The India Climate Observatory

Commentary, action and research on climate and development in India

At home and abroad

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

ICW_3_coverWe ask whether the state action plans on climate change (some of which in their final forms are now several years old) are fit for the task of guiding policy at this level, a serious and urgent question which, in our view, ought to precede India’s taking of international positions on climate change adaptation and mitigation measures (including financing and technology transfer).

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

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

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

Boarding the technology omnibus

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RG_ICP_UNEA_blog_201406India’s Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has attended the first United Nations Environment Assembly, held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 23-27 June 2014. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has described the UNEA is an “historic event for all of us, set to define not only the future of the United Nations Environment Programme, but to support further the institutional framework and programmatic platform for sustainable development and set the environmental agenda for the world to follow”.

At the first UNEA assembly, Javadekar made two points we find require critical discussion. The first is: “India strongly feels that technology transfer is the most important means of implementation and an effective and functional Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) is a must for a meaningful Post-2015 Development Agenda.”

We think such a blanket statement concerning ‘technology’ cannot be held up at international fora as being the consensus view of India’s citizens. There has for the last decade been scarcely any public consultation held at the local level – keeping in mind the rights of urban local bodies and panchayats in determining their development options and needs – concerning technology, its forms and the ways in which it may be used. Thus Javadekar’s statement is unrepresentative.

The Technology Facilitation Mechanism he referred to is considered – in UN and other inter-governmental fora – as being able to meet the technology transfer needs of developing countries in various sectors such as health, energy, food, water, sanitation. The view in such fora is that ‘developing’ countries need to be ‘assisted’ in technology needs assessment, adaptation, roll-out and human and institutional capacity building.

Javadekar’s second statement is: “I have a suggestion to make in this regard. It has been agreed to establish Green Climate Fund of US$ 100 billion per year by 2020. This amount should be utilised to purchase IPRs of most crucial technologies for public good and these technologies should then be freely available to the developing countries to facilitate sustainable development.”

We think this is an incomplete statement that rests on a few techno-centric views, which references intellectual property in a casual manner (and which also ignores the central aspects of the widespread opposition in India to genetically modified organisms for example), and which has overlooked entirely traditional and indigenous knowledge. The latter part of this second statement, “should then be freely available”, is useful from a South-South perspective and should be treated as such.