As our negotiating team prepares itself for the CO2 battle at Copenhagen this week, there is some good news for all those exasperated souls who have been wondering what exactly would be India?s position at the climate change talks. Are we with G-7 or G-77 or somewhere in between? Are we okay with undertaking emission cuts? These and other questions have been dogging us for a while. The good news is that some clarity has finally emerged about India?s stance. The clarity came with the announcement last week that India will voluntarily undertake a reduction of 20-25% in the emission intensity of GDP by 2020, from a base of 2005. What is even more significant is India, like China, clearly intends to make carbon intensity of GDP, rather than per capita emissions, as the basis of future negotiations. This is a very important development and must be seen in the right perspective.
Indeed, there appeared to be some method in the obfuscation caused lately by statements coming from environment minister Jairam Ramesh that India must show flexibility by moving away from her traditional stance of using only per capita emissions as a bargaining ploy with the developed world. The per capita emission formulation, even though valid by itself, was losing its value as a durable negotiating point. Probably it had been flogged for far too long and India needed to demonstrate she was willing to evolve beyond the per capita argument.
So Jairam did the right thing by setting the cat among the pigeons some weeks ago when he wrote to the Prime Minister saying India must become more flexible and stop being obsessed with G-77 unionism. This created a scare among the traditionalists for whom the per capita emission model was inviolable. Members of the Prime Minister?s advisory group on climate change, some of whom are part of the negotiating team, privately told journalists that they did not really know whether Jairam Ramesh?s statements fully represented the thinking at the PMO. There was a lot of confusion followed by media gossip, all of which is so typical of the way debate happens in our country on critical issues.
However, in hindsight, it seems Jairam was playing according to a well thought out script. This is evident from his statement that India?s latest offer stems from an empirical study done by the Planning Commission. Obviously, this study was in the works and could not have sprung overnight.
The Planning Commission deputy chairperson, Montek Ahluwalia, confirmed to FE that the Prime Minister had indeed endorsed the strategy paper, which showed India could actually reduce its emission intensity of GDP by up to 37% by 2020, by simply following the current growth path with routine technological change. So, India?s offer of cutting emission intensity of GDP by 20-25% is really no big deal. It will happen in the normal course, without making any special effort towards mitigating emissions.
The strategy paper prepared by the Planning Commission says India?s elasticity of emissions, which was 0.83 in the period 1990-2000, came down substantially to 0.59 during 2000-2005, due to routine improvements in technology, energy mix and energy efficiency in the latter period. If this elasticity of emissions achieved with normal technological change is projected forward for 2005-2020, the emission intensity of GDP will fall by 37%.
Perhaps it is this piece of researched data which enabled India to take the decision that it must pitch emission intensity of GDP as its new bargaining plank at Copenhagen. India was also emboldened by the fact that China, after doing its own intensive research, had made the offer of reducing its own emission intensity of GDP by 43% by 2020 from a 2005 base. The Chinese have apparently shared the basis of such research with Jairam Ramesh and that too might have played a role in India moving towards emission intensity of GDP as a new basis for negotiating with the developed world.
Simply put, emission intensity of output is nothing but the total quantum of emissions (in kilogrammes) divided by the dollar value of GDP. So what you get is the quantum of emission per unit of GDP. It makes sense for China and India to shift to this model because with their GDP (denominator) rising much faster, the carbon intensity will drop rapidly. This will be further aided by the falling emission elasticity on account of normal technological changes like shifting to nuclear power, gas and biomass as new sources of energy. The GDP of the Western economies will grow very slowly so they will find it difficult to reduce carbon intensity unless these nations invest heavily in breakthrough technologies.
This new model affords countries like India and China enough carbon space for their development because the emission intensity of GDP reduces without undertaking any development retarding carbon mitigation action.
Politically, India can argue with the developed world that she has moved away from the per capita emission stance to a new one, which is supported by China. The West cannot quarrel with the carbon intensity of GDP model as they too have a stake in driving global growth.
However, it is not yet clear how the carbon intensity model can be made consistent with the larger objective of cutting global emissions to the required level. Copenhagen will most likely postpone that big question for another day!
?mk.venu@expressindia.com