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India spells out a climate action plan

October 7, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

We present here the summary of India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) which have been submitted to the UN Climate Change Convention (the UNFCCC). This summary has been released by the Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Our analysis of and commentary on India’s INDCs will follow in separate articles.

The Government of India has said that the country’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) are balanced and comprehensive. In official statements, the government said that INDCs include reductions in the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 level and to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. India has also decided to anchor a global solar alliance, INSPA (International Agency for Solar Policy & Application), of all countries located in between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.

The INDCs centre around India’s policies and programmes on promotion of clean energy, especially renewable energy, enhancement of energy efficiency, development of less carbon intensive and resilient urban centres, promotion of waste to wealth, safe, smart and sustainable green transportation network, abatement of pollution and India’s efforts to enhance carbon sink through creation of forest and tree cover. It also captures citizens and private sector contribution to combating climate change.

The INDCs outline the post-2020 climate actions they intend to take under a new international agreement. The INDCs document is prepared with a view to taking forward the Prime Minister’s vision of a sustainable lifestyle and climate justice to protect the poor and vulnerable from adverse impacts of climate change. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change adopted an inclusive process for preparation of India’s INDCs. It held stakeholder consultations with the specific involvement of the key Ministries and State Governments. Interactions were also held with civil society organisations, thinktanks and technical & academic institutions of eminence. The Ministry had commissioned Greenhouse Gas (GHG) modeling studies for projections of GHG emissions till 2050 with a decadal gap. The gist of all these consultations & studies were taken on board before submitting India’s INDCs. The government zeroed-in on a set of contributions which are comprehensive, balanced, equitable and pragmatic and addresses all the elements including Adaptation, Mitigation, Finance, Technology Transfer, Capacity Building and Transparency in Action and Support.

Planned actions and economic reforms have contributed positively to the rapidly declining growth rate of energy intensity in India. The Government of India, through its various institutions and resources, has taken steps to decouple the Indian energy system from carbon in the long run. Despite facing enormous development challenges like poverty eradication, ensuring housing, electricity and food security for all, India declared a voluntary goal of reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20–25%, over 2005 levels by 2020, despite having no binding mitigation obligations as per the Convention. A slew of policy measures to promote low carbon strategies and Renewable Energy have resulted in the decline of emission intensity of our GDP by 12% between 2005 and 2010. It is a matter of satisfaction that United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its Emission Gap Report 2014 has recognized India as one of the countries on course to achieving its voluntary goal.

India has adopted several ambitious measures for clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency in various sectors of industries, achieving lower emission intensity in the automobile and transport sector, non-fossil based electricity generation and building sector based on energy conservation. Thrust on renewable energy, promotion of clean energy, enhancing energy efficiency, developing climate resilient urban centres and sustainable green transportation network are some of the measures for achieving this goal.

Solar power in India is poised to grow significantly with Solar Mission as a major initiative of the Government of India. A scheme for development of 25 Solar Parks, Ultra Mega Solar Power Projects, canal top solar projects and one hundred thousand solar pumps for farmers is at different stages of implementation. The Government’s goal of ‘Electricity for All’ is sought to be achieved by the above programs that would require huge investments, infusion of new technology, availability of nuclear fuel and international support.

The energy efficiency of thermal power plants will be systematically and statutorily improved. Over one million medium and small enterprises will be involved in the Zero Defect Zero Effect Scheme to improve their quality, energy efficiency, enhance resource efficiency, pollution control, waste management and use of renewable energy.

Urban transport policy will encourage moving people rather than vehicles with a major focus on Mass Rapid Transit Systems. In addition to 236 km of metro rail in place, about 1150 km metro projects for cities including Pune, Ahmedabad and Lucknow are being planned. Delhi Metro, which has become India’s first MRTS project to earn carbon credits, has the potential to reduce about 0.57 million tonnes of CO₂ e annually. The switch from Bharat Stage IV (BS IV) to Bharat Stage V (BS V) and Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) to improve fuel standards across the country is also planned for the near future.

Renewable energy sources are a strategic national resource. Harnessing these sources will put India on the path to a cleaner environment, energy independence and, a stronger economy. The renewable energy technologies contribute to better air quality, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, curb global warming, add jobs to the economy and, protect environmental values such as habitat and water quality. Over the years India has successfully created a positive outlook necessary to promote investment in, demand for, and supply of, renewable energy. India’s strategy on renewable energy is driven by the objectives of energy security, energy access and also reducing the carbon footprints of the national energy systems. It has evolved over the years through increasingly stronger commitment at federal level.

The institutional arrangement for offtake of renewable energy power will be further strengthened by Renewable Purchase Obligations and Renewable Generation Obligations. India’s share of non-fossil fuel in the total installed capacity is projected to change from 30% in 2015 to about 40 % by 2030. India is running one of the largest renewable capacity expansion programmes in the world. Between 2002 and 2015, the share of renewable grid capacity has increased over 6 times, from 2% (3.9 GW) to around 13% (36 GW) from a mix of sources including Wind Power, Small Hydro Power, Biomass Power / Cogeneration, Waste to Power and Solar Power. On normative terms the CO₂ emission abatement achieved from the renewable power installed capacity was 84.92 million tons CO₂ eq. /year as of 30 June 2015.

To accelerate development and deployment of renewable energy in the country, the Government is taking a number of initiatives like up-scaling of targets for renewable energy capacity addition from 30GW by 2016-17 to 175 GW by 2021-22.The renewable power target of 175 GW by 2022 will result in abatement of 326.22 million tons of CO₂ eq. /year. The ambitious solar expansion programme seeks to enhance the capacity to 100 GW by 2022, which is expected to be scaled up further thereafter. Efforts will include scaling up efforts to increase the share of non-fossil fuel based energy resources in total electricity mix including wind power, solar, hydropower, biomass, waste to energy and nuclear power.

The range of ecosystem goods and services provided by forests include carbon sequestration and storage. Despite the significant opportunity costs, India is one of the few countries where forest and tree cover has increased in recent years and the total forest and tree cover amounts to 24% percent of the geographical area of the country. Over the past two decades progressive national forestry legislations and policies of India have transformed India’s forests into a net sink of CO2. With its focus on sustainable forest management, afforestation and regulating diversion of forest land for non-forest purpose, India plans to increase its carbon stock. Government of India’s long term goal is to increase its forest cover through a planned afforestation drive which includes number of programmes and initiatives like Green India Mission, green highways policy, financial incentive for forests, plantation along rivers, REDD-Plus & Other Policies and Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority

For the first time devolution of funds to states from the federal pool will be based on a formula that attaches 7.5 % weight to the area under forest. It takes into account the changing realities in order to rebalance the fiscal system of the country in a way that will incentivize greener distribution of resources. This initiative will give afforestation a massive boost by conditioning about USD 6.9 billion of transfers to the states based on their forest cover, which is projected to increase up to USD 12 billion by 2019-20.

For India, adaptation is inevitable and an imperative for the development process. India is facing climate change as a real issue, which is impacting some of its key sectors like agriculture and water. The adverse impacts of climate change on the developmental prospects of the country are further amplified enormously by the existence of widespread poverty and dependence of a large proportion of the population on climate sensitive sectors for livelihood. It is of immediate importance and requires action now.

In the INDCs, the country has focused on adaptation efforts, including: a) developing sustainable habitats; b) optimizing water use efficiency; c) creating ecologically sustainable climate resilient agricultural production systems; d) safeguarding the Himalayan glaciers and mountain ecosystem; and, e) enhancing carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and implementing adaptation measures for vulnerable species, forest-dependent communities and ecosystems. India has also set up a National Adaptation Fund with an initial allocation of INR 3,500 million (USD 55.6 million) to combat the adaptation needs in key sectors. This fund will assist national and state level activities to meet the cost of adaptation measures in areas that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

India’s climate actions have so far been largely financed from domestic resources. India already has ambitious climate action plans in place. Preliminary domestic requirements to implement national climate plans add upto more than USD 2.5 trillion between 2015 and 2030.Substantial scaling up these plans would require greater resources. Developing countries like India are resource constrained and are already spending enormous amounts on climate change, . Implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation actions would require domestic and new & additional funds from developed countries in view of the resource required and the resource gap.

Urgent efforts to reduce GHG emissions need to take place against the backdrop of a growing energy demand and urbanisation in India. With the responsibility of lifting around 360 million people out of poverty and raising the standard of living of an even greater number of people, technology is the only powerful solution for countries like India that can simultaneously address climate change and development needs. Technology development and transfer and capacity-building are key to ensuring adequate development and deployment of clean-technologies. The technology gap between rich and poor countries remains enormous and the capacity of developing economies to adopt new technology needs to be enhanced. Enhanced action on technology development and transfer will be central in enabling the full and effective implementation of India’s INDCs. Developed countries should be supportive and help in transfer of technology, remove barriers, create facilitative IPR regime, provide finance, capacity building support and create a global framework for Research & Development on clean coal and other technologies.”

Why 2015 must be the year that climate talks are retired

June 2, 2015 by Climate portal editor 1 Comment

This year’s ritual of talking about climate and talking about the effects of changing climates has begun. This is the 21st year that this is being done, and in none of the previous 20 years have the talkers achieved any worthwhile goal. They will not this year either, although much money will be spent on slick and colourful messages to convince the publics of 196 countries otherwise.

On 1 June the Bonn Climate Change Conference June 2015 began. The actors at this conference are mainly from the same cast that has played these roles for 20 years. They have been replaced here and there, and overall the main cast and supporting casts have grown in number – I think this growth in the number of climate negotiators and climate experts matches the growth rate of parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, there may be a correlation that can inspire a new discipline of research.

‘World on Fire’ by Spiros Derveniotis, courtesy Cartoon Movement, http://www.cartoonmovement.com/p/2486

These conferences are expensive, for thousands of people are involved. Most of these people profess to be concerned about climate change and its effects and most of these people maintain curriculum vitaes that are tomes designed to awe and impress, usually with the purpose of securing well-paid consultancies or academic tenureships or some such similar lucrative sinecures. It is an industry, this negotiating climate change, whose own rates of growth are about as steep as the number of those, in the OECD countries, who fall into debt. As before, there may be interesting correlations to note.

The publics of the 196 countries that are constrained to send emissaries and observers and negotiators to these colossal jamborees have been lied to for 20 years quite successfully, and this 21st year we will see the lies repeated and presented all wrapped up in new tinsel. Many of these countries – from south-eastern and central Europe, from small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans, from the Caribbean, from South America and from South-East Asia – pay for the useless privilege of sending representatives to attend this annual round of sophisticated tomfoolery. It is money down the drain for them.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) under whose aegis most of these jamborees are held, and in whose august name most of the hollow but portentous pronouncements are ritually made, is an organisation that is over the hill, round the bend and up the wall. It represents today nothing that is in the interest of the public and it represents today almost everything that is in the interest of the corporate plutocracy, whether global or regional or national.

A 21st edition of annual obfuscation by the UNFCCC and its crony institutions.

Unembarrassed by its own hopelessly prodigal existence, the UNFCCC lines up ‘technical expert meetings’ month after month to produce suitably technical papers that would fill libraries, if they were printed. It arranges conclaves in expensive locales (all sponsored naturally) to gauge ‘mitigation ambition of countries through multilateral assessment’. It commissions extensive reviews of the adequacy of countries’ agreed goals to keep the global average temperature from rising beyond 2°C above pre-industrial levels and the abundantly-qualified authors of these reviews (which read very much like the reviews of 2014, 2013, 2012 and so on) self-importantly inform us that “the world is not yet on track to achieve the long-term global goal, but successful mitigation policies are known and must be scaled up urgently”, just as their predecessors did 20 years ago.

The main UNFCCC cast and its supporting cast (of thousands, but these thousands alas do not form the geographic representation that the United Nations system pretends to) spend days together at preparatory conferences and meetings, and pre-preparatory conferences and meetings, and agenda-setting conferences and meetings, and theme-outlining conferences and meetings, all year round. From somewhere within this flurry of busy nothingness they announce (perhaps on the days before the solstices and following the equinoxes) that new breakthroughs have been made in the negotiating text and that consensus is nigh.

This has gone on far too long. Twenty years ago, when this great obfuscation began, there were some 1.83 billion children (under 14 years old) in the world. Today they are at ages where they are finishing primary school, have begun working (many of them in informal, insecure, hazardous jobs whose paltry wages keep families alive) and a few are completing university degrees. Some of this 1.83 billion may have an interest in what climate is and why it changes but for them, the techno-financial labyrinths invented by the UNFCCC and its comfortable nest of crony institutions offer no enlightenment. For those young women and men, the cancerous industry of climate change negotiations has done nothing to ensure, during their lifetimes till now, any reduction in the exploitation and use of materials whose first and primary effect is to degrade the nature upon which we all depend.

– Rahul Goswami

No American chop suey, thank you

November 13, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama address a joint press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. Photo: Xinhua / Liu Weibing

Trade and manufacturing, geo-strategic ambitions and power jockeying, these are the objectives behind the so-called ‘deal’ between China and USA on ‘cutting’ carbon emissions and pollution. The ‘deal’ was announced at the conclusion of the 22nd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Summit, held in Beijing, China, and therefore partly reflected the agendas of Asian trade within the region and with the USA.

The ‘deal’ on climate between President of China Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama indicates in the first place the internal compulsions faced by the governing leaderships that they represent in both countries. This balancing however is commonplace at economic and trade summits, where new agreements and pacts are presented as being good for the international order, but whose details reveal the truth. [Read the special India Climate Watch bulletin here.]

So it is with the Xi-Obama ‘deal’ on climate change and emissions, but with added aspects that are disturbing for the shape that the post-Kyoto framework on climate action is taking. According to media reports (mainly from the USA), representatives of the two governments have been negotiating for several months so that this ‘deal’ could be announced now.

If true, this tells us that equality of representation at international climate negotiations, and that a multi-lateral approach itself, are being ignored by the world’s biggest polluting country (China) and the world’s biggest economy (the USA, measured in current US dollars only). In preparing for such a ‘deal’ therefore, the political leaderships of both countries have signalled that their international responsibilities towards climate justice matter less than bolstering a trading system which rests on globalised production, deployment of capital and homogenous consumption.

The IPCC’s advice on reaching resilience during an era of changing climate. Quite ignored by the leadership of the two biggest polluting countries. Image: IPCC

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, issued a statement welcoming this ‘deal’. In it Ban has welcomed “the joint announcement” by the two leaders “of their post-2020 action on climate change, as an important contribution to the new climate agreement to be reached in Paris next year”. The UN must perforce look for some positive element in any such ‘deal’, but calling it an important contribution to COP 21 (conference of parties) to be held in Paris in 2015 is misleading.

Ban’s own statement has mentioned the need for “a meaningful, universal agreement in 2015” however the Beijing announcement signals that the opposite will ensue – economic and trading blocs will continue to advance their separate agendas and so subordain the responses required to climate change.

Ban has also welcomed “the commitment expressed by both leaders to increase their level of ambition over time as well as the framing of their actions in recognition of the goal of keeping global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius”.

This too is not so. The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (maintained by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre) has said that the required reduction in the increase in global CO2 emissions can be achieved provided: (a) China achieves its own target of a maximum level of energy consumption by 2015 and its shift to gas with a natural gas share of 10% by 2020; (b) the USA continues a shift its energy mix towards more gas and renewable energy; and (c) European Union member states agree on restoring the effectiveness of the EU Emissions Trading System to further reduce actual emissions. The actions thus outlined for the USA and China will under the new ‘deal’ either not take place or be loosely and ineffectually interpreted.

The view of China’s political establishment is visible in the treatment of the climate ‘deal’ by its official media. In its commentary on the Xi-Obama meeting, Xinhua, the state news agency, explained that President Xi Jinping “outlined six priorities in building a new type of major-country relationship with the United States”. The language and manner indicate that what is being presented in the media as a ‘landmark deal’ between the two countries on climate change is in fact part of a continuing re-negotiation of the roles of both countries in today’s world.

Special bulletin of the India Climate Watch on the China-USA climate ‘deal’.

The six priorities (this label follows the typical political construction of policy China – for years the ‘three represents’ of the Chinese Communist Party had guided state thinking) are: communication between high-level officials, mutual respect, cooperation in all aspects, management of disputes, collaboration in the Asia-Pacific and joint actions on global challenges. The response to climate change is part of the sixth priority, joint actions on global challenges (which also includes counter-terrorism and epidemic control). In its official statement on the ‘deal’, China has pointed out that in 2013 bilateral trade between the USA and the People’s Republic soared to US$ 520 billion while two-way investment stood at US$ 100 billion. This volume and flow is what will be protected to the extents possible by both governments.

The staged euphoria over this ‘deal’ does not obscure its non-binding nature. According to commentary from the People’s Republic, 2030 would be set as the peak year for its soaring greenhouse gas emissions, while the USA said it would cut emissions by more than a quarter from 2005 levels by 2025.

Data from the International Energy Agency show that for the USA, total final oil products consumption in 2012 was 717 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe; in 2007 the quantity was 829 mtoe) while the totals for all energy sources were 1,432 mtoe in 2012 which was a reduction from 1,572 mtoe in 2007). In China, total final oil products consumption in 2012 was 421 mtoe (in 2007 it was 308 mtoe) while the use of coal continued to rise – 558 mtoe in 2012 whereas it was 480 mtoe in 2007. In China the totals for all energy sources was 1,703 mtoe in 2012 which is 28% above what it was (1,326 mtoe) five years earlier.

A rapid analysis carried out by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) indicates that: (1) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the USA in 2025 will be 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; from 1990 levels, the USA will reduce its emissions by just 15-17% by 2025; to meet the 2C target, US emissions should be at least 50-60% per cent below 1990 levels considering its historical responsibility of causing climate change, and (2) China’s emissions will peak at 17-20 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030 and its per capita emissions in 2030 will be 12-13 tons; these are not in line with the 2C emissions pathways put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC has, less than a fortnight ago, presented the need for what it bluntly calls “zero net emissions” by 2100 – and that means changing economies and trade and the trend of globalisation now – to avert the worst. But the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, has called the China-US climate ‘deal’ “a heartening development, a good beginning and I hope the global community follows this lead and maybe builds on it”. This is certainly not the lead to follow, for it ignores the IPCC’s stark warning, and instead signals that global and regional powers can bully their way to gaining sanction for furthering their short-term economic agendas even while climate science demands that they do otherwise.

– Rahul Goswami

At home and abroad

August 18, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The size and diversity of India’s federal structure (36 states and union territories) is steering this government towards an arrangement wherein the assessment of development needs and outcomes is carried out at least at the state level. As the new India Climate Watch has pointed out, this is where India’s contribution to the international climate change negotiations appears quite out of phase with the climate aspect of development discussions and actions in these 36 states and union territories.

We ask whether the state action plans on climate change (some of which in their final forms are now several years old) are fit for the task of guiding policy at this level, a serious and urgent question which, in our view, ought to precede India’s taking of international positions on climate change adaptation and mitigation measures (including financing and technology transfer).

With the meeting of the BASIC group of countries on 7-8 August 2014 in New Delhi, a stretch of negotiating has begun for India which will continue with greater intensity until the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris in December 2015. This is seen by climate negotiators as the final stretch of the Kyoto Protocol period and we can expect a flurry of weighty summations to be produced during this time, which may influence how the successor to the Kyoto Protocol will begin to be framed, a procedure that COP 21 will be devoted to.

For India, this period will proceed in parallel with the first term of the NDA government, which will be expected to deliver much more substantial leadership on matters of equity in the international arena, and which is already committed to strengthening the federal approach at home. Our view is that these are not exclusive, and that one can guide the other.

Under direction from the central government, our states have been preparing climate action plans geared to their conditions. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change reports that 28 of these plans have been prepared, and how these will integrate with the economic and social imperatives that each state government frames differently has not been explored. Until that happens as a policy commitment, the state action plans remain academic exercises with action on the ground in the form of relatively small projects channelled through ‘technology transfer’ agencies. These may help indicate how feasible a future course is but which is weak without state government and industry resolve. [Click this link for the India Climate Watch 2014 03 (pdf 186kb).]

Cows, scooters and climate talks

July 27, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

To what degree should international negotiation be India’s major theoretical activity when dealing with climate change? To what extent do India’s negotiators at the UNFCCC annual series of meetings represent its people at home, and if so through which channels? How are governance and determination of choices at the local level in India – choices that can lead to more communities becoming more responsible about their climate change impacts – translated by our negotiators at annual international meetings? These are some of the questions we find need to be asked more sharply, and more persistently, and for which we wish to hear answers.

Commentaries like ‘A map and a compass for climate talks’, by Navroz K Dubash and Lavanya Rajamani of the Centre for Policy Research (published in The Hindu, 23 July 2014), give us an interesting glimpse of the world that our international climate talks negotiators inhabit, but it has not posed such questions nor helped provide answers. This is the dialectic that needs to change, and quickly. It is 17 years since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted and every year thereafter, the number of meetings for negotiations has increased and the numbers of those who are now experts at negotiations has swelled at an ever faster rate. This new and hyper-mobile population of negotiators cannot claim any success, however minor, that has come from this annual festival of discussion (carried out by spending taxpayers’ money). What then is their use, to us in India especially?

In their article, Dubash and Rajamani have provided a rapid account of the adoption of negotiating positions by India and the differences between them at different periods. They have illustrated this by referring to articles written recently by former Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh and by Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, described as “a mainstay of India’s negotiating team for two decades”. Given the failure rate of the annual round of climate change negotiations, the strategical quibbling by both Ramesh and Dasgupta are of very little use locally in India. That is why we think the Centre for Policy Research and similar institutes and establishments which study climate change in all its perplexing colours (none of them more frustrating than the UN negotiations) must alter the subject – to the ‘whom’ of people where they live rather than the ‘what’ of negotiating positions.

The two authors, looking ahead to “the next landmark climate negotiating session” – we ask that empty hyperbole like ‘landmark’ be dropped from a process that is nothing but 20 years of getting nowhere expensively – have said it is time to “look forward and anticipate how a principled approach, strategic vision, political acumen and technical expertise can be better combined in India’s negotiating approach”. Surely, Ramesh and Dasgupta (perhaps in reverse order) ought to be bluntly asked why India has not had a principled approach, strategic vision, political acumen and technical expertise which – and we emphasise this – helps deal with climate change locally, in the districts and towns, and which then becomes the position that India takes in the crowded climate talks ballrooms of the world?

The commentary is worried about preparations to be made before the next big meeting in 2015. The usual formula is there – “national contributions”, “emissions mitigation component”, “adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building” and (best of all for the financiers who haunt every COP) “proposed investments”. The authors then refer to the Economic Survey 2013-14, which has a chapter (it is chapter 12, out of place amongst the others as if it wandered in from some storybook) on climate change. This they say mentions the need to develop contributions but that this mention has come very late – cue Messers Dasgupta and Ramesh for sepia-toned explanations.

And finally, the authors complain that “there is little evidence of a serious national dialogue on such contributions, which is critical to ensuring ownership of, responsibility for and delivery of these contributions across levels of governance and segments of society”. They could have spoken more plainly. There is no dialogue, because the central and state governments have not invested in dialogue (ask Ramesh how he got his government to invest in an excellent national discussion about Bt brinjal), and because our negotiators at COP, CMP, SBI and SBSTA never bothered to ask for it either. Who did it suit to cloak climate negotiations as being about technology, finance and law to an exclusively expert degree, thereby shutting the citizen out?

What we wish to hear very much of – and the Ministry has not obliged – is where the priorities of the BJP-led NDA government mesh (or clash) with the theory of a multi-lateral approach to climate change negotiations (now 20 years old). The climate circuit and its habitues in (and from) India have become used to the vocabulary of the circuit, so used to it that they have neglected to learn some of the other vocabularies found in documents such as the Union Budget speech and the Economic Survey, which have very much less to do with multi-lateral feinting at UNFCCC meetings and very much more to do with gritty economics at home. It isn’t too late for India to sound more like Gorakhpur than like Geneva at such talks, and only when that happens will we see tehsil and municipality begin to respond – the ‘equity’ that India is said to be a champion of at the negotiations can only have substance if it begins at home.

– Rahul Goswami

India Climate Watch bulletin

July 2, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The new government is speaking on climate change with confidence and purpose, and the administration of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change is, like other line departments providing the public with more information and in greater detail. The new Indian Climate Watch bulletin has said, “Such an approach needs to be at least the minimum benchmark that ensures engagement and participation between government and citizens, government and industry, government and stakeholders who have not and continue not to find adequate representation when policy and planning id discussed and decided.” For this new and decisive direction, the bulletin added, the ministry under Prakash Javadekar deserves congratulations.

Download the India Climate Watch bulletin 2014 01 here (pdf, 122kb)

The new India Climate Watch bulletin has examined the recent statements made by the Ministry and provides an outline of the socio-economic contexts that must guide them. Several positives and points of concern are found:

The MoEF is functioning in a more transparent manner concerning climate change in India, and is discussing inter-governmental and multilateral meetings and conferences well ahead of time.
Javadekar is talking about finance, technology and time-tables pertaining to the international climate negotiations. He is also talking about a more active and larger role that India will play.
The MoEF is currently speaking on its own and the statements of the Government of India do not appear to reflect a common position held by key sectors such as agriculture and food, water resources, health, renewable energy, and petroleum.
The central government is discussing India’s international role in climate negotiations, in particular the Conference of Parties, CoP, that are held annually under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). There is scarce attention paid to climate change matters and responses in the states.

However, much more clarity is needed on the following points made by the central government through Javadekar and the MoEF. Read why in the India Climate Watch bulletin 2014 01 (pdf, 122kb).