At the recent summit of the G-8 and the Major Economies Forum, India recognised the broad scientific view that average increase in global temperature should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Some quarters accused the government of opening a side-door to emission reduction targets. Now the PM has clarified that accepting a threshold guiding global action does not automatically translate into an acceptance of emission reduction obligations. He also says China?s position is nearly identical, India has been coordinating with it, and the full incremental cost of any mitigation must be compensated by financial and technological transfers from developed countries. In his statement to Parliament, the PM has taken an overdue and necessary step of putting climate change at the centre of India?s political discourse, an intolerable condition, given India?s vulnerability to the impact of climate change: melting glaciers, floods, heat waves, storms, rising sea levels and unpredictable farm yields dot the horizon. The key question is whether India should hold on to its resistance to emission reduction obligations.
India has been saying that since it?s the developed countries that have produced the bulk of historical emissions, which is what has given them their industrial edge, it?s plain justice that developing countries? brown clouds not be reined in just when they are getting their bit of the growth sun too. The PM?s special envoy on climate change is fond of saying that the 400 million Indians that live without electricity deserve to see light, too. All too true. But today, we can imagine what it would be like if these millions could get electricity without burning fossil fuels. The government?s recently announced intention to seek 20 gw of solar power investments by 2020 is a step in this direction. If playing ball on emission reduction buys India the best of Western technology to grow green, what are we waiting for? Doomsday? On the China front, we are both gulping more resources. But it?s a not really advantageous to be clubbed together as the new cussed kids on the block, especially as we are hardly privy to China?s actual agenda. The bottom line is that developing countries will account for 97% of the increase in carbon emissions by 2030. There is enough sin going around now to render history sort of redundant. As a country that seeks an A-table seat on grounds of GDP growth rather than GDP per capita, can it really keep using a low per capita emissions argument to ward off reductions. That?s taking the righting of history too far.
