.
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