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India Needs To Act, Atleast For Its Own Sake

By Suhail Masoodi

07 December, 2009
Countercurrents.org

On 3rd December, 2009, just 4 days ahead of Copenhagen summit on Climate Change, Minister of Environment, Mr. Jai Ramesh, announced in the Indian Parliament that India has voluntarily agreed to cut 20-25 percent carbon emissions by 2020 over 2005 level. On next day, Arun Jaitly, leader of the India’s largest opposition party BJP rebuked Mr. Ramesh for agreeing to emissions cut, which he believes was done under the USA pressure. On the other side of Indian border, and world’s biggest carbon emitter China also agreed first time to set a target of 40-45 percent cut in its carbon emissions. It must be stated here, China’s decision came a day after President HU Jintao’s meeting with the US President Barak Obama last month in Beijing, and Indian government’s decision what they called voluntary action, also came just after few days after PM Manmohan Singh’s meeting with President Obama. This is the first time when both the countries, India and China set targets to cut Co2 emissions, which means the big daddy Obama means business, and thus wants to take action himself and push others to do so.

There are many voices not only in India and China but in other parts of developing world that seem to be not in favor of making any commitment to cut the carbon emissions, thus stating the old and obsolete argument that developed countries should cut the emissions, thus take whole responsibility on their shoulders. Fair enough, everybody knows they (developed world) have polluted the world, but does that mean we in developing world should sleep and let our people die. In India, except some scientists and environment activists nobody seem to be bothered about climate change, and why should they be? It will neither fetch votes for Politicians, nor has it yet affected its bourgeois, India’s three hundred million middle class. Yes, it has affected its over 28% population who live under the below poverty line, it affects and will severely affect in future its 400 million population (which is almost equal to the population of whole Europe and the US) who are still without basic electricity.

Over the years we have seen increase in threat of Climate Change to the world. According to Global Humanitarian Forum report 2009, around 325 million people are seriously affected by climate change, and estimated 500 million will be at extreme risk, and 4 hundred billion people (about two thirds of world population) are expected to be vulnerable to the future effects of climate change. More and more land is getting severely affected by drought. The percentage of land affected by drought has gone up from 1% to 3 % from last 10 years, and it is expected to affect 8% in 2020, and 30% by the end of this century. Looking at the rising problems created by Climate Change, it is obvious that it is the poor Indian population who will have to face the brunt of climate change in the coming years. A very shocking truth about the effects on poor Indian farmers come from the National Crime Records Bureau, which tell us that an estimated 16,625 farmers across India have killed themselves in 2007, nearly one fourth of them were from the Maharashtra’s Vidarba region. The growing worry is that the numbers are continuing to rise. Since 1997, 182,936 Indian farmers have ended their lives, or roughly, 46 Indian farmers kill themselves every day - one suicide almost every 30 minutes. These suicide rates although cannot be generalized as being solely due to negative impacts on agricultural produce from climate change, but Climate Change has certainly contributed to their agony and the negative effects of climate change on agriculture are bound to worsen this scenario further. It is believed that methane emissions especially from the cultivation of rice (especially the flood irrigation of rice) and livestock are the principal green house gas (GHG) emitters in the South Asian region. These account for about 25 percent of GHG emissions in India and 40 percent in neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan. As such it has become a vicious cycle where the poor end up having no choice but to emit GHG and in turn also suffer from the negative effects of the emitting.

On the other hand the increasing affects of global warming, have caused the Himalayan glaciers to melt rapidly. The 24,000 kilometer Himalayan glaciers which are source for 9 largest rivers in Asia thus provide water to over 1.3 billion population cutting across geographical boundaries. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body on Climate Change; Himalayan “Glaciers could disappear altogether by 2035.” So it is high time for India to act rather than playing petty politics on the issue. If India is able to manage to save the Himalayan glaciers, it will not only help herself, but will also help her neighboring countries as well. India needs to play a central role and bring other stakeholders like China, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bhutan to save the Himalayan glaciers from melting. There is a clear indication that water capacity in India has been decreasing, since 1947, as such this decreasing rate of water availability is a serious concern for the whole subcontinent. Currently, India has 1,100 billion cubic meters of aggregate annual utilizable water and it is believed the water demand in 2025 of the country will be 1,013 billion cubic meters. Although the data shows the country has enough water, as the current availability of water is higher than the projected demand by 2025, but decreasing water capacity makes it alarming. In the year 2000 India had 2,200 billion cubic meters of water available, which is expected to decrease to 1,600 billion cubic meters by 2017.

Though India has taken a series of measures including 2008 eight point action plan to combat Climate change, but it does not seem India has invested much in green technology, despite its relative advantage in wind energy it has so far failed to make full use of it. On the other hand China has been immensely investing in green technology. With $ 218 billion green stimulus package, it has already become largest investor in green technology in the world. Making green technology as a mission, it has launched major research in solar battery and wind energy; it is pertinent to mention here that China already creates more power from renewable energy than other countries, if you walk to Beijing or Shanghai streets you could observe a caravan of electronic bikes, but hardly any petrol or diesel motor bikes. Renewable energy in China is getting immense importance contrary to India, where even its minister for new and renewable does not visibly get invitation for meeting on climate change. So if India wants to meet first Millennium development goal “to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,” it has to leave its static position and take a leadership in Copenhagen to combat Climate Change. At least for its own sake.

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