UNFCCC Archives - The India Climate Observatory

India fires a climate finance broadside

September 21, 2019 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

We are pleased to note that the Union Ministry of Finance has issued a discussion paper titled ‘Climate Summit for Enhanced Action: A Financial Perspective from India’, for the 23 September 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit.

The discussion paper examines various issues on climate finance from India’s point of view. We see that the paper reminds the United Nations that “in order to respond to the worldwide call for stepping up climate actions, it will have to be matched with adequate provision of climate finance from developed countries to developing countries as mandated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) under the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and equity”.

That means, no dilution of or change in India’s stand on the matter of who is historically responsible for the material in our atmosphere (likewise in our oceans, ice sheets and soils) which has pushed the global parts per million (ppm) of CO2 to 410.45 (the measure for 2019 June, monthly mean, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory) and which a year ago was 407.84 ppm.

The paper has said that “climate finance is a key pillar in enabling climate actions” with the most recent estimates for taking climate actions being trillions of US dollars and not billions, but that “the momentum of these flows is insufficient and inadequate”. Referring to India’s Nationally Determined Contribution, the paper said our NDC is on a “best effort” basis, keeping in mind the developmental imperatives of the country. The year 2023 is when UN member countries will undertake a first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. At that time, said the paper, “India will be better placed to consider a mid-term assessment of its actions and suitably recalibrate through re-examination and improvement” while for now, “India may only be in a position to elaborate or clarify its post 2020 climate actions already pledged in its NDC”.

Global Climate Fund (GCF) finance to India as per the latest available information amounts to only US$ 177 million. This is literally less than peanuts, INR 1,258 crore – the Union Territory of Pondicherry spent INR 2,720 crore just on social sector expenditure in 2017-18. Furthermore, limited as it is, the GCF is now facing withdrawal of some earlier promised sums. That is why the paper says, “the GCF is yet to reach a meaningful stage”. We fully agree.

In 2015, developed countries published a roadmap for global climate finance to US$ 100 billion, which claimed that public climate finance levels had reached US$ 41 billion per year in 2013-14. However, these claims have been contested by many. There have been many critiques on such reporting particularly on credibility, accuracy and fairness. There have also been serious concerns raised about the methodologies of accounting especially the definitional requirements of ‘new and additional’ and ‘grant equivalent’ finance. Suffice to say that the claims of the developed countries do not stand up to scrutiny.

The paper has said that finance needs for India’s are approximately US$ 206 billion (at 2014-15 prices) between 2015 and 2030 for implementing adaptation actions in key areas like agriculture, forestry, fisheries, infrastructure, water resources and ecosystems. Apart from this, there will be additional investments needed for strengthening resilience and disaster management. (RG)

The full discussion paper is available here.

Between contemplation and climate

June 8, 2017 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Whether or not the USA, Europe, the Western world, the industrialised Eastern world (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan), adhere to or not their paltry promises about being more responsible concerning the factors that lead to climate change, is of very little concern to us. We have never set any store by international agreements on climate change.

This year will see the twenty-third conference of parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and for 23 years the world and India have listened to lofty tales about simple science. In these 23 years, neither has reckless consumption been halted nor has the economic model that encourages such reckless consumption been questioned by the conference of parties. As long as they do not, inter-governmental agreements are useless.

That is why we find unnecessary and pointless the hand-wringing that has taken place about the decision of the government of the USA to exit what is called the ‘Paris Agreement’, the December 2015 document agreed to and signed by practically every country which has some fuzzy paragraphs about low-carbon economy, innovation, technology, energy and finance – all of which have very much to do with the hold of the finance capitalists and the global technocrats over the international systems of our time.

President number 45 of the USA is neither wiser than nor baser than the wisest of basest of any of his predecessors: the American political system has to do entirely with the desire to dominate other countries. Number 45’s manner may be irksome, but through him speaks the American finance capital, its bloatsome defence industry and its insensate technology industry.

We do not expect the chiefs of the Western countries, the so-called major powers of the European Union, and their allies such as Japan and Australia to do any less. They are no different. We do not think any of them, their armies of bland advisers, their bankers and the brigades of industrialists great and petty who crowd their corridors of governance have read, much less reflected, on the lambent wisdom of our civilisation.

Many centuries ago, in the section of the Digha Nikaya, or Collection of Long Discourses, called Samannaphala Sutta, or the Fruits of the Contemplative Life, it was written that there are those who are addicted to debates and shout: “You understand this doctrine and discipline? I’m the one who understands this doctrine and discipline. How could you understand this doctrine and discipline? You’re practicing wrongly. I’m practicing rightly. I’m being consistent. You’re not. What should be said first you said last. What should be said last you said first. What you took so long to think out has been refuted. Your doctrine has been overthrown. You’re defeated. Go and try to salvage your doctrine; extricate yourself if you can!”

And this is how we view what are called climate negotiations, between the experts of countries. We care not for the arguments of number 45 of the USA, for what many in the world in the last week have protested as being absurd – it undermines economy, it takes away jobs, it is unfair, it is disadvantageous to us, and so on – is what they cheer and support their own countries for in areas where they stand to gain, such as trade (to sell cheap and useless goods), technology (to enslave and control), finance (to spin webs of debt), processes of modernisation (to homogenise cultures so that ever more ‘markets’ come into being).

We in India need no such instruction. But we must guard against our philosophies being swept away by these agreements, these grand comities of nations, the barrage of numerics and scientifics that are invented to display to us what a threat we are should we not emulate the West and its ways. We must guard against our own who prefer the baubles of post-industrial society to the intellectual and spiritual riches of our civilisation, and who seek to infest India with the same technological and ‘modern’ wares that so entranced the West and doomed its folk. This has very little to do with climate and its change and very much more to do with our Indic sciences and their worth, our conduct and our duty to Punyabhoomi Bharat.

– Rahul Goswami

Fair shares and the INDCs

November 12, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The initial climate action pledges made by countries, and submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), have been analysed and reviewed by a group of 17 international civil society organisations. These findings have been released in a report, ‘Fair Shares: A Civil Society Equity Review of INDCs’.

INDCs refer to Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, the official name of the UNFCCC for the climate targets and actions which a majority of countries submitted on or before October 1, the deadline set by the UNFCCC. They are commonly referred to as “national climate targets/actions” or “pledges”. They are referred to as the initial offers of countries in terms of responding to climate change, and as the building blocks of the new global climate agreement, which is set to be finalized at the upcoming Paris climate conference. The current INDCs will be implemented from 2020 to 2025 or 2030.

The assessment includes INDCs covering 145 countries and some 80 percent of current global emissions. This review is different because it uses not only a science-based assessment of the necessary global level of climate action, but also uses widely accepted notions of equity to present fair shares of the necessary effort for each country. The equity and fair shares standards are anchored on the UNFCCC’s core principles of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” and the “right to sustainable development”. The equity and fair shares standards used in this review take into account a range of interpretations of these principles. The group of international civil society organisations has said that the principles of equity and fair shares can be defined and quantified robustly, rigorously, transparently and scientifically, while accounting for differences of perspectives.

This review has said: “All countries should undertake their fair share of the global effort to tackle climate change. Each country’s fair share is based on its historical responsibility and capacity. Some countries have already emitted a great deal for a long time, contributing to warming that is happening already, and they thrive from the infrastructure and institutions they have been able to set up because of this. Some countries have much higher capacity to act than others, due to their higher income and wealth, level of development and access to technologies.”

This review is important because if the INDCs are not reviewed using a global carbon budget based on the science and widely held notions of equity, we will not be able to determine if each country committed its fair share of climate action. Equity and fairness are vital to unlocking cooperation, because – as the IPCC concluded in its most recent report – agreements that are seen to be fair are more likely to actually work. We will also not know if they are enough collectively to stave off dangerous global warming. The review sets a basis to demand higher ambition from each countries in Paris and beyond.

The review shows that the INDC commitments will likely lead the world to a devastating 3°C or more warming above pre-industrial levels. The current INDCs amount to barely half of the emissions cuts required by 2030.

Moreover, the INDCs submitted by all major developed countries fall well short of their fair shares. From the list of countries highlighted in the report, Russia’s INDC represents zero contribution towards committing its fair share. Japan’s represents about a tenth, the United States’ about a fifth, and the European Union’s just over a fifth of its fair share.

Most developed countries have fair shares that are already too large to fulfill exclusively within their borders, which is why there is a need for them to provide additional resources for developing countries to do more than their fair share, particularly through finance, technology, and capacity-building. However, there remains a striking lack of clear financial commitments from developed countries.

On the other hand, the majority of developing countries’ mitigation pledges exceed or broadly meet their fair share, including Kenya, the Marshall Islands, China, Indonesia, and India. Brazil’s INDC represents slightly more than two thirds of its fair share.

The question is: can developing countries with the largest rising emissions, such as China and Indonesia, now sit back because they have met their fair share? While the report clearly shows that the onus is on developed countries to commit more emissions cuts and financing, by no means does it give a free pass to developing countries. Our primary call is for each country – developing and developed – to do all it can in terms of climate action, working even to surpass its fair share.

What must therefore be done to close the emissions gap? The Paris COP21 agreement must ensure that domestic commitments and global targets alike are set in accordance with science and equity. It must also include a strong mechanism to increase the ambition of INDCs before their implementation in 2020, and every five years thereafter. Developed countries must make substantial new commitments to finance mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage in developing countries for a fully equitable climate agreement. Finally, countries must scale up action for sustainable energy transformation.

[The group: ActionAid International, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, Climate Action Network South Asia, CARE International, Center for International Environmental Law, Christian Aid, CIDSE, Climate Action Network Latin America, Friends of the Earth International, International Trade Union Confederation, LDC Watch International, Oxfam, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, SUSWATCH Latin America, Third World Network, What Next Forum, and WWF International. The Climate Equity Reference Project, an initiative of EcoEquity and the Stockholm Environment Institute, provided analytical support. It is also supported by numerous social movements, networks, and other civil society groups in the international, regional, and national levels.]

Join a climate chat with the minister

October 25, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

MyGov.in which is the citizen-centric platform that connects people with the Government of India is holding a MyGov Talk event with Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change on 26 October at 5 pm.

This is a part of the preparations the central government and the Ministry of Environment are making as the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 meeting draws nearer (30 November to 11 December). The MyGov Talk is intended to seek the views and suggestions of citizens on the proposals contained in the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) plan submitted to the UNFCCC by India.

With India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), the country is keen to attempt to work towards a low carbon emission pathway, while simultaneously endeavouring to meet all the developmental challenges that it faces today. The INDC aims at promoting 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.

Climate Change experts, senior journalists and social media influencers will join the online panel discussion with Javadekar. Citizens are invited to share their ideas, questions and inputs on India’s role in COP 21 and on the following proposals laid down by Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC):

Sustainable Lifestyles
Cleaner Economic Development
Reduce Emission intensity of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Increase the Share of Non-Fossil Fuel Based Electricity
Enhancing Carbon Sink (Forests)
Adaptation
Mobilising Finance
Technology Transfer and Capacity Building

Selected ideas and names would also be mentioned by the minister and other experts during the MyGov Talk. Also see ‘India spells out a climate action plan’.

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

Mr Modi’s carbon nationalism

April 14, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi were better advised he could avoid being contradictory in his discourses – including informal ones such as the one he delivered a few days ago in Germany – about development, about our traditions and about climate change. The NDA-BJP government is almost a year old, and Modi’s short conversation on these subjects only underlines that his government is still ill-advised on climate change.

There are aspects of his conversation, conducted with the Indian community in Berlin, the capital of Germany, with which we agree. And there are more aspects with which we do not. Here, provided in the order they were reported upon, is what Modi said, followed by our view.

a) “I am surprised that the world is scolding us even though our per capita gas emission is the lowest.”

We cannot calculate our way out of the position that, in April 2015, our population is about 1,275 million people and that each of these people – young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural – is responsible to some degree for emissions. What “the world” is more pertinently reminding us about is that the number of Indian citizens multiplied by an ‘average’ emission does amount to a very large volume of carbon (and of gases that add to global warming and climate change).

What this government ought to be paying very much more attention to are the relative inequalities – inside an apparently low per capita emission. In the first place, minors and seniors generally have a smaller (or even much smaller) individual footprint. That leaves about 688 million adults whose contributions to emissions need to be considered. From this number, it is the 241 million or so adult inhabitants of our urban areas whose contributions count for more, and amongst these it is those who have entered (or are entering) the middle strata of the middle class, and of course those who are wealthier than the middle class, whose individual and household contributions count for even more.

So the question to the Prime Minister is not about low per capita emissions but about the inequalities present in individual and household emissions responsibilities that are obscured by the large number of 1,275 million. We may be indifferent to the ‘scolding’ of the world, but we do think think there should be far more scolding within India, the states and the cities, for our continuing to use a per capita emissions basis that hides true responsibility.

b) “The whole world is posing questions to us. Those who have destroyed climate are asking questions to us. If anybody has served nature, it is Indians.”

We agree that our serving of nature has been exemplary in recorded and oral histories, but only until the present era and particularly until the immediate contemporary period from around 1990. Over the last generation and a half, we cannot make such a claim.

Our South Asian neighbours – Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – have by all three measures relatively small global impacts. The size of our population and the depth of our industry and economy however has made India the third largest emitter of CO2 (after China and the USA). But if India seeks some sort of ‘parity’ in electricity use – or if India sees the low per capita CO2 emissions as a ‘development’ gap – our total contribution to CO2 emissions will only rise faster, hurting the environment (and nature) that we share with our neighbours.

This is unlikely to result in any constructive recognition of all that is linked. A country’s total emissions is one part of the ‘development’ picture and others are at least as important. There are also tons of CO2 emitted per capita (India has often said that its per capita emissions are far below those of the West). And there is per capita consumption of electricity (which is still mainly generated by burning coal).

c) “India will set the agenda for the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP)” [meeting that is to be held in Paris, France, in September].

As for setting an agenda, what is to be set, with what section of citizens’ agreement and under whose terms, all these remain unknown. Modi’s assertion comes as a surprise then. For the citizens of India and the residents of 35 states and union territories are ignorant of such an agenda, if it exists. We would prefer to recall some of the good advice provided by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: “Climate change has the characteristics of a collective action problem at the global scale, because most greenhouse gases accumulate over time and mix globally, and emissions by any agent (individual, community, company, country) affect other agents.”

Thus the message to policy-makers is clear – what counts is what you do at home, in states and districts. The expectation that “international cooperation” should guide effective adaptation at all levels is no longer (and in our view has never been) tenable.

d) Modi said the solutions to the ‘crisis’ are in India’s traditions and customs, and that India wants solutions to the global problem of climate change.

What we see however is embarrassing proof of our very un-ecological and climate unfriendly new habits. In urban areas – where most of the buying of vehicles for households has taken place – the physical space available for the movement of people and goods has increased only marginally, but the number of vehicles (cars, two-wheelers, goods carriers) has increased quickly. Naturally this ‘growth’ has choked our city wards. More motorised conveyance per household also means more fuel demanded per household, and more fuel (and money) wasted because households are taught (by the auto industry) that they are entitled to wasteful personal mobility. Over 20 years, the number of cars per household has increased 4.1 times but the number of buses per household has increased only 2.8 times. This negligent wastefulness is at odds with the ‘traditions and customs’ referred to by Prime Minister Modi.

Finally, as we pointed out recently, there are no ‘terms of trade’ concerning climate change and its factors. There is no deal to jockey for in climate negotiations between a narrow and outdated idea of GDP-centred ‘development’ and monetary compensation. The government of India is not a broking agency to bet a carbon-intensive future for India against the willingness of Western countries to pay in order to halt such a future. This is not a carbon casino and the NDA-BJP government must immediately stop behaving as if it is.

Mr Javadekar, our country does not gamble with carbon

April 3, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

There is a message New Delhi’s top bureaucrats must listen to and understand, for it is they who advise the ministers. The message has to do with climate change and India’s responsibilities, within our country and outside it. This is the substance of the message:

1. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government must stop treating the factors that contribute to climate change as commodities that can be bartered or traded. This has been the attitude of this government since it was formed in May 2014 – an attitude that says, in sum, ‘we will pursue whatever GDP goals we like and never mind the climate cost’, and that if such a pursuit is not to the liking of the Western industrialised world, India must be compensated.

2. Rising GDP is not the measure of a country and it is not the measure of India and Bharat. The consequences of pursuing rising GDP (which does not mean better overall incomes or better standards of living) have been plain to see for the better part of 25 years since the process of liberalisation began. Some of these consequences are visible in the form of a degraded natural environment, cities choked in pollution, the rapid rise of non-communicable diseases, the economic displacement of large rural populations. All these consequences have dimensions that deepen the impacts of climate change within our country.

3. There are no ‘terms of trade’ concerning climate change and its factors. There is no deal to jockey for in climate negotiations between a narrow and outdated idea of GDP-centred ‘development’ and monetary compensation. The government of India is not a broking agency to bet a carbon-intensive future for India against the willingness of Western countries to pay in order to halt such a future. This is not a carbon casino and the NDA-BJP government must immediately stop behaving as if it is.

The environment minister, Prakash Javadekar, has twice in March 2015 said exactly this: we will go ahead and pollute all we like in the pursuit of our GDP dream – but if you (world) prefer us not to, give us lots of money as compensation. We condemn such an attitude and we condemn such a statement. Javadekar has made such a statement, but we find it deeply worrying that a statement like this may reflect a view within the NDA-BJP government that all levers of governance are in fact monetary ones that can be bet, like commodities can, against political positions at home and abroad. If so, this is a very serious error being made by the central government and its advisers.

Javadekar has most recently made this stand clear in an interview with a foreign news agency. In this interview (which was published on 26 March 2015), Javadekar is reported to have said: “The world has to decide what they want. Every climate action has a cost.” Worse still, Javadekar said India’s government is considering the presentation of a deal – one set of commitments based on internal funding to control emissions, and a second set, with deeper emissions cuts, funded by foreign money.

Earlier in March, during the Fifteenth Session of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (in Cairo, Egypt), Javadekar had said: “There has to be equitable sharing of the carbon space. The developed world which has occupied large carbon space today must vacate the space to accommodate developing and emerging economies.” He also said: “The right to development has to be respected while collectively moving towards greener growth trajectory.”

Such statements are by themselves alarming. If they also represent a more widespread view within the Indian government that the consequences of the country following a ‘development’ path can be parleyed into large sums of money, then it indicates a much more serious problem. The UNFCCC-led climate change negotiations are infirm, riddled with contradictions, a hotbed of international politics and are manipulated by finance and technology lobbies. It remains on paper an inter-governmental arrangement and it is one that India is a part of and party to. Under such circumstances, our country must do all it can to uphold moral action and thinking that is grounded in social and environmental justice. The so-called Annex 1 countries have all failed to do so, and instead have used the UNFCCC and all its associated mechanisms as tools to further industry and foreign policy interests.

It is not in India’s nature and it is not in India’s character to to the same, but Javadekar’s statement and the government of India’s approach – now made visible by this statement – threatens to place it in the same group of countries. We protest such a misrepresentation of India. According to the available data, India in 2013 emitted 2,407 million tons of CO2 (the third largest emitter behind the USA and China). In our South Asian region, this is 8.9 times the combined emissions of our eight neighbours (Pakistan, 165; Bangladesh, 65; Sri Lanka, 15; Myanmar, 10; Afghanistan, 9.4; Nepal, 4.3; Maldives, 1.3; Bhutan, 0.7). When we speak internationally of being responsible we must first be responsible at home and to our neighbours. Javadekar’s is an irresponsible statement, and is grossly so. Future emissions are not and must never be treated as or suggested as being a futures commodity that can attract a money premium. Nor is it a bargaining chip in a carbon casino world. The government of India must clearly and plainly retract these statements immediately.

Note – according to the UNFCCC documentation, “India communicated that it will endeavour to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20-25 per cent by 2020 compared with the 2005 level. It added that emissions from the agriculture sector would not form part of the assessment of its emissions intensity.”

“India stated that the proposed domestic actions are voluntary in nature and will not have a legally binding character. It added that these actions will be implemented in accordance with the provisions of relevant national legislation and policies, as well as the principles and provisions of the Convention.”

Climate, Bharat and junk food

January 28, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

We are being misinformed and poorly entertained. There is a great big complex apparatus that tells us, as it has done for most of the last 20 years, that climate change is about science and observation, about technology and finance. This is the international apparatus. Then there is the national bedlam, comprising government, NGOs, think-tanks, research institutes and academia, industry and business, capital markets and finance. The national bedlam on climate change contains many views, some of which are directly related to the international apparatus. Our government, usually in the form of utterances by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, attempts to connect economics to everything else it thinks is important, and present the resulting mess as our climate change policy, which only provokes more bedlam.

Such is the state of affairs in India concerning climate change. Industry and finance, whatever their motivations (profit, market, subsidies, friendly politicians, and so on), are fairly consistent in what they say they want. NGOs and think-tanks – most of which function as localised versions of the international apparatus – are responsible for an outsized share of the bedlam, for they must not only protect the interests of their principals (usually in the West) but at the same time be seen to be informed, authoritative and influential at home. Ordinarily, this renders them schizophrenic, but the hullabaloo surrounding climate change in India is so loud, no-one notices the schizophrenia of the NGOs and think-tanks. Media – that is to say, vapid but noisy television and dull but verbose print commentators – sides with one group or another depending on who’s paying for the junkets.

The punctuations in this long-running and episodic climate change opera that we witness in India are the annual international gatherings, and the erratic policy pronouncements by the central government. For most people, struggling with food price inflation, with urban living environments choked by particulate matter, hounded by creditors and surrounded by useless gadgetry, climate change is a non-subject. And so the middle class stays out of the bedlam, for it is too busy negotiating the storied ‘growth’ of India or breathlessly seeking to profit from it in as many ways as there are flavours of potato chips. Who is left from the 1.275 billion Bharat-vaasis who can cast an appraising eye on the bit players and techno-buskers, and who can judge for themselves the consequences of their actions? We don’t know. And it is such not knowing that balances, with a taut silence, the bedlam of the posturing think-tanks, the technology fetishists, the grasping NGOs, the carbon merchants and their political cronies.

It has helped us not at all to be served, every other week or so, the bland intellectual regurgitations of India’s talking climate heads. It has helped us not at all to be preached at (faithfully reported, accompanied by appropriate editorial cant) by the United Nations whose agency, the UNFCCC, has fostered 20 years of expensive gatherings designed to deceive thinking folk. It has helped us not at all to have to correct, time and again, a government that does nothing about capitalism’s operatives who consistently attack and dismantle efforts to protect our people from environmentally destructive activities. It has helped us not at all to have dealt out to us, from one ruling coalition to the next, from a fattened ‘empowered group of ministers’ to a PM’s Council that prefers fiat, missions and programmes that speak ‘renewable’ but which refuse stubbornly to talk consumption.

Climate change and Bharat is about none of this and it is about all of this in relation to our behaviour. Ours is the land of air-conditioned youth devouring cup noodles while gesturing with greasy fingers across smartphone screens. It is not the land where their grand-parents tilled fields, tended orchards, walked on pilgrimages and lit lanterns in simple dwellings. But this is now, and here, in urban Coimbatore and Cuttack as much as in rural Darbhanga and Dharwad, the reckoning of the effect of our 1.275 on climate has to do with the buying of cars (bigger and two per family) and the widening of roads.

It has to do with the building of housing ‘complexes’ (modern amenities and 24×7 power, but naturally), the contrived convenience factor of retail food markets whose demands deepen the monoculturing of our land mosaics, once so very diverse with coarse cereals, the myth-making of jobs and employment by cramming vast buildings with directionless migrant youth, and attaching to them (costs calculated by the second) the electronic machinery that makes online retail possible, the imagery of the flick of the switch or click of a button delivering goods and services as though from the horn of plenty, the vacuous promises of imminent superpowerdom and a techno-utopia set to the beat of Bollywood lyrics. We have indeed been misinformed.

– Rahul Goswami

Carbon, money and promises

December 11, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Sea level rise in the Solomon Islands is nearly three times the global average and low lying island communities are facing threats to food security and freshwater resources. Image: Thomson Reuters Foundation / Catherine Wilson

By the time the 20th meeting of any group comes around, one would think, questions such as “where will the money come from” ought to have been sorted out. Not apparently when it comes to international negotiations on climate change. The meeting which has been running since 1 December 2014 (and which is to end on the 12th), has not only failed to find enough sources of money so that countries can deal with the effects of climate change, it has also seen some searching questions being asked about what climate finance and green funds are in the first place.

This should be troubling to the thousands who have gathered in Lime, the capital of Peru, to discuss (for the 20th year running), a coordinated international response to the effects and impacts of climate change. Such questions – which are fundamental in nature and inconveniently reveal the deep disagreements between countries and between finance professionals – should not have been raised at this stage of the UN climate change negotiation process.

But they have been, and the delegates and representatives and, it must be said, opportunists of all shades who gather at such meetings are caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand, there is the ‘progress’ claimed by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the UNFCCC) that substantial and real progress has been made in finding assured sums of money so that ‘developing’ and ‘less developed’ countries particularly can be supported in their efforts to tackle the effects of climate change (more floods, worse droughts, new diseases).

Level of risk and potential for adaptation, from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014

Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Environment, said there is a need to ensure “an ambitious, comprehensive, equitable and balanced agreement in 2015 that takes into account the huge development needs, including access to financial resources and low carbon technological options for developing countries”. With such a declaration Javadekar has opened wide the door to interpretations of ‘comprehensive’, ‘equitable’, ‘balanced’ and ‘development needs’ in ways that very likely will add to the problem.

Nor does this help lighten the view, now apparently held by the western and ‘developed’ (that is, the EU, the OECD and in particular western Europe and north America) countries that India is resisting changes to the UNFCCC being attempted by them, such as reviews of what are called intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) that will be declared by developing countries by June, 2015.

Other than disagreement in various tones and at different pitches, all countries have committed to sign a new climate agreement in Paris at the end of 2015, pledging climate action beyond 2020. So the UN has said, and if this is meant to show progress, in the usual roundabout UN manner, then the months between the Lima meeting and the Paris meeting will be spent by armies of administrators cooking up successfully consensual texts that reek of progress.

On the other hand, the propensity of governments and their associates to tweak definitions has been on embarrassing display. Consider Japan, and the news that emerged which showed that the country (which continues to be in denial about the effects of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster) had counted US$ 1 billion for the construction of coal-fuelled power plants in Indonesia as part of its low carbon financing package. Yes, coal still provides some 40% of the world’s electricity supply and yes, coal is by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. To get past the obvious contradiction, Tokyo’s officials at the Lima meeting argued the plants were more efficient and therefore greener than those that would have been built without their help.

Not as red-faced by such duplicity as they should have been, UN officials offered their own framing. “Climate finance aims at reducing emissions, and enhancing sinks of greenhouse gases and aims at reducing vulnerability of, and maintaining and increasing the resilience of, human and ecological systems to negative climate change impacts,” they wrote. Rather than contribute to the confusion, they should have come clean about the dismal performance of the green funding discussed in the three or four meetings before this one, during which a US$ 100 billion corpus was promised. The result so far? Less than US$ 10 billion in the bank. No wonder there’s so little bang for the climate buck.

Perhaps the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, noted the anaemia for he asked countries to do more (in what direction was not clear) and at the same time avoided the question of how to resolve deep differences on the format for the pledges, which is a matter that seems to have engaged the attention of many of the negotiators. What ought to have engaged them instead is reducing the use of petroleum products, the use of resources with which far too many unnecessary trinkets are made and sold, and the use of climate negotiation jargon.

But there is too much inertia, and the negotiating circuit seems to serve itself first by quibbling about semantics that matter not one bit on the ground. Thus the European Union has insisted that countries’ pledges should only focus on carbon cuts; richer countries want to focus on new emissions targets, and so place the onus on developing countries whose emissions are growing fastest; ‘developing’ countries want to focus on pledges of aid. Some of this impinges upon what are called intended nationally determined contributions or INDCs.

Pertaining to this new concept, the latest from the climate negotiators’ fecund imagination, is the view held by some Indian groups (non-government and academic both) that India is neither supporting a so-called review of INDCs nor proposing an alternative. Bound with the new concept and the critiques of how it may be applied are other concepts – the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility. Such wrangling (to which official India is a party and to which the non-governmental organisations and academic collectives routinely contribute) is useless, for the answers are simplicity embodied: we must use less fossil fuel, less per head and less as a country, progressively every year; we must, as households and villages and city wards, pay much greater attention to the primary materials used to make the things we need and buy, and one surefire way of doing so is by educating adults about being responsible for climate change; we must limit, halt and reverse the trends of family and community consumption, for waste goes unremarked and so does greed.

– Rahul Goswami