In a recent study of GHG emissions by selected cities this year, Barcelona proudly did the best ?with the lowest per capita emissions. Its population density is high, but electricity requirements low?thanks to the climate gods? goodwill. Even so, power consumption has been steadily climbing since Spain ratified the Kyoto protocol. By 2007, emissions had risen to 53.5% above 1990 levels. As climate treaty debates further degenerate into developed vs developing countries? hostility, big players like the US, India and China draw most of the heat. But there are plenty of others lurking in the shadows of both the ?rich? and ?poor? camps, who noiselessly emit away while waiting for their frontmen to win them the best possible deal.
One group blazed its way to the front last week. Barcelona was playing host to the last of the five parlays in advance of next month?s UNFCC summit in Copenhagen, which is supposed to lay down a post-Kyoto protocol. The summit had barely begun before 55 African nations staged a walkout. They were demanding that rich countries cut their emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. This would obviously include Spain, and Spain is obviously not up to the task. This is of course what Indian negotiators have said so often that Bollywood should have had hit a song about it by now?if it lived in the real world.
Actually, although many headlines suggested that the whole of the African continent had stood up to protest, it was just a handful of representatives who truly made their presence felt in Barcelona. One was Kabeya Tshikuku of the Democratic Republic of Congo delegation, who accused ?other? groups of not taking the climate talks seriously enough, urgently enough. The cursed other would no doubt have the US at the head, but it would be delusional to imagine India doesn?t figure somewhere in the mix too. We may prefer to spin the ?poor? and ?emerging economic power? tracks to suit our own interests, but it doesn?t take a rocket scientist to decode such self-interest, or replicate its rhetoric.
Talk is spreading about how the next global treaty on climate change may not emerge in Copenhagen, but at a December 2010 meeting in Mexico. What happened in Barcelona suggests even that may be too optimistic.
If the narrative of mistrust keeps growing not just between ?rich? and ?poor? camps but within the camps themselves (with the US and the EU growing more belligerent with each other), and economic considerations keep driving individual countries in distinct directions, we should start buying coffins for the global climate treaty in general.
A second African delegate who made his presence felt in Barcelona was Sudanese Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who argued that anything south of a 40% emissions reduction by rich countries would mean the destruction of Africa?s population and land mass. What would our forests and environment minister Jairam Ramesh have said? He has, in the sound context of realism, suggested accepting a rich countries? emission reduction target of 25% by 2020. Wait, Ramesh wasn?t there at Barcelona. Some commentators have suggested this absence was enforced by the PMO, which didn?t take kindly to Ramesh?s letter suggesting that India move away from the developing countries? bloc to accept emission cuts (Kyoto mandates these for developed countries alone). As other commentators on this page have noted, such concessions are part and parcel of India?s ascension into the big league. But they would put India at an arm?s length from some in the ?poor? bloc.
Today, as about 1,000 giant dominos topple along the former path of the Berlin wall, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its fall, let?s remember that it didn?t go down because of some single grand plan, but because of many, disparate individuals taking a visionary stance. What that says about climate diplomacy is that, even if our appointed leaders let us down, even if no global treaty gets signed?remember the signing of Kyoto was no guarantee of emission reduction?there is still reason to hope that things can get fixed, Armageddon averted.
Last weekend, there was snow blanketing Beijing and this weekend Delhi was dealing with a dastardly smog. The Beijing snow was the earliest the city had seen since 1987. Affected people, whether enjoying the sight of picturesque white drifts across temple tops or cursing their flight delays, had to thank the weather modification office that had overdosed the atmosphere with silver iodide, or pulled off cloud-seeding. Last year, it was the Olympics that were the occasion for a huge antipollution effort. Either ways, Beijing has been turned into a vast climate fixing lab. Delhi too had carried out a similarly vast experiment when it put CNG vehicles on the road some years ago. Neither of these measures is directly related to either the Kyoto protocol or its successor. But it?s likely that we will be relying on such independent?innovative and technologically advanced ?measures to take care of our climate in the future.
?renuka.bisht@expressindia.com
