Per capita fig leaves and melting glaciers – Will the real Jairam Ramesh please stand up?

20 Aug 2009                                                                                                             

Jairam Ramesh is India’s new Minister for Environment and Forests (MoEF). It is a fact that has cheered many of us in the environmental movement. Why then has the man who we celebrated as one of us and a bold independent voice, caved in to the climate
ideologues in the government?

In recent weeks, Ramesh has been in the news non-stop with one or the other statement on climate change. Whereas before we were accustomed to the Prime
Minister’s special envoy, Shyam Saran, holding forth, now the spotlight is squarely on Jairam Ramesh.

This is good. Finally we have an articulate and passionate environmentalist, at ease with the media, someone who knows his MEFs from his REDDs and can cite chapter
and verse of the Forest Rights Act. Jairam Ramesh, the former Minister of State for Commerce, once seen by some as a pusher of coal and dirty industry, is now talking of ‘green’ GDPs and conservation over development if the need arises.

Despite the contradictions between his present and previous portfolios, a change is discernible at MoEF. With his arrival, the ministry has gone from being one of the
government’s faded flowers with little conspicuous clout and a string of lacklustre predecessors, to one that appears to be in fresh bloom and growing in self-esteem.
Although Ramesh has said of his appointment on 28th May, “This is the last position I expected to be in,” he appears determined to make an impact. He has stated his
priorities to be forests and ecosystem restoration, conservation of India’s embattled wildlife – especially tigers, river clean-up, strong environmental management through institutional changes and community engagement.

Under his watch, the Supreme Court has finally announced the release of $3 billion dollars of penalty fines, collected by the authorities and held in escrow for the past
seven years, which he has pledged will now be used for forest protection and regeneration.

These CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority) funds have come as a windfall to an environmental community singularly unaccustomed o such largesse for natural India. Ramesh has vowed that the funds will be used well and for the purpose intended.

All this is very good news. But in recent weeks, Ramesh has made some uncharacteristic statements on climate change – including some idiosyncratic ones on
glacier melt – that make one wonder where the real Jairam Ramesh has been taken and kept in hiding.

During Hilary Clinton’s visit to India¹, for example, he berated western countries for pressuring India to take on targets and stated categorically “I would like to make it clear that India’s position is that we are simply not in a position to take on legally binding emission reduction targets.” The words per capita and equity and the inference to ‘you first’ were used in plenty.

On the Major Economies Forum (MEF) declaration in Italy, which became peculiarly controversial in India after the Prime Minister signed up to the need for global emissions not exceeding the ‘safe’ limit of 2 degrees, Jairam Ramesh said “The way we see the declaration, the entire declaration is subject to the overall, overarching principle of common but differentiated responsibility; that’s the scaffolding – it is receptive to capabilities as well as consistent with the principle of equity. Hence, India continues to lay emphasis on per capita emissions.”

All characteristic GoI climate speak, playing to a domestic audience, but not characteristic for the previously forthright and independent-minded Jairam Ramesh.
In making such statements, he has reportedly entrenched India’s hardline stance at the climate negotiations that no compromise is possible and capping India’s emissions is non-negotiable. All this at a time when the Chinese, Mexicans and South Africans are discussing voluntary national emissions reductions and low-carbon development strategies with targets and timetables.

Had it been anyone else but Jairam Ramesh making these statements, they would have sounded less jarring. But coming from a man who spoke consistently progressively and thoughtfully about climate change when Minister for Commerce & Industry, they sound forced and out of character. It is worth recalling that Jairam Ramesh spoke publically on climate change not once but three times as Minister of Commerce & Industry at TERI’s annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS). At the time he was a fervent critic of the government’s approach and its allegiance to the per capita principle and other formulae.

¹See the full report on the Clinton visit and MEF fallout in India in the July issue of CSM’s India Climate Watch. ICWs can be downloaded from CSM’s portal on climate change – www.climatechallengeindia.org

At the 2007 DSDS, he made no bones about his view on domestic emissions reductions that “if we have superpower ambitions and superpower visions then that should take on superpower responsibilities”.

As an indication of just how far he has swerved to adopt the GoI’s party line on climate change now, it is instructive to recall in full what he said from the gut – this was not a written speech – in his Valedictory Address at DSDS on 22 January 2007:

“I’ve been telling Dr Pachauri that he should take the lead in getting the Indian government to start thinking about the ‘son of Kyoto’, because in the first phase we got out of initial reduction requirements but I do not think that in the post-2012 scenario that India and China will get by by asserting the right that they had in the first round.

I’ve been telling him that he should sensitise all of us, that he should sensitise public opinion to the fact that India will be called on – I believe firmly – that India will be called upon, to assume modest perhaps, but it will be called upon symbolically at least to assume emissions reductions requirements. That (sic) will be of major implications.

We can continue to give the argument that we give that with 5% of the world’s population, the United States consumes 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases, and with only 18% of the world’s population we consume 5 to 6% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

This common but differentiated responsibility argument can be given but the political economy in today’s world being what it is … if we have superpower ambitions and superpower visions then that should take on superpower responsibilities, and superpower responsibilities include greater awareness on the international dimensions.

So, I’ve been asking Dr Pachauri and I hope that in the next few months he will take the lead and India will start picking up not just about high-growth and all these things we are doing, but also the international consequences that we have to pay for on the environment front.”

Wise and honest words then from Jairam Ramesh. What a U-turn now.

For those of us who are critical of the government’s Neolithic positions on climate change, his recent statements have come as a blow. If we are to make any progress on climate change as a global community we will not only need leadership by the US and Europe, we will also need leadership by India and China.

In reality, in India such leadership will only come with a change in mindset and a generational shift in senior officials and advisers.

The GoI seems to be impervious to this, but one would have thought that smart and influential figures such as Jairam Ramesh would have been able to point to the writing on the wall. Instead of providing intellectual challenge and fresh ideas, however, he seems to have gone in for toeing the official line and self-censorship.

It has become clear that the GoI is determined to close ranks on climate policy while the UN negotiations are underway. As reported in our India Climate Watch (April/ May issue), the cabinet secretary has issued a gag-rule on climate change for senior officials forbidding them from making any pronouncement on climate change or challenging government policy. Poor form for a democracy – and not good news if it’s fresh thinking and good ideas that we should be looking for.

Jairam Ramesh’s recent pronouncements on glacier melt have also sparked controversy. Himalayan glacier melt is arguably the iconic climate issue for India, but
the Minister for Environment and Forests is reported to have said it is a benign natural process. He has dismissed predictions that the glaciers might disappear within 40 years due to climate change as inaccurate ‘western’ science and western media hype.

For a man of his erudition and intellectual stature such statements boggle the mind. Firstly, for the uncharacteristic national chauvinism exhibited regarding the validity of ‘Indian’ science and the inadmissibility of ‘western’ science. Odd for a man who is normally a very at-ease internationalist.

Secondly, for the continuation of the GoI’s absurd denial of Himalayan glacier melt – a subject that the government is increasingly on very thin ice on. The GoI’s equivocation on glacier melt has been apparent since its contentious opening statement on the subject in the National Action Plan on Climate Change. In this 2008 report, the government establishes a ‘mission’ to protect the Himalayan ecosystem but then waters down its commitment by stating:

“The available monitoring data on Himalayan glaciers indicates that while recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is accordingly, too early to establish longterm trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses.”

In other words, glacier melt is not caused by human-induced climate change and there is nothing much to worry about. Jairam Ramesh seems to have accepted this hook, line and sinker. A shame because, if this view is still reflective of GoI policy, it appears to be dismissing not only ‘western’ science but ‘Indian’ science too.

In the June issue of India Climate Watch we reported on a new study by the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology which concluded that the retreat of India’s glaciers could be dated to around 1750 – the start of the industrial revolution – reinforcing the view that current melting is not natural (as argued by the Geological Survey of India) but indeed human-induced.

The Potsdam Climate Impact Research Institute (PiK) has done a lot more regional climate modeling and estimates that the Third Pole region – the Hindu Kush/Himalayas/Tibetan Plateau – is in fact warming at three times the average global rate. PiK’s modeling suggests that there will be a near total loss of summer glacial melt water in the great river basins of Asia by 2035.

Something that would give most people pause, but not it seems the government of India. I have been in a room with the government’s lead negotiators where Professor John Shellnhuber of PiK showed the dramatic visual representation of what was happening over time to the Himalayas. The results as the HKHT region started to burn red hot on the screen as mid-century neared were dramatic and frightening.

Most people viewing the film – including noble laureats –were convinced that what we were seeing was ‘good science’, but clearly not the GoI’s negotiators if recent statements are to be believed.

For Jairam Ramesh and the government to be still disputing the reality of Himalayan glacier melt is deeply worrying. Even if the government is not wholly convinced of the science, it should still adopt a precautionary approach to an issue with such potentially explosive consequences for the nation’s food security, water security and broader national and military security.

The gravity of all of this is multiplied manifold if we accept that climate change can be ‘abrupt’ and not ‘linear’. In other words, worst case scenarios are possible and need to be planned for.

The Jairam Ramesh that we knew as an independent voice in government would have understood and spoken out on these issues. His voice is much missed and much needed. It is time for him to re-emerge. Will the real Jairam Ramesh please stand up?