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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.]

A district lab for solar in India

August 12, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

A 5MW grid-connected solar power plant in Jodhpur district, Rajasthan. Photo: MNRE

In the district of Chitradurga, Karnataka, at the edge of the town of Challakere, stands a project run by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISC) which is a test array for concentrated solar power. Rows of shallow parabolic troughs, made of specially coated aluminum, stretch for more than 300 metres. Above them are water pipes set to catch sunlight reflected from the troughs. When the project begins operation in a few weeks, the water in the pipes will be heated to 200 °C. The hot water will go to a heat exchanger attached to a small turbine that will produce 100 kilowatts of electricity.

A part of the Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), and primarily funded by the state government of Karnataka, this small solar array will be used to test various reflective materials and heat-transfer fluids (including, for instance, molten salt in addition to water) from multiple manufacturers. Dozens of small wireless sensors will collect data and send it via the Internet to a dashboard at IISC, where it can be analysed and catalogued. The objective is to find the combinations of components that best suit conditions in India.

The Solar Energy Research Institute for India and the United States (SERIIUS), co-led by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), USA. The SERIIUS programme is to develop and prepare “emerging and revolutionary solar electricity technologies” which can be used by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Energy Mission and the American Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. SERIIUS is planned to accelerate the development of solar electric technologies by lowering the cost per watt of photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP).

The BJP government has pledged to create dozens of ‘ultra mega solar power parks’ of 500 megawatts and above to feed power to the national electricity grid. The government has said that energy policies such as those represented by the Challakere concentrated solar power experiment will reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 550 million tons. [This article was first published in the MIT Technology Review and can be found in full here.]

Why climate action must beware the fakery of funds

July 4, 2015 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

Residents use a boat to cross flood waters in Kota Bahru on December 28, 2014. Photo: RT / AFP / Mohd Rasfan. Photo by AFP Photo / Mohd Rasfan

We call upon the Ministry of Environment, Government of India, to stop pursuing the so-called Green Climate Fund as the means with which action to manage climate change can be financially supported. This so-called fund is in the end a means for the Western world – West Europe, Scandinavia, USA with Britain and Canada in tow, Australia and New Zealand, a feckless Japan and ditto South Korea – to maintain the empty but loud institutions they have set up by the dozens in the cause of climate change.

Inter Press Service has reported that the United Nations is seeking 100 billion US dollars per year by 2020 as part of a Green Climate Fund (GCF) “aimed at supporting developing countries strengthen their resilience and help adapt themselves to meet the foreboding challenges”. This is meretricious nonsense. Countries that the UN system, and the agencies of monetary ruin – World Bank, IMF, ADB and the like – call ‘developing’ do not need the prattling office-bearers of a crony international system to advise them. Countries of the South have plentiful intellectual, practical, financial and social resources to deal with climate change and the host of problems the Western countries have burdened our world with.

The Green Climate Fund, says the IPS report, may not be as realistic in its objectives as the Western-OECD alliance pretends but supporters of this Fund (naturally) are more concerned instead with how the target can be reached or neared: naturally because that is how they will derive a continuing relevance and legitimacy – both empty as far as we are concerned – which allows them to run expensive institutions and pay out immodest consultancies that serve only the Western-OECD alliance. Ignored by this glib army is the fact that, beginning from their own austerity-wracked countries, public finance for such profligacy is absent. Still they demand, like fahrenheit Shylocks, public finance for subsidies with which to “attract and leverage private investments”.

A host of ancillary agencies contributes to perpetuating this long-running fraud. Amongst the confused babble of Western-OECD support for the so-called Green Climate Fund can be found three common clauses: one, that developed nations should commit to increasing all public funding flows to 2020; two, that developed countries use new and innovative sources of finance toward the 2020 goal (such as redirected fossil fuel subsidies, carbon market revenues, financial transaction taxes, export credits); three, that all parties should clarify the definition of climate finance and development of methodologies so that accounting and reporting are improved.

These are nothing but cunning gambits advanced as justification for the continuing tenure of the Western-OECD climate-related institutions and their circles of charmed academic and finance cronies. First, developed countries have fallen short of basic overseas aid commitments for the last two generations, never mind climate finance. Under continuing austerity, it is foolish for the UN and its supporters on this subject to still preach in favour of a funding mechanism that rests on Western largesse.

Second, the ‘new and innovative’ has been experimented with for a decade with carbon exchanges and has made no impact (just as ‘deregulated’ energy markets, which are older, have not led to more sensible energy use by consumers or producers). But this is proposed in order to cement the positions of a new trading class, and its banking adjutants, in the area of climate finance. Third, the call for definitions and methodologies is part of the Western-led drive towards normative standards for the world, which will rely on its own Western bureaucracy to enforce the next mutation of trade sanctions on independent-minded countries and Southern country blocs – climate sanctions.

Our message to the profiteers of this true emerging market is: we can see through your ruse and know your game. Stop it now.

– 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.

Chop suey climate calculations

November 14, 2014 by Climate portal editor Leave a Comment

The China-USA ‘deal’ has shockingly ignored the central message of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, whose final synthesis has just been released. The evaluation made in this fifth report is not fundamentally different from the fourth (in 2007) but the confidence levels of the warnings issued is greater. Areas of uncertainty are becoming clearer and the concern of the contributing scientists is more obvious than ever before. They have used the phrase “virtually certain” (more than 99% probability) frighteningly often to describe likelihood of phenomena which affect our ecology and our habitats.

Special bulletin of the India Climate Watch on the China-USA climate ‘deal’. [pdf, 91kb]

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.

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.

This special bulletin of the India Climate Watch explains the 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. This special bulletin urges the government of India to take moral leadership of the inter-governmental process towards lower emissions and the phasing out of fossil fuels.

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.

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