Shankar Sharma – Global Warming and India – a critique on National Action Plan on Climate Change

1. Introduction

The phenomenon of Global Warming, the calamitous consequences of accelerated Climate Change, and the anthropogenic reasons for the same are no more the issues of contention. The scientific community has prepared exhaustive reports giving scientific evidences, root causes and credible estimation of damages across the globe. Inter Governmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), consisting of scientific community in various interrelated disciplines and decision makers from most of the countries, and set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP,) has not left any doubt about the urgent need to reduce the emission of Green House Gases (GHGs) to the level at the beginning of industrial era. Through four Assessment Reports, IPCC has provided the relevant details and has urged the world community to urgently take specific steps to reduce the GHGs.

In this regard UNFCC says in its website (http://www.ipcc.ch/):

“The average temperature of the earth’s surface has risen by 0.74 degrees C since the late 1800s. It is expected to increase by another 1.8° C to 4° C by the year 2100 – a rapid and profound change – should the necessary action not be taken. Even if the minimum predicted increase takes place, it will be larger than any century-long trend in the last 10,000 years.

The principal reason for the mounting thermometer is a century and a half of industrialization: the burning of ever-greater quantities of oil, gasoline, and coal, the cutting of forests, and the practice of certain farming methods.

These activities have increased the amount of “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Such gases occur naturally – they are critical for life on earth, ……..,.. Eleven of the last 12 years are the warmest on record, and 1998 was the warmest year.

The average sea level rose by 10 to 20 cm during the 20th century, and an additional increase of 18 to 59 cm is expected by the year 2100. (Higher temperatures cause ocean volume to expand, and melting glaciers and ice caps add more water.) If the higher end of that scale is reached, the sea could overflow the heavily populated coastlines of such countries as Bangladesh, cause the disappearance of some nations entirely (such as the island state of the Maldives), foul freshwater supplies for billions of people, and spur mass migrations.

Agricultural yields are expected to drop in most tropical and sub-tropical regions – and in temperate regions too – if the temperature increase is more than a few degrees C. Drying of continental interiors, such as central Asia, the African Sahel, and the Great Plains of the United States, is also forecast. These changes could cause, disruptions in ………….and food supply. And the range of diseases such as malaria may expand. Global warming is a “modern” problem – complicated, involving the entire world, tangled up with difficult issues such as poverty, economic development and population growth. Dealing with it will not be easy. Ignoring it will be worse.

As per IPCC some of the catastrophic consequences of Global Warning beyond 20 Centigrade increase are: famines and droughts threatening millions of lives; worldwide drop in agricultural and horticultural crops; up to 3 billion people at risk of flooding and without access to fresh water supplies; destruction of half the world’s nature reserves and a fifth of coastal wetlands; Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet; significant effects on biodiversity and ecological productivity; potential for international conflicts, border disputes, war due to water and food shortages, forced migration, extreme weather events, huge impact on general health etc.

In this background all out efforts to mitigate and adapt to the Global Warming by reducing the Global GHG emissions to the lowest possible levels are an urgent necessity. Being a country with the second largest population India’s potential to be one of the biggest GHG emittors is credible. Also tipped to become one of the most affected countries by Global Warming India has an important role to play in the comity of nations.

In this regard the govt. of India has published a National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), and the same is being projected at the international fora as India’s unique contribution in addressing Global Warming. But an objective study of issues around NAPCC reveals that it leaves a lot more to be desired.

2. Shortcomings of NAPCC

The Plan has identified eight broad areas for focused action, encompassing both mitigation and adaptation. These National Missions are:

1. National Solar Mission
2. National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency
3. National Mission on Sustainable Habitat
4. National Water Mission
5. National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem
6. National Mission for a “Green India”
7. National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture
8. National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.

Each of these Missions is aimed to have a technology development and R&D component, while the Mission on Strategic knowledge seeks to fill many gaps that continue to exist in our understanding of climate change phenomenon and its impact specifically on India and our region.

In an address to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on March 24, 2009, Mr. Shyam Saran, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister for Climate Change, has been eloquent about India’s Climate Change Initiatives, and has praised its strategies for a Greener Future. He has referred to NAPCC as a very responsible act by India towards mitigation and adaptation of Climate Change. He said “The developmental imperatives are huge and yet we are determined to meet them with a sense of ecological responsibility.” He has insisted that India is not one of the top polluters, but fails to mention that India is considered as the third largest emitter of CO2, and is projected to become one of the top five emitters of GHGs very soon. He goes on to say “Despite the growth of population and the need to ensure food security, India is increasing its forest cover and intends to raise it from the current 22% of total land area to 33%. India has also for the past several years severely restricted the conversion of forests in the country to other uses; as a result deforestation has been halted and reversed.”

While it is fashionable to claim that “India is increasing its forest cover and intends to raise it from the current 22% of total land area to 33%” the ground realities are different. A large number of dams, coal and hydel power stations, and SEZs, which are proposed and being implemented in the country will only reduce the natural forest coverage. To commission the large number of additional coal mines, which are needed to keep the coal power stations running, the thick rain forests of states like Jharkhand, Chatttisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have to be destroyed because these coal deposits are mostly below these rich forests.

The NAPCC is silent on the issue that electricity industry is responsible for about 24% of all GHG emissions and about 42% of CO2 emissions. In this background one cannot but ask the question: how ecologically friendly policy it is to plan for a large number of coal based and dam based power stations?

An objective review of issues around NAPCC can reveal a sad story. Many independent critics are of the opinion that NAPCC appears to be more of noise than substance. The difference between what is preached in the NAPCC and what is being practiced by the union and state governments is very huge, and in no way can be seen as an honest action plan to combat the Global Warming.

Our country needs a holistic look on all the major economic sectors such as agriculture, natural resources, energy etc.. The country must make sincere efforts to balance the social and environmental aspects on one hand and the demand for more exploitation of these sectors on the other hand. Such a holistic look has been lacking not only in the past policies of the government, but also in the implications of NAPCC.

The biggest issue with the National Action Plan on Climate Change is that it appears not to have the support of the people since there have been no effective deliberations on it. It is reported that even the people’s representatives were not consulted before formalizing it. A senior official from the MoEF, who was involved in preparing this plan, is known to have told a group of people that this action plan was meant only for the international audience and not for actual implementation. If the intent of the government is true to this extent it is bad not only for our society but for the international community.

The dire necessity for effective actions to quickly reduce the GHG emissions and to implement suitable adaptation plans needs no special emphasis at this point in time. There are growing sections of the society in our own country, and elsewhere too, which are hugely concerned that the governments across the world are not serious enough to combat the adverse impacts of Glob Warming, and that only political games are being played in bilateral and international interactions.

A glaring inconsistency with NAPCC is that while it refers to establishment of eight missions to address the Global Warming it states unequivocally that this issue should not be in conflict with the objective of fast economic growth. This stand is clearly contradictory. While power and transport sectors account for more than 40% of GHG emissions, these are the sectors to which the government is giving priority in the name of economic growth. Climate Change is not one of the components of the environmental impact assessment (EIA). More than 650 mining projects and about 300 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other projects like Coastal Corridors have been sanctioned without taking the impacts of Climate Change into account.

The NAPCC mentions biodiversity as a national priority but the government is planning to build a large number of major and minor dams in Himalayas and sub-Himalayas, which are one of the 25 mega biodiversity zones of the world. The state of Uttarakhand alone is reported to be planning about 150 major and minor dam based hydel projects. A number of large dams are also being proposed for Arunachal Pradesh and North East, which are still having a good percentage of land area under rich forests. The Western Ghats and coastal regions will be devastated if the mad rush to install dams, coal power stations and SEZs get implemented in these ecologically sensitive areas. More than 80 major thermal power plants are reported to be in various stages of planning and implementation in the eastern and western coastal areas alone which too are rich in biodiversity. These projects will cause massive destruction of bio-diversity and the ecosystems.

In 2008 the author was invited to participate in two national level round table conferences to discuss the civic society participation in the crises of Climate Change. In these two meetings a number of NGOs and individuals, who are rendering very laudable service to various sectors of our society, expressed their concerns regarding the inadequacy of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. A major issue mentioned in this regard was that the there are no clear targets, dead lines or accountabilities in NAPCC. Many useful recommendations to the Government for strengthening the National Action Plan on Climate Change were made in these meetings. Some of the major concerns expressed and recommendations made in these two meetings (at Delhi on September 25-26, 2008 and at Visakhapatnam , November 5-7, 2008 ) were as follows:

I. Overarching Principles:

1. The urban and rural poor have preserved the environment for centuries and they continue to do so. The country needs to find ways of recognising the traditional knowledge systems, because the ecosystem communities are the first to suffer the ill-effects of climate change.
2. It was recognised that the sectored approach of NAPCC was an obstacle to facilitating a holistic strategy in addressing the issue of climate change. There is a need to ensure involvement of civil society in future processes of the NAPCC. In this regard the following steps are needed:
   • Up-scaling adaptive measures at the grassroots level based on experiences gained across the country.
   • Up-scaling energy efficiency initiatives and decentralised energy options at the grassroots level.
3. Adaptation to and mitigation of Climate Change is feasible only by preserving/ protecting bio-diversity, forests, fresh water bodies; using agricultural waste for bio-fuels and through livestock improvement; organic farming; vast improvements in governance of electric power production, distribution and utilisation; undertaking renewable decentralised energy options such as micro hydro, solar and bio-mass based initiatives.
4. A definitive shift in emphasis from a centralized production model to a decentralized/ democratic production model is needed.
5. Not withstanding the obligation of developed countries, India must deploy its own resources for both mitigation and adaptation, and both these need to go hand in hand.
6. There is a need to recognize that economic growth will not automatically result in sustainable development, and therefore strong regulatory measures are critical to protect lives and livelihood in India.
7. Recognize that market led investments can only be a partial response to combat climate change and hence public resources must be employed in a big way to deal with climate change.
8. Climate change concerns can only be effectively addressed when GDP growth stops becoming an excuse for endless energy consumption. The GDP growth and increased energy consumption must be decoupled.
9. Recognize that the rich within India make their contribution towards mitigating of and adapting to climate change and pay suitable costs towards their higher contribution to green house gas emissions. ‘Hiding behind the poor’ should no more be acceptable.
10. We must apply the “Precautionary Principle” especially in situations where there are high risks of ecological/ social costs, such as use of GM technology in agriculture or big sized dams and big sized coal power projects or Carbon Capture and Storage for power plants, or large scale deployment of bio-fuels.
11. Recognize and respect the traditional knowledge systems and practices are a science and have great relevance for dealing with climate change alongside modern science and technologies.
12. The urban and rural poor have preserved the environment for centuries and they continue to do so. The country needs to find ways of recognising the traditional knowledge systems, because the ecosystem communities are the first to suffer the ill-effects of climate change.
13. The sectored approach of the plan will be an obstacle in facilitating a holistic strategy in addressing the issue of climate change. There is a need to ensure involvement of civil society in future processes of the NAPCC. There is a crucial need for
    • Up-scaling adaptive measures at the grassroots level based on experiences gained across the country.
    • Up-scaling energy efficiency initiatives and decentralised energy options at the grassroots level.
14. Adaptation to and mitigation of Climate Change is feasible only by preserving/ protecting bio-diversity, forests, fresh water bodies, using agricultural waste for bio-fuels and through livestock improvement, organic farming better governance of electric power production and distribution, undertaking renewable decentralised energy options such as micro hydro, photovoltaic solar based home lighting systems and bio-mass based initiatives

Glaring contradictions between what NAPCC claims to do, and what the government is practicing makes it very difficult for any one to believe in the earnestness of the government’s initiative.

II. Specific Issues on Mitigation and Adaptation

A. Agriculture

• The current paradigm of high input, intensive agriculture in pursuit of very high production is not only unsustainable but also will accelerate climate change crisis because of the chemical fertilizer and pesticide use and unlimited irrigation. This should be changed as early as possible.
• Appreciate the differences in agro-ecological zones in the country and allow and encourage the farmers to cultivate local/ indigenous/ non-competing crops that are not input intensive and are compatible with the agro-ecological zones in which they have been bred/ grown traditionally.
• There should be a determined shift from intensive irrigation based farming systems to rain fed indigenous farming systems such as Millet based farming systems practiced over much of India’s rainfed landscape
• Wherever possible, rely on rainwater harvesting to provide water for irrigation and avoid large-scale canal irrigation schemes that have high social, economic and environmental costs. Also, adopt watershed management practices to conserve soils and moisture for the future. Increased build up of carbon in the soil should be rewarded as it not only reduces net carbon emissions; it also increases the moisture conservation capacity of the soil.
• The current reliance of India’s centralised Public Distribution System on water and input intensive wheat and rice must stop. These crops will become environmentally unsustainable once climate change exacerbates. Instead effort must be made to design a decentralized Public Distribution System (PDS) that is based on local grains and rewards farmers for producing traditional/ local food grains. This also has the additional advantage of cutting food miles through avoidance of long distance transportation of food grains using fossil fuels, as is currently done in India’s PDS.
• The application of Genetic Engineering technologies is no solution for developing drought or other kinds of climate resilience of seeds. Climate resilience of seeds is a function of many genes, and genetic engineering technology cannot handle such engineering. On the other hand, being an untested science and undeveloped technology, genetic engineering might create new crisis that we may fail to handle.
• Support the conservation of agro-biodiversity at the local level and ensure that farmers continue to have the rights to use their seeds and other natural resources
• Make appropriate changes to drought and flood codes in order to make them compatible with the unfolding impacts of climate change across the country. For example, such codes could include appropriate and timely distribution of seeds that would produce food in a given weather/climatic situation at a given location
• System of Rice Intensification should be adopted in widest possible area with maximum possible resource allocation and incentives, not only for rice, but also other crops where appropriate. This has the potential to reduce the seed use, fertilizer use, water use and yet increase the yields without any new technology or seeds.

B. Water:

• The approach towards water must not be purely targeting an increase in the resource base, in any case not through more large projects. Equity and access to water for all through rights based regime must be a central plank for any plans that the government implements.
• In this light, suitable changes must be made to the National Water Policy. For the formulation of a new NWP, a detailed participatory exercise should be started immediately. The NAPCC recommends such review only in consultation with states, but this process has to start from the people and would have to be aimed at a new NWP.
• Stop the ongoing destruction and neglect of natural, local and traditional water harvesting systems (including tanks, wetlands, johads, flowing rivers) and rehabilitate the systems that have been already destroyed, create new systems were possible, as first priority when going for new developments
• Emphasise on groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting strategies. Groundwater is India’s water lifeline and that lifeline can be sustained only through direct recharge where appropriate and through protection, rejuvenation and creation of local water systems.
• Make available adequate funds in the budget to maintain the existing water related infrastructure rather than spending money on new schemes. For example, there is a need to ensure that dams and canals do not get silted up quickly and therefore there is a need to make adequate investments for catchment area treatment of existing large, medium and small dams. Similarly, maintenance of the canal infrastructure to ensure optimum use of created infrastructure should be given first allocation of available resources. To ensure that all this actually gets done in a transparent way and accountable way, the governance in water sector will have to be changed so that the local people have decisive say in planning, decision making, implementation and operation of the systems.
• To ensure proper and optimum functioning of the existing and under construction reservoirs in the interest of the people, each reservoir should have a reservoir operation committee, in which at least 50% members should come from the local communities. As a first step in this direction, the reservoir operation rules and actual reservoir operation details (inflows, outflows, levels, capacities, and anticipated inflows) should all be made public on daily basis for each large dam in India.
• Similarly for embankments, canals, pipelines, and other related water infrastructure such committees should be formed right from planning stage of the projects and they should be statutory bodies with powers to make necessary mandatory orders with respect to the functioning of the projects.
• While considering new storage requirements, the priorities should be in following order:
  1. for ensuring sustainable use of created capacities, e.g. arresting siltation.
  2. For ensuring optimum use of the created capacities, in large number of cases it has been found that huge quantities of water remain unused till the next monsoon arrives
  3. For groundwater recharge
  4. For creating local water systems through tanks, lakes, wetlands, watershed development and so on
  5. Only after all this has been shown to be exhausted in a credible way, should a larger project in any basin be considered.
• There should be an assessment of contribution of GHG emission by various crops, the organic and chemicals based crops, the SRI and non SRI crops.
• There are a very large number of ongoing big irrigation projects, many of them are non viable or amounting to zero sum game as the basins or sub basins where they are situated are already over exploited. They are drain on the economy and there is need to put in place a credible, independent system to ensure that unviable and undesirable projects may be weeded out or scaled down appropriately.
• The waste water treatment systems would work only when it is more decentralized, and not centralizes as is the norm now. The decentralized systems would also be less energy intensive, less cost incentive, more efficient and is actually likely to lead to more recycling of the treated water.

C. Energy:

• Indian energy sector requires a complete over-haul – starting from a shift in policy direction. Hence, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the energy policy and direction which is currently articulated in the “Integrated Energy Policy” of the Planning Commission. The current energy policy needs to factor in the huge potentials of energy efficiency, DSM and renewable energy in the country, and also follow a sustainable path way in addition to being low-carbon.
• There is an urgent need that the energy growth is de-coupled from GDP growth. Energy Projections should factor in huge potential in efficiency improvement, energy conservation and demand side and peak hour power demand management measures.
• There is a critical need for a paradigm shift in emphasis from “Centralised Energy systems” to de-centralised energy systems. There are clear advantages from the decentralized system which is evident from:
• Reduced Losses
• Increased efficiency
• Reduced infrastructure cost
• Better quality
• Rural development and livelihood generation
• Inclusive growth and energy secure communities
• Potentially more democratic systems with participation of the people at all levels
• Hence to promote decentralized energy systems, there should be policies which would incentivise decentralized systems.
• Energy Efficiency and energy modesty needs to become the center piece of the national and state energy policy since energy saved is as good as energy produced. The only way to balance economic growth and satisfy domestic consumption needs without endangering the future of life on the planet is by gradually raising the level of energy efficiency of all domestic, commercial, industrial and agricultural usage.
• Starting with the areas of highest energy consumption, the government should put legislation in place to promote innovations towards energy efficiency and phase out wasteful uses and practices. Specifically, the government should implement progressive and mandatory energy efficiency standards cutting across all energy applications in the country. These standards should have clear time lines.
• Policy measures to incentivise energy efficiency should include
• Reforms in the banking sector to ensure that energy efficiency projects are made bankable
• Needs substantive government investment to promote efficiency, especially in enabling the small and medium enterprises sector to change over from energy inefficient production and products to efficient ones
• Regulatory systems to implement and monitor efficiency
• Trading of efficiency certificates
• The Indian electricity sector is currently besotted with a number of problems, issues and concerns such as poor efficiency, very low renewable energy uptake, lack of demand side and peak power demand side management(DSM) measures, unrealistic pricing systems and so on and yet very high per capita consumption by a very few. These issues need to be addressed effectively.
• As starters, the government should ensures that the Transmission and Distribution Losses are reduced to a maximum of 10% by 2017.
• Yet another crucial area is the low plant load factor of thermal power plants. There was a demand that the government ensures that generation companies immediately put in place all the necessary measures to improve the national average of plant load factor to at least 85-90%, which needs to be achieved not later than 2017.
• Currently, the project developers have no obligation to ensure that the projected generation at 90% dependability as assessed at the Detailed Project Report stage is actually achieved in case of large hydro projects. This should not be acceptable. The revenues to the developers should reduce proportionally when they fail to generate at projected levels. Similarly, when they fail to generate peaking power as per project design, their revenues should again be proportionately reduced.
• There should be an assessment as to how much of the power generated by large hydro projects is during peaking hours and what can be done to ensure that more of the generation is during peaking hours.
• There should be an assessment of all the existing large reservoirs to assess whether these projects have delivered on all the project objectives, and whether they have complied with all the conditions posed at the project approval stage. These should also be assesses as to how much emissions to green house gases they are contributing.
• Related to efficiency is the current policy of unrealistic pricing system especially in the electricity sector. This is one of the causes for huge quantum of electricity being mis-used. Hence, it is imperative that we have in place, a dual pricing mechanism, which is based on the usage and consumption patterns and specially with regard to “free electricity”, it should be strictly on the basis of “farm sized based pricing policy”.
• India has very high potentials for Renewable Energy, which currently forms only 4% of the energy mix in the country. Hence, there should be a national renewable portfolio standards for renewable energy of 25% of total installed capacity by 2020.
• When renewable energy is referred to, it should generally mean, solar (PV, Concentrated Solar Power and Solar thermal), Wind, small, mirco, mini hydro, bio-energy, tidal energy and geo-thermal.
• On bio-energy, however, only very small scale, farm and community level tapping of bio-based energy sources should be supported for use within communities to facilitate their energy sovereignty and not for export outside the communities.
• To incentivise renewable energy, there should be an immediate shift in subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
• Furthermore, there should also be a national feed-in-tariffs for renewable energy, something which has no upper caps.
• Renewable energy as a decentralized option works best and with a source such as solar energy can be tapped through solar photovoltaics on roof tops. As an incentive for our building sector to opt for solar photo voltaics on their roof tops, the feed-in-tariff must be made applicable even for small quantum of excess supply to the grid from the buildings.
• Currently, one major barrier to renewable energy options, particularly solar energy is its capital cost. Hence, there is a need for the government to increase the Research and Development expenditure to Solar by a factor of 8, which is what it is currently spending on nuclear research.
• There should be a shift in energy direction with immediate effect, with a gradual phase in of energy efficiency and renewable energy with a gradual reduction in our dependence on nuclear, coal and other fossil fuels and large dams.
• Hence, it should be mandated that the deployment of large scale projects of coal, hydro and nuclear power are made only after all viable alternatives of reduction of T&D losses, energy efficiency, demand side management (including peak hour demand management) and renewable energy have been fully explored, implemented and exhausted and after a comprehensive cost benefit analysis in full participation with the people. For large hydro power projects, the planning and decision making process should follow the guidelines of the World Commission on Dams (http://www.dams.org/report/).
• Historically, the present model of Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) has proved inadequate to accurately measure social and environmental impacts of large conventional power projects (Coal, Hydro and Nuclear). Therefore, deployment of such projects must be done only after a rigorous and proper assessment of all risks and costs, both direct and indirect. This would involve:
• considerable strengthening of the Environment and Social Impact Assessment regulations that have remained largely on paper and the assessments are unaccountable and pathetic
• Extensive stake-holder consultation right from the stage of beginning of project formulation.
• The EIA and SIA should be formulated in full consultation with the local people. The EIA should include an assessment of the potential contribution of the project to the green ground gas emissions during its entire life cycle, right till the stage of decommissioning.
• Full EIA and SIA should be available to the local people in the language and manner they can understand, at least two months before the public hearing date
• The public hearings should be conducted by an independence panel, which would also certify to what extent the EIA and project proponent have addressed the issues raised at the public hearing and what next steps are required, including a new or improved EIA and fresh public hearings.
• If the public hearing committee finds that EIA has been incomplete or doctored, or giving wrong, biased or tendentious information, the independent panel can order black listing of and stoppage of payments to such EIA consultants.
• There should be a legally mandatory committee for each project in which at least 50% of members should be from the local area, for monitoring and ensuring that the EIA-SIA is implemented as required, pari passu with the project and when that is not the case, the committee has the power to order stoppage of construction till the EIA-SIA implementation catches up. Such committee should also continue to function during the project operation.

III. Clean Development Mechanism Projects

• Many of the CDM projects so certified by the MEF have proved to be not only unsustainable, but actually are scams in terms of not contributing any net benefits to the climate. This is unacceptable and MoEF should stop certifying any further projects as sustainable.
• MoEF should form a transparent and credible set of norms for planning, decision making, implementation and operation of the project proposals in which local people have decisive say.
• Projects without new technology or which would have happened in any case without the CDM credits should not be considered for CDM credits. Projects where local people do not get majority of the additional revenue from CDM credits should also not be considered.

3. Conclusions

Without addressing these and all the related issues in an objective manner the country can neither address the issues of Climate Change effectively for the sake of its own people, nor can claim a position of importance and trust in the international community.

Though the government insists that India is not one of the top polluters, it is considered as the third largest emitter of CO2, and is projected to become the one of the top five emitters of GHGs very soon. With a large population base and which is growing rapidly, such a projection is not unrealistic. When we consider fact that for about 40% of such a large population the commercial energy is out of reach even after 60 years of independence the gravity of the situation becomes crystal clear. If we aim to provide energy security to our growing population in a business-as-usual sceanario, the pollution level in our country will be enormous. As per Greenpeace’s projection India’s contribution to the global CO2 emissions will increase from 1,126 million tonnes in 2003 to approximately 4,039 Million Tonnes in 2050, increasing its share in global emissions from 4.8% to 8.7% in a business as usual scenario.

It is well recognised by the international community that the people and countries that have contributed least to climate change are and will be experiencing the most severe impacts of climate change. Hence India has a primary obligation to its own people, if not to the Global community, to do all that is possible to minimize the impact of climate change. The correct thing to do in this regard is to minimize its total GHG emission to as a low a level as possible without adversely affecting the human development index of its population, and lead the world towards sustainable life style.

Whereas Indian government’s stand in international Climate Change negotiations is that it should have no obligations of targeted reduction of GHG emissions because its per capita GHG emissions is much below the world average, the energy profligacy and inequitable energy consumption pattern within India should be of a major concern. Much of the population, which is in lower income group, have per capita CO2 emissions of about 335 kg, while a small section of the population with the highest income group have per capita CO2 emissions of about 1,500 kg. This was the summary of a recent survey report by Greenpeace under the title “Hiding Behind the Poor”, wherein it was shown that in India the richest consumer classes produce 4.5 times more CO2 than the poorest class, and almost 3 times more than the average Indian (501 kg). The societal impact of such inequitable energy consumption pattern is that, the poorest will be the most affected by the Global Warming, while the energy profligacy of the rich is the main cause of Global Warming.

All international projections also indicate that India will be amongst the top five GHG emitters soon, and in all probability will be the second or third largest emittor in a business-as-usual sceanario in about 10 years keeping in view the large population base and the largely unmet energy demand of the masses.

But there is no denying that the adverse impacts of country’s unrestricted GHG emissions because its consequences on Climate Change will impact our own people first before it affects the other countries. Hence we need very honest, effective and concerted measures in order to adapt to and mitigate Climate Change.

As far as India is concerned, the fast receding Himalayan glaciers, increase in sea level rise as experienced in Sundarbans, unpredictable weather patterns etc. as consequences of Global Warming have all been experienced and confirmed in recent years. These corroborate the findings of a report titled “BLUE ALERT “commissioned by Greenpeace, in which about 120 Million people from coastal regions (mostly from Bangladesh coast) are estimated to migrate to larger cities towards the second half of this century because of the direct/ indirect effects of Global Warming in the business-as-usual scenario. The colossal impact of such large scale migration to large cities, whose infrastructures are already stretched to limits, is hard to imagine. This report concludes by saying that Climate Change is the most serious environmental problem South Asia has ever faced, and in the absence of early policy intervention, it is likely to cause devastating social and economic problems for the region.

While large number of coal based power projects are being planned all over the country (even in those states having no known reserve of coal), the economic, social and environmental impact of such a large number of projects are hardly mentioned by the state and union governments. Greenpeace in a recent report “The True Cost of Coal” has vividly recorded the social and environmental impact of coal mines and coal power stations, not only in India but at different pats of the world. An objective study of this report will convince anyone that the coal based power policy will be suicidal for our country, but that is exactly what the union government wants to pursue through its integrated energy policy document.

The poor arguments the union government has been offering in this regard are the urgent need for large quanity of additionl power and the high capital cost of renewable energy sources. But a pragmatic and ‘integrated resource plan’ approach, taking all the related issues into account, will clearly provide many benign alternatives to meet our growing electricity demand than lare size conventional power projects which are all contributing for GHG emissions.

As per Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution Scenario worldwide the electricity sector will be the pioneer of renewable energy utilisation. By 2050, around 65% of electricity and 50% of the Primary Energy demands will be met from renewable energy sources. Greenpeace has also projected that by 2030 the share of renewable enrgies in India’s electricity sector could increase form the present level of about 15.5% to 35%.

Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution Scenario provides solutions to reduce India’s CO2 emissions to 1,000 million tonnes in the next 43 years. As a society we must be looking at such credible solutions than blindly adding large size power plants based on coal, water or nuclear, if we want to be an environmentally and socially responsible nation.

Business as usual cannot be an option for the future. As per the reference scenario based on IEI’s ‘World Energy Outlook 2007’ the projection would almost double the Global CO2 by 2050 and the climate will heat up by well over 20 C. This is expeted to have catastrophic consequences for the environment, economy and human society. Sir nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, has clearly stated in his report ‘Economics of Cliamte Change’ that the countries which invest in energy saving technologies and renewable energies today will be the economic winners of tomorrow.

What the country urgently needs is a set of highly effective policies to reduce the total GHG emissions to an accetable level, implement such policies earnestly and set a model of development to the global community. In this regad effective public consultations are essential.

Shankar Sharma
Consultant to Electricity Industry
Thirthahally, Karnataka, India – 577432
e-mail: shankar.sharma2005@gmail.com