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A Tribune Special Action must enhance prospects for development, says Principal Correspondent Vibha Sharma CLIMATE change is the hottest topic of debate today. Expressing concern over global warming, scientists fear that any further increase in temperature will lead to a rise in surface and sea temperatures, causing dramatic shifts in climate cycles and reduction in agricultural output and water supply. |
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Rebuilding Afghanistan
On Record
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A Tribune Special Action must enhance prospects for development, says Principal Correspondent Vibha Sharma
The Earth has been experiencing global warming. The same is the case with rise in atmospheric and ocean temperatures and then a fall. However, this time, experts expect the rise to be irreversible due to the unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide levels due largely to massive industrialisation in the past 150 years. There are dozens of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere but carbon dioxide is the main culprit. This, along with other GHGs like methane, nitrous oxide and the group of fluorinated gases, released by air-conditioners and refrigerators, trap heat waves and do not let them escape in the atmosphere. Global warming has increased so much over the years that it is feared that as the land will go under the sea following the melting of the ice masses, Russia and Canada will become warmer, rivers dry up and India experience drastic changes in its lifeline monsoon. Sea levels in Maldives, a nation of coral islands southwest of India, have already risen by 0.2 m (8 inches) in the past century due to thermal expansion and ice melt caused by global warming. At the recent Delhi summit on climate change, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer listed four parameters for a “comprehensive result” at the Copenhagen climate summit due next month. If any one of these inter-related issues does not work, “the Copenhagen climate change talks should be considered a failure”, he warned. According to him, the first of the four essentials for a comprehensive result are “clear and ambitious” reduction targets from industrialised countries. The second is “clarity” on what developing countries (read India, China, Brazil, Mexico) will do to “limit” their growth of emissions. Supporting India’s stand, de Boer has advocated significant financial support by developed countries to help poor nations comply with emission targets. “Adequate financing from developed countries” to help developing nations adapt to climate change and mitigate their GHG emissions and “clarity on institutional mechanism” will govern the finances, he said. Essentially, the four points encompass the complex climate change problem, as countries across the world try to slow down, if not completely defuse, the carbon bomb, fast ticking away, threatening to change climate cycles and causing temperatures to go up. As world’s leaders assemble at Copenhagen to hammer out differences between developed and developing nations and negotiate a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to arrest global warming, the main question would be how to fill the chasm between sharply divided nations on emissions and share the burden of fighting global warming. What is the solution? It appears simple. Just control the emissions, but it is not easy. The issue in question is fixing accountability on each developed and developing nation. Then, who will foot the bill, running into billions of dollars, required for technology development and transfer to fix the current mess? India has made it clear that the key issue should be of developing appropriate technologies and using them through large-scale adoption in developing countries. It wants polluting rich nations to follow the “polluter pays” principle considering that developed countries have been responsible for almost 72 per cent of the emissions between 1950 and 2000. Even now the US continues to be the largest polluter, followed by Canada and Russia. India’s emissions may have grown due to rapid industrialisation but its per capita Co2 emissions are only 1.1 tonne as against 20.1 per cent for the US, 17.8 per cent for Canada and 11.5 per cent for Russia. Per capita emissions of China, India’s colleague in G77, are 3.7 tonne. According to Sunita Narain, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, just a year’s increase in industrialised country emissions between 2006 and 2007 is more than the total emissions of 100 million Indians who emit less Co2 than all industrialised countries taken together, she says. Are we still hoping for a fair deal at Copenhagen, she asks, on the basis of the UNFCCC’s latest set of statistics which say that Co2 emissions in countries like the US, Canada and Australia continue to grow apace. Transportation emissions in industrialised countries have grown by 26 per cent since 1990. Since 1990, US emissions have grown by 20 per cent, Canadian emissions by 29 per cent and those of Australia by 42 per cent. Between 2006 and 2007, emissions have increased by 1.1 per cent in Annex I countries: Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the US. This implies that industrialised nations’ emissions are more than the total emission of 100 million Indians, Narain contends. Significantly, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds the view that technology and its diffusion is the “key element” in meeting the challenge of climate change. In his inaugural address at the Delhi summit, he said that all initiatives to tackle climate change will have to be backed by the establishment of “appropriate financial arrangement to facilitate technology transfers”. Industrialised countries have the capacity to shift to new energy processes even if it involves additional costs. Developing countries do not have this capacity and thus the shift should be facilitated by adequate financial support, Dr Singh said. Making it clear that developing countries “cannot and will not” compromise on development, the Prime Minister said that it was for developed nations to make a serious effort in bringing their per capita emissions within tolerable levels. India’s argument is that why should developing nations like India and China pay for others’ mistakes, curtail their emissions and thereby the development process? However, rich countries believe that India and China should also commit to emission cuts, a clause which was not a part of the Kyoto protocol, the first international pact aimed at checking the pace of climate change by reducing GHGs. India believes that climate change negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of an increasingly globalised and interconnected and interdependent world economy. Development must, therefore, remain at the centre of the global discourse. Its negotiators say, action on climate change must enhance, not diminish prospects for development. It must not sharpen the division of the world between an affluent North and an impoverished South, and justify this with a green label. Transfer of clean-energy technology and funds required will be a key issue at Copenhagen where talks are aimed at hammering out a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The question now is whether the Kyoto will be followed in 2012 by a more inclusive international agreement while retaining the vital discipline of binding quantifiable targets. India and China are members of the G-77 group of developing nations, which want developed countries to provide them with finance and technology to help reduce harmful emissions causing climate change. The group maintains that developed and developing countries have differentiated responsibility towards stabilising emissions. India and China have so far refused to sign on any binding targets for emissions cuts, arguing that it would restrict its economic growth. The Kyoto protocol under the UNFCC, signed in Japan in 1997, laid down emission targets for rich nations. The UNCCC, an international treaty agreed at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992, established the vital principle that “the developed country parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.” The convention sought to stabilise GHGs at a level that would minimise interference with the climate system. Developed countries, known as Annex 1 countries, were supposed to adhere to legally binding targets under the Kyoto protocol which sought industrial world to cut its GHGs by an average of 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. It allowed developed countries to meet part of its target by funding clean options and technologies in developing countries. Since then, much has happened. The US signed the Kyoto but did not ratify it, implying that it doesn’t have to cut emissions and can buy carbon credits to fulfill its commitment. A carbon credit is equal to one tonne of Co2 removed from the atmosphere. Under the protocol, developing countries can earn carbon credits by adopting clean technologies and rich countries can buy the credits through the system called ‘Clean Development’ mechanism. Several Indian companies, following green practices, are now involved in the carbon business. India decided to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in August 2002. According to the agreement, India is not required to reduce emissions as the commitment was basically for developed countries. To limit global warming to two degrees, negotiations are loosely based on an IPCC stabilisation scenario which cuts the 1990 baseline of emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. At Bali in 2007, participating nations adopted the Bali Road Map as the two-year process to finalise a binding agreement in Copenhagen. Though there was no consensus on specific numbers, there was a call for “deep cut emissions” and that developed nations emissions must fall by 40 per cent by 2020. Developed countries are now willing to take up the emission cuts up to 80 per cent by 2050, but depending on how much major economies within developing countries like India and China are willing to do. India says 2050 is a long-term goal and developed nations should have a mid-term goal like a cut of 40 per cent by 2020. Negotiations are on and European Union countries have indicated a willingness to cut by 25 to 30 per cent by 2020. India has indicated that it might agree to the proposal. Though G8 leaders agreed in 2009 to reduce emissions, there are demands that developing countries share the burden by lowering their rising trajectories. This is one of the stumbling blocks, experts say. An agreement appears to be unlikely at Copenhagen unless Annex 1 countries make medium term commitments of emissions reductions by 2020, they aver. India’s negotiators say, there is a misunderstanding that India is resisting calls by developed countries to take on specific targets for the reduction of its GHGs though its total GHG emissions are the third largest in volume after the US and China. India has done in this direction more than what it is required to do, they say. India’s stand on climate change can best be presented in four points. First, climate change is taking place not due to the current level of GHG emissions but as a result of the cumulative impact of accumulated GHGs. Current emissions are, of course, adding to the problem incrementally. Even if current emissions were, by some miracle, reduced to zero tomorrow, climate change will continue to take place. The accumulated stock of GHGs in the atmosphere is mainly the result of carbon-based industrial activity in developed countries over the past two centuries and more. It is for this reason that the UNFCCC stipulates deep and significant cuts in the emissions of the industrialised countries as fulfillment of their historic responsibility. Secondly, the UNFCCC itself does not require developing countries to take on any commitments on reducing their GHG emissions. The pursuit of social and economic development by developing countries will result in an increase in their GHG emissions. However, India has declared that even as it pursues its social and economic development objectives, it will not allow its per capita GHG emissions to exceed the average per capita emissions of the developed countries. This effectively puts a cap on our emission, which will be lower if our developed country partners choose to be more ambitious in reducing their own emissions. Thirdly, India cannot be called a “major emitter”. Our per capita Co2 emissions are currently only 1.1 tonne, when compared to over 20 tonne for the US and in excess of 10 tonne for most OECD countries. Furthermore, even if we are No. 3 in terms of total volume of emissions, the gap with the first and second-ranking countries is very large. The US and China account for over 16 per cent each of the total global emissions, while India trails with just 4 per cent, despite its very large population and rapidly growing economy. And finally, for developing countries like India, the focus of climate change action cannot just be current emissions. Equally important is the issue of “adaptation to climate change” that has already taken place and will continue in the foreseeable future even in the most favorable mitigation scenarios. India is already subject to a high degree of climate variability resulting in droughts, floods and other extreme weather events which compel India to spend over 2 per cent of its GDP on adaptation. This figure is likely to go up considerably. Consequently, the Copenhagen package must include global action on adaptation in addition to action to GHG abatement and reduction.
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Rebuilding Afghanistan
Much to the consternation of Pakistan, India’s expanding partnership with Afghanistan has grown into multi-sectoral activities in all parts of the battle-scarred nation, where the most worrying factor is the attempt being made by forces representing the al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup. A peaceful and stable Afghanistan is in India’s interest as also in the interest of the region and the world. The trauma and the destruction Afghanistan faced in the 1990s require a comprehensive effort by the international community to rebuild the nation and make the Afghan people forget the past. India as a close neighbour and friend has sought to play its role in this effort. Be it the field of education, medical services, transport, telecommunications, irrigation, power generation or civil aviation, India has invested in every sphere of activity in Afghanistan. One of India’s important infrastructure projects in south-western Afghanistan, the highway from Zaranj to Delaram, built at the cost of precious Indian and Afghan lives, has become a symbol of New Delhi’s commitment to Afghanistan. In keeping with Afghanistan’s priorities, in the latest phase of its developmental activities, India has focused on capacity building and human resource development. Given the decades of destruction and dismantlement of state structures, India’s latest efforts are helping accelerate the massive institution-building currently under way in Afghanistan. Since 2006, the rising spectre of terrorism and violence has targeted Indian developmental projects in Afghanistan. The effectiveness and popularity of these programmes has led to attacks on them by the enemies of Afghanistan’s progress and stability. A number of Indian technicians along with an even larger number of their Afghan colleagues have been killed in such terrorist attacks. The Indian Embassy itself was directly attacked on July 7, 2008, and again on October 8 this year. However, New Delhi has given firm indication of its determination to continue with its reconstruction activities, reflecting its unwavering commitment to Afghanistan. India’s pledged assistance to Afghanistan has now reached nearly US $1.5 billion. An innovative element of India’s assistance has been the focus on small and community-based developmental projects with a short gestation period and having a direct impact on community life. It covers four broad areas: humanitarian assistance, major infrastructure projects, small and community-based development projects and education and capacity development. As part of the humanitarian assistance package, New Delhi has been supplying 100 grams of fortified, high-protein biscuits to nearly two million children under a school-feeding programme administered through the World Food Programme; gifting 250,000 metric tonnes of wheat to help Afghanistan tide over its current food crisis and providing free medical consultation and medicines through five Indian medical missions to over 30,000 Afghans monthly. Major Indian infrastructure projects include the 218-km road from Zaranj to Delaram to facilitate the movement of goods and services from Afghanistan to the Iranian border and, onward to the Chahbahar Port. India’s small and community-based development projects are in the vulnerable border areas, with focus on local ownership and management and extend to agriculture, rural development, education, health, vocational training and solar energy. These have a direct, immediate and visible impact on community life. The completion of the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway is considered the most significant achievement made by India during its presence in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime. Its positive results are being felt by every section of the Afghan society. Since the completion of the highway and the population of Zaranj town has increased from 55,000 to more than 100,000 and passenger traffic has picked up. The journey from end-to-end between Delaram and Zaranj that used to take 12 to 14 hours can now be completed in just over two hours. And compared to an average of five truck or container loads of goods coming through Zaranj, the average number today is over 50. On the power and transmission front, India has begun construction of the Salma Dam Power Project on the river Hari Rud in Heart Province which is expected to be commissioned by 2011. Transport and communications is another area in which the Afghans appreciate the contribution made by India. In late 2001, after a decade of devastation and faced with the pressure of returning refugees, Kabul and the provinces found themselves bereft of public transport facilities. Responding to the need, India gifted 400 buses to Afghanistan, of which 205 were deployed in Kabul and the balance in 25 provinces of the country. This was supplemented by 200 mini-buses, particularly for use in hilly regions and to connect outlaying villages in urban centres. Municipalities were gifted 105 utility vehicles, including water and cesspit tankers and garbage dumpers. Since India and Afghanistan have common cultural roots and share their classical musical traditions, India is also helping the strife-torn nation in the cultural arena in a big way. The world community, barring of course Pakistan, has appreciated the massive humanitarian efforts undertaken by India in Afghanistan. India is, however, quite clear that it would not take part in military operations in Afghanistan. It’s for the US and allied forces to neutralise the Taliban and the al-Qaeda in the overall interest of not only Afghanistan but the world at
large.
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On Record
FROM a government servant in Jaipur to Waterman of India, it has been a journey full of ups and downs for Rajendra Singh. His pioneering work of buildings small water harvesting structures to trap rainwater and recharge ground water earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2001. In an interview to The Tribune in Jaipur, he talks about his journey, India’s water woes, and his future plans. Excerpts: Q: How did you begin your mission on water conservation? A: It all started in mid-1980s when the people started migrating from Thanagazi area of Alwar district due to lack of water and jobs. At Kishori village of Thanagazi, I opened a dispensary, besides educating children. On the advice of an elderly man, I tried to dig up a water body. I persuaded some village youth to join me. I also roped in some NGOs. In three years, we dug a 15-feet deep pond. Soon the people joined my mission. By 2002, we had built 10,000 ponds, dams and johads (water harvesting structures). This is now called the community-driven decentralised natural resource management model. Q: What was the response to your mission in Rajasthan? A: The people supported it wholeheartedly, but the government didn’t do enough. The model was not replicated anywhere. The NREGA has been allocated huge funds and water conservation work can be linked with it. The government could have made such works mandatory under the NREGA. It would have boosted agriculture and created permanent assets. Through The Tribune, I request the Government of India to invest NREGA funds in creating water bodies and reviving India’s rivers which are dying. Q: Is India’s water problem manmade? A: It is, certainly, due to mismanagement. The first Planning Commission report had put the number of villages in dark zone at 232; now it has risen to two lakh villages. Interlinking of rivers is no solution. Instead, the government should link people with rivers so that all will get water. Q: Do you support privatisation of water supply? What about the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model? A: Communitisation of water supply that takes care of common interest is best for India. Private companies give priority to their own interest. We should make water supply community-driven. I am not in favour of the PPP model as the government is selling our natural resources to private industry in the name of PPP. Q: Why is the drinking water crisis worsening in rural and urban areas? A: The government is giving subsidy on water to the people in urban areas, while in villages the people fetch water from long distances. The government should either give subsidy to the villagers as well or should not give it to anyone. The government is bringing water from villages to provide it to the urban areas. This would multiply urban-rural conflict. Q: Is the government doing enough to tackle water crisis? A: At policy level, the government is doing well, but the same cannot be said as regards its execution. It is yet to clarify whether it would provide potable water to 100 per cent or 50 per cent population. It needs to pursue a consistent and long-term policy.
Q: What about water conservation and management? A: We have to conserve water and ensure its disciplined use. An individual uses 500 litres of water everyday in India. The government has to give equal right on water to the people who should be sensitised on how to trap rainwater. At present, we allow the entire rainwater to go waste. The government should not include water-guzzling crops in the PDS and should respect bio-cultural diversity while promoting agriculture. Q: What are your present and future plans? A: I am sensitising people on saving the Ganga, the Yamuna and other rivers. I want to mould public opinion to conserve our rivers — a full-time job as it is a positive solution to climate change and global warming. I am mobilising people to liberate our rivers from pollution and exploitation. As for the future, we plan to mobilise youth to rejuvenate rivers in the next 10
years.
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Profile Besides being a top space scientist, he is an enthusiast of Kerala’s classical art form — Kathakali — and a keen musician. He occasionally used to participate in dance concerts, taking time off from his busy schedule. “I used to dance until a few years ago but not now. I have also done roles of Hanuman and Parushram”, he says. Religiosity in Dr Radhakrishnan came to the fore when Dr Radhakrishnan was armed with a fax copy of his appointment letter as ISRO Chairman. He visited the Srikrishna temple at Guruvayoor. When he was told of his appointment over telephone from Delhi, he requested that the letter be faxed at the Guruvayoor temple number. He entered the temple only after securing the appointment letter. “Religion and science go hand in hand and a fusion of the two creates a divine spirit”, he says. It can only be felt and not described. A highly respected scientist with 35-year-long experience with ISRO, 60-year-old Dr Radhakrishnan has played a key role in many of the country’s space projects, including Chandrayaan-I. The next challenge for him would be Chandrayaan-II which would launch a rover on the moon. The rover will be an Indo-Russian joint venture. India needs to have at least six to eight launches every year to be truly in global race. This is indeed a major challenge to the new ISRO Chief. ISRO has already submitted a project proposal to the government for sending two persons on board a space capsule on an orbit around the earth. The craft will not go to the moon but will encircle the earth for about a week. But so far as the persons on board are concerned, it would require the same preparation as the moon mission. The next big step for ISRO would be the launch of GSLV Mark 3 which would take a four-tonne launch capacity. Also ISRO will be using the indigenous cryogenic engine for the first time. The launch will also enable ISRO to test several critical technologies like solid strap on motor with 200 tonnes propellant. The engine is now being integrated in the launch pad. Satellite-based navigation is another area ISRO is getting into. Remote sensing is yet another area in which Dr Radhakrishan is a specialist and his achievements have been spectacular. India is on par with global powers in this sphere. Yet, ISRO needs to develop a satellite that looks at atmosphere, studies clouds movements and so on. India’s Corttosat-2 ranks among the best in the world with a 0.8 resolution camera on board. The ISRO has now turned 40. It is the implementing agency of the Indian Space Programme. The Agency was formed as the Indian National Committee for Space Research under the leadership of Dr Vikram Sarabhai in 1962. The group was helped and supported under the Department of Atomic Energy by the then Secretary Homi J Bhaba. The group taken from the talent pool of India’s Nuclear Energy Programme delivered hardly one year later on November 21, 1993 when it held the first successful launch of a Nike-Apache sounding rocket from the Thumba Equatorial Lauching Station. India’s space programme is going through an important phase change. It has already contributed significant benefits to the public — telemedicine, tele-education, natural resource management and so on. These have been tested and need to be rolled out across the country. Dr Radhakrishnan is essentially entrusted with the task of leading the organisation this important change of phase. India is developing technologies that form the basis of its future
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CLIMATE change is the hottest topic of debate today. Expressing concern over global warming, scientists fear that any further increase in temperature will lead to a rise in surface and sea temperatures, causing dramatic shifts in climate cycles and reduction in agricultural output and water supply.
NOW that a clear political picture has emerged in Afghanistan with the reelection of Hamid Karzai as President, the coming months will see intensification in Indian efforts to rebuild and reconstruct a war-torn society and economy.
MUSIC and science are a rare combination and a person possessing both talents becomes a genius. Music, science and religion make a rare blend. There are very few people having an amalgam of three gifts. Dr K. Radhakrishnan, appointed as the new Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is such an exceptional person.