INDIA CLIMATE BLOG

Dangers of developing India

2012-01-24T17:52:00.000+05:30

India's development, social issues, environmental problems are mounted one of top of each other, add climate variance to all spells a huge dilemma coming at us.

Recently in Durban we concluded the 17th Confederation of parties (COP) where over 190 countries assembled in Africa to reach decisions on the growing climate problem world over. This was one of the most important meetings since Kyoto will be expiring in 2012 and countries debated on whether a renewal treaty should be put in place or not. India's role took a tongue lashing from environmentalists and adamantly refused to co-operate on lowering carbon emissions. The country's per capita global emission is far less than the total carbon footprint, agreed, but what Jayanthi Natarajan our honourable environmental minister misses out is that we are a growing population of 1.2 billion. People's carbon footprint increases as more than 50,000 vehicles are added on the road every year, employment has shot up in cities increasing numbers, mining in South India is taking an ecological toll, Wiping out forests and disregard to wildlife in the name of development increases, hence there are many many reasons to growing India's carbon footprint.

Highlighting this issue, the root of most of India's problems stems from: Extreme poverty. Lack of education, health, security, benefits, unemployment and zero access - a trend of problems arise. One is of course high growth of population in India. Contraception and family planning is virtually unknown in most parts of the country with no education in this matter. The other issue is the demand for the male children, which results in having more children the better likelihood of producing a male, many parts of India don't want girl children. The problem largely falls on lack of education and knowledge, inadequate health access which leads to bigger families. With development centered on urban centric locations we miss addressing the root of the problem which lies in most underdeveloped and neglected areas of India.

Our agriculture, food and water security is in deep trouble today. The population still largely sits in villages and small towns and little or nothing is done on upliftment of those livelihoods which are directly responsible for the food on our table. Bureaucracy, corruption and exploitation leaves a trail of tragic endings to agriculture farmers who are completely helpless in the face of an insensitive system. The climate crisis is affecting their livelihoods at a greater level prompting many farmers to turn to alternate sources if possible.

But where there are problems, who says solutions are not possible? It's not that we can't, we don't. India has made tremendous progress in the last 10 years, catapulting the country in the paths technology, science, energy and gaining respect world over. A 360 degree view needs to implemented right away in this way. Green employment today is becoming a growing sector, the terms solar, wind are a trend witnessed everywhere. Providing alternate energy is not only 'green' environmentally healthy but generates employment opportunities in rural and urban sectors. Sustainable livelihoods with indigenous tribes/ forest people of India is important ground level opportunity. The country still has one of the largest natural capital, the need to protect these areas is vital for economic growth. Education is 'the' most important, it provides the backbone to any growing economy. Health, food and water security are of course natural demands.

As business takes importance and ecological takes a backseat many forget that its because of ecology we thrive today. If we take her for granted business and economy will fall, it is inevitable.

By Kavya Chandra

An Extraordinary Journey

2012-01-13T14:29:00.003+05:30

By Kavya Chandra

Pushpanath aka ‘Push’ as he is fondly known stands out from the crowd with his bushy white-black hair, calm expression and radiating energy. A charismatic man, Push is someone who is driven by passion, love for the outdoors, storytelling and believes actions speak for themselves.

An amazing and difficult journey undertaken in November 2011 by Push who walked 550 kilometers from Chikmagalur (north belt of Karnataka) to Mysore for 16 days in his fight for climate justice. His message was simple, “India is feeling the pain of climate change, when a child is ill his mother applies a wet cloth to his forehead, similarly India is getting hot but the world leaders at Durban are too busy fighting over the colour of the cloth”. Words simple, yet impactful.

This is the second walk by Push who walked from Oxford to Copenhagen in 2009 as a run-up to the Copenhagen summit carrying the same message to world leaders in Copenhagen. He has travelled far and wide over the past 16 years as a global campaigner for climate action, seen the sufferings of the poor in African countries, experienced poverty faced by children in South Asia and witnessed women in developing countries bear the full brunt of climate conflict.

A follower of Gandhi and a radical at heart, Push says that the Dandi March inspired him to walk, ‘‘It is the simplest thing anyone can do, if you feel strongly about something walking is the best way to express yourself’’.

Similarly this year, Push takes a message to our world leaders who recently wounded up the Durban meeting, “Stop pushing around papers on the desk and playing with people’s lives, its time to stop acting politically and start actual ground work, you have the power to set an example, act, and be remembered in history for facing one of the biggest challenges of man”.

During the walk Push received unstinting and overwhelming support from The Karnataka Growers’ Federation (KGF); a mother body of top coffee growers and planters in the state and world. Push’s journey began in Chikmagalur from Baba Budangir, across many small towns passing the heart of Coorg (commonly known as coffee country) and finally Mysore. Every town welcomed him like a hero, garlands and flowers were thrown, firecrackers burnt with lots of band baja and dance. It felt like a wedding only absentees the bride and groom. The locals graciously put him up every night at each passing town, prepared delicious Coorg cuisine and opened their hearts and homes to Push supporting him till the very end. Children listened to him, danced with him, and hugged him, shouting ‘Chalo Durban’. One unforgetful memory was when a small child of 7 removed him shoes and walked 8 km with Push. Coffee growers, local activists, self help groups from all over the state came to meet Push, tell him their stories and problems with changing climate, some of them being with him till the very end.

Push personally reached out to 30,000 people in the course of 16 days and lakhs more through media. He walked 2, 25, 00,000 steps totally and was widely covered by the media in Karnataka especially in local towns of Chikmagalur and Coorg, Mysore and Bangalore.

‘‘These kinds of stories are the inspiration for us all... to do what we do!!! For today,and the generations to come!”
- Marc Matheiu, Hindustan Unilever

“One day your name will be the reason of the change in the world, your name might appear even in HISTORY textbooks as “the soul cause of our change”
- Dhruvi, High school student

"You’ve not only accomplished an astonishing personal physical achievement, but raised awareness on climate change and fired the imagination of all those you have come into contact with. With your example they will surely think that anything is possible!"
- Malini Mehra, CEO,Centre for Social Markets (CSM)

Visit Pushpanath's blog on http://gopushgo.com/

Whose Money Is It Anyways?

2012-01-13T13:13:00.001+05:30

By Viva Kermani

I am not an economist. Neither do I subscribe to The Financial Times nor to The Economist. Nor do I care to seriously read any of the salmon colored newspapers.

Despite all of this, I am amazed at how, in the very recent past, there has been a flood of articles, op-eds, stories, blog posts, tweets and re-tweets on the rise in income inequality. Outrage seems to be on how we have allowed capitalism to grow into the form that it is today - which is killing equality, destroying the world’s ecology and causing severe environmental degradation .The manner in which there is an overzealousness in natural resource exploitation , one would imagine that our natural capital is here for us to last till perpetuity.

The rise of disparity of incomes is not limited to countries such as India, where there has been a history of stark inequality, but the rise of income inequality is growing notoriously in developed countries such as the US and UK. A recent study done in the US showed that the top 1% households' income grew by 275% - this is just one revealing statistics – there is a lot more data out there to show that more wealth is shifting to fewer people, with few bankers having a disproportionate control over the economy. As a recent New York Times article puts it – it has been the era of the rise of the super rich. If not the ultra-rich.

Forbes annually tallies the fortunes of the world’s billionaires. The world’s 1,210 current billionaires, Forbes reported in March 2011, hold a combined wealth that equals over half the total wealth of the 3.01 billion adults around the world. Something is seriously going wrong. Despite India s economy growing anywhere between 7% and 8 % in the last few years, income inequality has doubled in 20 years. Surely, GDP growth cannot be the only measure of development and progress or for that matter prosperity.

Nevertheless, why is all this happening? What are we missing that is driving this rapaciousness? Is it because of our inability to perceive the difference between public benefits and private profits?

I have come to see this polarisation more acutely and closely over the last 12 months in my work with the Karnataka Growers Federation. I have been working extensively with the small to medium-sized coffee farmer in the southern state of Karnataka. Coffee is now big business in India. According to India’s Coffee Board, domestic consumption has been witnessing a steady growth of five to six per cent in the last five years. And we can see this – almost all of urban India today is dotted with coffee bars. Coffee is the preferred choice for the upwardly mobile and uber cool. With the ubiquitous Café Coffee Day, Baristas, Costa Coffee, and the much awaited entry of the more expensive Starbucks into India, the latte and cappuccino are here to stay.

The world has been gulping down so much coffee that it is now the second most globally traded commodity after oil. But coffee is one of the few internationally traded commodities that is still mainly produced not on large estates or plantations but on small holdings. The economies of the some of the poorest countries are highly dependent on trade in coffee –in some African countries like Ethiopia and Burundi -but the producer today hardly makes a living from his or her coffee bean, given their small holdings – the majority being anywhere between 2.5 acres to10 acres.

The story is no different in India. Contrary to popular perception, 98.5% of coffee growers in India are small farmers. Today India produces 4.5% of the world’s coffee. This is good news – to some.

The bad news is that coffee is produced by 90 countries globally but consumed by just 40 countries. The global coffee trade today is close to USD 96 billion. Of this USD 96 billion trade, a meagre USD 8 billion comes back to coffee-producing countries. There is not a chance in hell that the farmer, who produces coffee on say a 10 acre holding, has any control on the market prices or access to any share of this mega profit. The producer s share of this profit is unusually low while the usual suspects in between and at the end, laugh all the way to bank. The world’s big four coffee roasters also have big coffee brands – and therefore enjoy huge margins - while the producer benefits the least. Squeezing the small farmer for the lowest possible price – in the long run is a bad business idea – it will drive the coffee farmer out of business.

Coupled with no control over prices, there is another challenge facing the farmer today – that of unseasonal rain and unpredictable weather patterns. Whilst climate change is just one of numerous factors that may affect global coffee production, the International Coffee Organization considers it will likely be one of the most important ones with smallholders (who produce the majority of the world's coffee) the most vulnerable group. In Karnataka, the state that produces about 70% of India’s coffee, there were 3 years of continuous drought during the coffee season from 2002 to 2005 followed by heavy rainfall in 2006 and 2007. This lead to severe infestation of pest and disease, like stem borer and leaf rust, which resulted in huge crop loss. For the first time we heard of suicides among coffee farmers.

When it comes to coffee, India is unique. It is the only country on the world map that grows all its coffee in the shade. Indian coffee is grown in forest like conditions –verdant and rich in biodiversity. India also grows both the varieties of coffee – Arabica (Coffea Arabica) and Robusta(Coffea robusta). Arabica is high-end coffee – it is rich and yet delicate in flavour and therefore commands a higher price. Robusta is the low-end variety – it is hardier but commands a lower price. One would think that Indian farmers would want to grow Arabica and get a higher price for their coffee bean. But sadly the trend is the reverse. Arabica-growing farmers instead are opting out of this highly-flavoured cherry to grow the Robusta variety (which requires less care), partly because the Arabica plant cannot stand up to climate variability and unpredictable weather patterns. And this is the other thing – we are now drinking more and more coffee but of less and less quality.

So whether Arabica survives or not, or whether farmers only grow Robusta because they have to, I know that if Baba Budan were around today, he would have probably been a very rich man.

For the love of coffee

2011-04-27T10:29:00.003+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

Before the Café Coffee Days, there was Baba Budan and his 7 coffee beans.

Coffee arabica plant and seed

Baba Budan, a 17th century Sufi Saint, smuggled 7 coffee beans into India from Yemen, thereby, part breaking the Arab monopoly over coffee. The story goes that Baba Budan smuggled out 7 coffee beans from Al Muckha (Mocha), a port city in Yemen. Between the 15th and 17th century, Mocha was the main market place for coffee trading. It is from this Red Sea port of Mocha, that the English word mocha has its origin.

While the earliest history of coffee goes back to antiquity - there is evidence that point to the existence of the coffee plant in 13th century Ethiopia. Till the mid 17th century or so, the Arab rulers enjoyed their monopoly over coffee. They did what they could to ensure that the cultivation did not spread – so they would strip the bean of its outer layer, roast it and render it infertile. They banned the export of the coffee bean – it could be taken out only if it was boiled or roasted so as to prevent the bean from germinating. Coffee had been colonized.

This is why Baba Budan, an Indian pilgrim to Mecca, had to smuggle his 7 beans out of Yemen. It was not just Baba Budan who broke the coffee colonization, there was fierce competition between the European colonizers to get hold of coffee. It was the Dutch who in the late 17th century first managed to get some seeds and attempted to grow coffee in their colonies.   The Dutch were by now already growing some coffee in the Malabar region of India as well as in their other far eastern colonies. And before you knew, the British started coffee plantations in Jamaica -the rest is cruel ,colonial history.

There are myriads of stories of how coffee found its way out of Arabia and how it was transported by colonizers, travelers, wanderers, investors ,missionaries   and traders – with the rise in the demand for coffee, came a rise in the demand for sugar, both becoming important commodities. Coffee was a commodity that formed part of the trade triangle – from England to Africa to the Americas. Coffee houses sprang up and became meeting places and were centers of social interaction.

But behind all this energy and movement, the story is really not sweet. The well-known coffee historian, Antony Wild, in his book “Coffee : A Dark History”, takes us to the early days of the history of coffee, on how the, European merchants came across it in Arabia and brought it to Europe. Soon hugely popular, they quickly realized that they could make more money if they planted coffee themselves, in their plantations, using slave labour in their tropical, colonial outposts. Coffee was now on its way to becoming global – from the colonies in Caribbean to the colonies in Java – coffee was leaving its footprint.

As Antony Wild says, this is the legacy of coffee – tropical countries produce it and rich countries drink it. Even today this legacy is almost true . Quite unlike tea – countries that produce tea mostly drink it.

Meanwhile, on his return to India, after Mecca, Baba Budan planted the Arabica beans in the hills of Chandragiri, situated in today's Chikmagalur district of Karnataka– and thus is the story of the birth of Indian coffee. Today ,India produces almost 4.5% of the world’s coffee, grown mostly by small and medium growers, and is grown mostly in the three main Southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, with Karnataka contributing to 72% of what is grown. (A little bit is also grown in the Northeast and Andhra Pradesh). With the rise of urban India there is a rise in coffee shops – coffee bars are becoming ubiquitous in urban India.

The once less known South Indian filter "kaapi" , served piping hot in steel tumbler with a small dabarah (cannot find a similar word in English) for cooling, has now morphed into cappuccinos and lattés , finding its way onto menus across India’s burgeoning cities and youth.

India’s coffee is both special and unique - right from its planting to its traditional style of drinking. And that is really the idea behind this blog post. It is not to re-tell the well known but bitter history of coffee but more to inform about its current crisis and uncertain future.

Indian coffee is the finest shade growing coffee in the world and it is rare because all the coffee grown in India ,is grown in natural conditions , is dependant on monsoon rain and thrives in shade growing areas. There are close to 250,000 coffee planters in India – of which 98% are small farmers, cultivating on less than 10 hectares. There is almost no mechanization – it is labour intensive , employing about 2 million people directly thereby generating rural livelihood.

Drive through any coffee growing district in South India – From Coorg to Chikmagalur and what you will discover are verdant coffee forests, acres of coffee estates full of all kinds of   trees with coffee growing under a thick canopy of natural shade, often mixed with ginger, pepper and vanilla . With most of the coffee estates located in the Western Ghats, coffee forests are located in biodiversity hotspots that have a high level of endemism, bio diversity and wide array of flora and fauna. From Indian mahogany, to teak and sandalwood , to the silver oak, and white cedar, trees stand majestically tall . It is almost as if the forests nurture and protect the coffee berries . Maintaining forests ensure a healthy coffee crop and the coffee planters almost has a sacred relationship with nature. There are wide species of butterflies and birds . Protected wildlife parks often dot the region. Elephants wander about, sometimes destroying coffee plants - the famous langur, slender loris, ,spotted deer are some of the animals that live in the region.

And here’s the other thing – five major South Indian rivers have its origin in coffee estates, the most popular one being the River Cauvery -that starts in the coffee growing region of Coorg. Here the river is venerated and worshipped as Goddess Cauvery – as a protector of their land. Coffee is so closely linked to the elements – and over time the coffee growers have developed a deep tradition to preserve   rivers and forests.

But the picture is not about the sweet fragrance of the coffee plant in bloom or misty rolling mountains. It is about a rapid change in climate that has resulted in rising temperatures and unseasonal rains , sometimes heavier rainfalls , periods of   drought and flooding ,prolonged higher day time temperatures and sudden drop in night time temperature – all climatic impacts that have resulted in lowered yields that are making coffee cultivation almost economically unviable. There is a growing need to invest in technology to adapt to changing and unpredictable weather patterns but since the farmer is small, these are not always accessible or possible. There is a shift that is taking place. Slowly growers are selling their estates, part by part, the price the land fetches for the timber it holds, is more profitable than cultivating coffee in a climate changing world. More worrying is that there are no takers in the next generation as high profits on coffee cultivation start to dim.

So is coffee all about about cash and commerce ? Is its value limited to   commodity indices and high menu prices? Does no one recognize its intrinsic value and its role in maintaining biodiversity, acting as a carbon sink, globally sequestering about 6 billion kgs of carbon, and conserving wildlife and ecosystems ?The value of coffee lies way beyond its economic price tag – its value in providing ecological services is indeed priceless.

During my recent visit to Chikmagalur, I met a coffee planter who said that he himself had personally planted over 100,000 trees in his life time – this was way before the world was hot on climate change , carbon trading and clean development mechanism. And standing on his coffee estate I thought to myself - indeed these small planters are not Gordon Gekko s children !

The silent coffee planter that protects India s rich biodiversity and forests, does not need   a trading mechanism to protect our natural resources and create a better world. What he needs is for his voice to be heard while a different crisis brews.

It is indeed time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Rig the Climate

2010-07-23T17:21:00.000+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

The climate denial lobby is beginning to look really silly. It creates loonies out of people -the most recent one - Lord Monckton - who claims that climate change, is a conspiracy, a new flag of the left and rebukes the very idea of global warming.

For someone who has no training in science whatsoever to discount the IPCC s body of some 800 scientists, he is irresponsible and certifiable. The science is now loud and clear - warming of the earth is unequivocal and there is no doubt that much of the change in climate is due to human induced action.

Scientists at NASA-GISS have confirmed that the first six months of 2010 have set a global temperature record. But I am not going to write about the vicissitudes of climate change of my generation or the politics that world leaders has been engaged in over the last decade to try to solve the climate crisis or what is the planet we are leaving behind. It has been about 2 decades since the Earth Summit in Rio and we are still struggling for an agreement to protect our planet and its ecosystems, its forest, water tables, atmosphere, oceans and mountains.

In the last 50 years or so millions have been spent in UN conventions, declarations and pledges for environmental protection. While we may have failed the earth in the last 100 years or so – there were some who paid it glorious tribute 5000 years ago. The best tribute ever paid to the environment can be found in the Vedas.

The Vedas are considered the most sacred books for Hindus. The word Veda means “wisdom”. There are 4 Vedas .The Rig Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda. The Rig Veda , a collection of hymns ,are the most ancient of all Hindu texts, probably about 5000 years old but codified much later.This is concerned with the worship of gods that are largely personifications of the powers of nature. The Rig Veda contains the most popular mantra , the Gayatri mantra. I don’t know any Indian who does not know the Gayatri Mantra – it’s the mother of all mantras.

Aum Bhoor Bhuwah Swaha

Tat Savitur Varenyam

Bhargo Devasaya Dheemahi

Dhiyo Yo Naha Prachodayat

There are various interpretations of this simple mantra - I do not wish to go into the existential meaning of this mantra, its metaphor or its esoteric meaning.I am no expert in Sankrit or ancient texts. Not at all and cannot even remotely claim to be. But this much I know -when I do a word to word break down of the Gayatri Mantra it is telling me something – a prayer to the "giver of light and life" - the sun (savitur). Its power remains unchallenged and unrivalled. It is not only the Rig Veda that pays tribute to nature.

There are 63 mantras of Atharva Veda (12.1.1. to 12.1.63) pertain to Hymns to the Earth, which glorifies Mother Earth. The Rig Veda regards trees and plants as possessing healing properties. Tree planting is considered a religious duty.

So ecology is not a modern day science that was started in Europe. Its root can be found in our ancient texts and its modern day manifestation in the Chipko Movement that began in the early 70’s in the Garwhal – where villagers formed a human chain and hugged trees marked to be cut down for the development of a sports equipment factory. Since then, the movement has grown as a ecological movement. So while world leaders break their heads over complex documents on carbon emissions,legal frameworks,binding targets,offsetting, de-forestation and afforestation, Indian Rishis understood this 5000 years ago but instead,chose to express it through beautiful, 4 line hymns - that are still chanted today.

Take note: climate is warming but weather is variable

2010-07-08T12:07:00.001+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Do you sometimes feel, like I do right now, that unless people are convinced 'beyond reasonable doubt' that the climate is indeed changing, no amount of scientific fact is going to make Mohammed go to the mountain?

Why has it become so convenient to confuse weather and climate?

The 2009 cold wave in Europe and some parts of North America was all it took to bring down the average confidence in the threat of climate change.

"If its so cold, how can the climate change"?

Unfortunately, even scientists have to get defensive about their positions, reiterating that global temperatures (the planet as a whole) continue to rise, 'regardless of the fact that some parts of the United States are now experiencing an atypically cold weather'.

Now that there is a heat wave in the United States and North America (July 8th 2010), climate change has 're-become' the culprit for the extreme temperatures.

But for how long will this heat-wave remain in public memory?

Obama might make impassioned statements defending climate change; Ban ki-Moon might do so too. Scientists may come out in the defense of other fellow scientists, and US Government scientists might try to take a dig at climate skeptics. But these are not the real 'convincers'.

Opinion is shaped by reading (or listening or watching) the same convincing (need not mean true) arguments again and again. And if every second newspaper article says 'yes we have soaring temperatures, but ...', or,'yes there is a cold wave, so don't you see ...?', what would you believe?

At the least, you would start doubting that climate change is real.

I ask why well educated individuals writing in the public domain make it so easy to blinker themselves to some fundamental differences between weather and climate. Focusing on short periods of time to prove that global warming is not occurring is a misuse of the definition of climate, as much as it is a misleading way to use statistics.

Equity versus atmospheric carbon space

2010-06-29T16:24:00.001+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

For as long as countries have come together to talk about climate change and what to do about it, one of the core issues of debate has been how to apportion the responsibility of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, in a fair and equitable manner.

The inheritance of this carbon-dioxide burden, is not equal among countries. Historically, some are more responsible than others. The issue of who will do how much, and in what proportion to their historical resposibilities (called 'Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) in climate jargon), has become an issue without whose resolution a solution to climate change is not likely.

India has historically hardlined for this CBDR principle (as have most developing countries), but has stuck to a per-capita approach to emissions.The arguement has long been that the per capita emissions of an average Indian are much lower than even the global average, and that India and Indians therefore, have the 'right to develop' (since development implies an increase in emissions).

Recently however, there has been some independent thinking from scientists and academicians within India, asking for a reasessment of the per capita approach. Key scientific associations involved in the debate are the Delhi Science Forum (DSF) and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). These and other organisations including the Centre for Policy and Resarch, have been pushing the Indian government to look at a slightly different approach to emissions, considering the rapid rate with which India's emissions are growing.

In this context, TISS has come out with a model that reallocates the available 'carbon space' of the atmosphere while ensuring that the total sum of emissions does not exceed the estimated dangerous limit. The model has been constructed based on a realistic evaluation of the current occupation of carbon space by countries.

The report indicates that many developing countries have not utilised their full proportion of 'available' carbon space (subject to industrialised countries that currently use up that space making it available for countries like India), which is close to 17% of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by 2050, while carbon space is around 4 %.

Admitted, India needs to develop in order to alleviate poverty, raise standards of living and increase capacity to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. But can it do so while making a conscious effort to move towards a low-carbon economy, and not utilise its full quota of future carbon space?

Read the report: Meeting equity in a finite carbon world

From markets with love

2010-06-01T10:26:00.002+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

The carbon super market may just get another goodie!

At the Carbon Expo, carbon traders are discussing the launch of the Green Bond or International Carbon Bond. Like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that pays developing countries to reduce GHG emissions , the Green Bond will do just the same.

To the uninitiated, the CDM is the principal tool for engaging with developing countries on mitigation policy. This allows developed country governments and companies to meet emissions reduction targets in part by purchasing certified emissions reduction credits (CERs) which they receive in return for financing projects in developing countries which reduce emissions. This is also known as “offsetting”.

India and China are the leading countries in CDM projects but recently China has over taken India. While India entered the CDM market in 2003, the size of projects is small – largely driven by mid-sized companies. However this could change, should some of the Indian Public Sector Units chose to enter the carbon markets.

Like some bonds, including Daniel Craig, this is also hot .And here is why.

Unlike the CDM process where there is a lengthy review process, with the Green Bond, the money is paid up front by investors and the returns guaranteed to the investor. The Investor then would be free to trade the bonds in international market.

And here is the sweet spot.It would be like a sovereign debt.So if the project fails and there is no reduction in emissions,the investor is protected as the bond is backed by the World Bank or some such financial institution.

So if you want to make some quick bucks, watch this space and keep in touch with your investment banker - he is very likely to sell you the bond and not the sun.

Of banana peels and popcorn

2010-05-21T10:25:00.000+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

About two weeks ago, I met Peo and Satoko Ekberg.

Peo is from Sweden - a country that is fueling ahead to be the world's first oil-free country by 2020.This is without increasing its nuclear energy capabilities.I would call this ambition, to a point of being far fetched.,but Sweden seems to be on its way. From 70% energy from oil in 1975, today only 30% of its energy comes from oil.

So are the 9 million Swedes committed to this idea. Is it really possible to break the oil dependency and still run a first world country efficiently? From what Peo tells me, yes.

Buses run on banana peels and kitchen waste, elevators are solar powered, taxis ferry you on coffee wastes collected from coffee shops. The capital, Stockholm, has reduced its household wastes by 97% - a big part of the garbage is recycled into energy to power homes and transport. Public transport in Stockholm now runs a 100 % on bio-energy. The list goes on.

So I asked Peo, what does the city smell like with all this garbage in buses, taxis and cars? Oh ! Fresh pop corn.

So next time you get a whiff of fresh pop corn, remind yourself that you may not be in a cinema house watching “An Inconvenient Truth” but you are probably in Sweden, on a bus, going to watch Bergman’s “Autumn Sonata”

Here comes Christiana

2010-05-19T10:24:00.001+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

In my mind this could have been breaking news.

Christiana is from Costa Rica, a developing country, and is a woman. A great combo. And if you did not know, Costa Rica is well on its way to becoming the first carbon neutral country by 2020. We finally have a woman who will head a traditional old boys club. So there. She is not your usual suspect in the least. She has the perfect CV to qualify for the job and having been around and part of the international negotiations since 1995 she knows the climate politics machinery all too well. She is a well recognised International leader on strategies to address global climate change .Nothing really could have denied her the job .

There is hope by the South that she will from time to time where the hat of the LDCs, the OASIS, the developing countries .Something that her predecessor was accused of not doing enough of. The voice of the most vulnerable will at last be heard and there will be action!

But this is what I am thinking.

Carbon trading, Clean Development Mechanisms, REDD,REDD Plus, Carbon Tax, Kyoto Protocol, COP 15 and even COP16 ,Bali Action Plan, Emission trading, Carbon pricing, will not solve the problem . And sadly neither will Christiana.

Spill Baby Spill

2010-05-18T10:22:00.001+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

A very predictable header but after going drill baby drill, this is what happened at British Petroleum s “ultra” Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. About 70,000 barrels of oil a day (and still counting) are being spilled into the ocean since April 20, 2010. The drilling was really “ultra deep”. The worry is not so much about when the spilling will be contained but where the oil will land up.

With no end in sight, the blame game has begun among the 3 actors. The project is owned by BP. Transocean owns the rig and has leased it to BP till 2013 and Halliburton, the oilfield services company, did the cement work to cap the well.

The impacts have not even begun to be considered. The toxic compounds in oil are known human carcinogens and hydrocarbons are particularly relevant if inhaled or ingested –for both humans and animal. For birds, the timing could not be worse. They are breeding and nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore. Nothing short of a catastrophe.

It will ruin for years to come the abode of the resident seabirds, waders, waterfowls, heron, pelicans, oystercatchers, migratory birds (swallows, buntings) that use the Gulf Wetlands as a stopover. With waters and coastal regions already feeling the impact of the oil spill, these birds could be at risk. It will totally disrupt migratory patterns and could result in mutations of certain species. Short-lived species such as shrimp or crabs may disappear in the region. The fishing industry in the area will pay its price.

While I am no expert on oil -from rigs to spills, this much I know. That when you get ultra greedy, you ultra dig and recovering will be ultra costly.

So my message for British Petroleum is this.

Drop that hubris .Admit that there are better forms of energy that we deserve.

And if this is not the right moment to improve your energy mix, you deserve to stay at the “bottom of the barrel”

Summertime and the fish are not jumpin

2010-05-16T10:22:00.001+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

While mercury soars across the sub continent, parts of the wettest state, Kerala, suffers from drought. This is unusual for God s own country. It is also unusual for the garden city, Bangalore, to touch 38 degrees centigrade. It is unusual that there are no glaciers in the summer months, even 40 km around Srinagar's east-side mountains. While Rajasthan is known for its desert heat, it is unusual that many of its districts are experiencing about 6 degree centigrade temperature increase.

But this is not about an unbearable summer where everything and everyone seems to wilt away and there is general listlessness. This is really about some myths and reality.

The myth is that climate has always changed so this is normal. The reality is that the climate is changing at a speed like never before.
The myth is that we can wait. The reality is that we have no time.
The myth is that climate change action is costly. The reality is that inaction will cost us more.
The myth is that money grows on trees . The reality is that it actually does.
The myth is that we can change – the reality is that we can t change fast enough.

MoEF must not die

2010-05-16T10:20:00.001+05:30

By: Viva Kermani

I have to give it to him.

Jairam Ramesh is the best Environment Minister India has had. And I am saying this as he completes his very first year in office. So for someone who said that this was a ministry he was least expecting to head, Jairam has done rather well.

The list of his hits is long.

For once, we have an environmentalist leading the Environment Ministry. We have someone who comes with independent thinking – and this is like music to my ears !

Starting with transparency, public consultation on bt Brinjal, cancelling projects that were given bogus environmental clearances ,creating a proper, user friendly website for the Ministry, knowing the difference between REDD and REDD Plus, getting rid of retired bureaucrats who have been negotiating India’s future , efforts to ramp up India’s mitigation efforts on climate change, Jairam Ramesh needs applause.

I don’t want to get into all the details of his accomplishment and neither do I want to get into his boo-boos, but what strikes me is the courage of his conviction, his willingness to fight to the end, his determination to change a corrupt ministry and to cleaning up the mess that he inherited.

Jairam Ramesh is clearly one of the Pet Shop boys and with good reason .While he is certainly no puppy, his pedigree, his penchant for strategy and independent thinking, surely makes him the leader of the pack.

If he goes, MOEF will go back to being on its death bed and will languish. We will then continue to degrade our forest, continue to classify forest as wastelands, only to be given away to mining giants, we will once again create a ministry of collusion and corruption in the name of development.

So yes, Jairam Ramesh must stay put.
For a change I can chant - the right man in the right job .And with no intention of sounding clichéd, I also believe he is the right man in the wrong party. And with that thought, I think I smiled

Why we need Mr. Paryavaran Bhavan (Jairam Ramesh)

2010-05-14T17:55:00.007+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Is it that we never expected to see someone, that too a political someone like Jairam Ramesh, take the reins of his new job, hit the ground running, show such corporate-style efficiency and competence, and be so clued-in about the whole thing?

Not in our dictionary of expectations: Ability to be efficient, ability to 'see my point of view', be a Blackberry-modern thinker.

Unstated fact: we credit them with little intelligence, expect them to turn a deaf ear to issues they should care about (which includes what we care about).

But let’s face it, Ramesh is a capable and well-connected politician with a mission, one entrusted to him by the PM.

Said Dr Singh: “India has not caused the problem of global warming. But try and make sure that India is part of the solution. Be constructive; be proactive”

Ramesh could well have taken his role in international climate politics extra-seriously, and remain the de-facto Indian ambassador for climate change. But he carries out his domestic (and real job-profile) duties with the same amount of rigour. Ramesh has pushed for setting a framework in place – whether on policies, systems of operation or regulations. Things that will last even after he is gone from the post. One of the first things he did, to show his commitment to transparency, was to change the wooden doors of his office to glass. (If I were an under-the-table-dealings minister who took his place, would I be unable to re-install the wooden doors or what!)

So while we may disagree with some of the policies he pushes for, or with the way in which some policies have turned out, we cannot question his integrity.
Despite his wrong-place (when in China) and inappropriate statements on an issue that did not concern his ministry (it did the Home Ministry), or his many vocal statements in the past concerning environmental issues (India will win the Nobel Prize for dirt and filth if there was one, locking horns with transport minister Kamal Nath over environment clearances), he continues to do his job as environment minister with considerable efficacy. (Pray why is an environment minister (no lesser rank mind you), asking legitimate questions about environment clearances frowned upon for asking them?)

In our defense (and there are gaping holes in it), no previous environment minister has set the precedent for such efficacious and even prolific productivity.

Citizen consultations (what’s that?) on BT Brinjal, follow-up actions (!) regarding cancellation of environmental clearance (really?), inviting comments (inviting comments – are you sure?) on ToR for Elephant Task Force, sector-specific EIA manuals that will provide users and other stakeholders greater clarity about the environmental clearance project (again, really?), a paperless National CDM Authority (not bad), pollution indices for major industrial clusters…

All of the above and many more, all on a website that is updated as fast as a private news-channel (transparency again).

We didn't expect this much yaar! That, really, is our defense.

So even if you sensationalise the man’s many foot-in-mouth statements, and dull some of the sheen on his productivity by saying not all of the output was beneficial, admit that India has never had such a capable, intelligent and go-getter environment minister. None have been as approachable or responsive, and none have been as committed to ‘doing the job’. And none have been as cool.

Never before has the environment ministry and minister made as many headlines or environment and environment issues got so much national coverage. If not a Nobel Prize we can certainly ask for a Limca record for maximum headlines from an environment ministry.

To poke more holes in our defense, Jaago Re! This is the 21st century, and we need to expect our netas to deliver on more counts than 12th standard pass, no criminal records and Lok Sabha attendance (in a white Ambi).

At the end of the day, we need Ramesh just where he is, and definitely not outside the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

BEE's masterstroke: Bachat Lamp Yojana

2010-05-07T17:01:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency has pitched for and bagged the world's largest carbon credit project - the Bachat Lamp Yojana . The BLY aims to prevent 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, and make CFL bulbs cheap enough for 400 million energy inefficient incandescent bulbs to be replaced.

Thomas Edison's first full-scale test of the incandescent bulb in 1879 lasted 13.5 hours. It was one of the first successful experiments to commercialise the light bulb. Over a hundred and thirty years down the road, the modern version, with a tungsten filament in place of the carbon filament that Edison and others first experimented with, is just as inefficient as its ancestral prototypes. Poultry farms across India use it to heat their coops - not surprisingly - because roughly 90 percent of the power it consumes is emitted as heat.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency estimates that there are over 400 million light points in India using incandescent lights (ICLs). Replacing these ICLs can potentially reduce over 6000 MW in electricity demand.

That metric is just what the Bureau of Energy Efficiency's aims to get at. But it aims to overcome the cost barriers to CFLs - currently priced between Rs. 80 and 130, by subsidising it through a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project, and making CFLs available at Rs 15 per bulb. The subsidy to consumers will be met through financial investors lending the upfront finance to electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs), who can then sell CFL bulbs at the decided rate. Investors will make back their investment when they sell carbon credits in international carbon markets, either to countries who have to meet their UN targets, or to interested companies in Europe.

The BEE masterstroke is that individual state governments or power companies will not have to register each of their projects under the UN's CDM system (a long-drawn out process). Unfortunately, there is no law in India that is phasing out ICLs, unlike some other countries, and this is a barrier to implementation. The BLY scheme will mostly amount to a 'demonstration', although it will definitely amount to a lot of energy and emissions saving. But the BEE hopes that by 2012 (by which time the project comes to a close), there will be more willing domestic consumers, increased scale of operation, and lowered retail costs to CFLs.

India & China: The Renewable Energy 'Outsourcees'?

2010-04-20T09:12:00.006+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

News reports coming out of the United States suggest that India and China are 'stealing' US solar jobs - what with companies halting manufacture of solar panel components in America. In this capitalistic global economy, profits mean too much for private companies to have nationalistic or altruistic bottom-lines. So if BP solar made a purely business decision by halting production in the US while opening manufacturing plants in India and China, then such a move should come as no surprise.

Agreed - such news is alarming, because it gets one thinking this could well be the precursor to another outsourcing blitzkrieg. But blaming third-world eager beaver private players for snatching away US skilled and semi-skilled jobs may not be a completely fair diagnosis.

Any student of history will know that an explanation for present-day happenings could well lie in the past. So simply pointing a convenient finger at India and China for taking away what is not theirs, may not be an objective enough analysis.

China's first-mover advantage

Long before the phrase 'low-carbon' became uber-cool, China had enacted (in 2006) a series of laws and policies that would push the country's renewable energy mix up to 15 percent. What this effectively did, was to create the space for clean-energy businesses to thrive in the settings of a booming national economy.

In this capitalistic world, and one in which China fought for no caps on trading in other sectors, developed countries were justifiably peeved with the Chinese government's active policy of creating unfair market barriers for foreign firms hoping to get a slice China's profit pie.

But we have to give it to China - they had the foresight and the stubborn will to enforce their policies. We also cannot claim that their renewable energy boom came in 2010 - everyone had seen it coming since 2008. China has now become the fastest growing wind-energy market, the world's largest producer of wind turbines, and is home to Suntech, the world's largest producer of solar photovoltaics by volume.

The elephant moves pre-Copenhagen

India has awoken late - just pre-Copenhagen. But in the short (by Indian standards) span of one year, missions have been approved and budgets allocated to respective ministries and agencies. The juggernaut has been set in motion, and will move faster in two years from now - at least for solar energy production and energy efficiency.

Also heartening is the knowledge that our leaders know that they need to capitalise on the time they have now, and on the world's opinion of India.

Domestic moves towards renewable energy in the energy mix and a lower-carbon economy will obviously have desired and beneficial side-effects. Those could even multiply with South-South cooperation - if the camaraderie between Brazil, South Africa, China, Russia and India develops the way it has in the past six months.

US inaction post-Copenhagen

The US Climate Bill bore the promise of change. To the world, a first-step commitment to tackle climate change, to potential job-seekers in the US, clean-energy jobs, to potential entrepreneurs, the promise of a booming business. But is has been so late in coming, that one cannot blame other first and fast-movers for seizing the opportunity first.

When every nation wants to be a 'deal maker' and everybody wants to 'be the change', opportunity can be created, capitalised on, taken, and lost, but it cannot be 'stolen'.

India before the low-carbon tipping point

2010-04-07T16:27:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Renewable energy is now in fashion in India, and one of its biggest promoters is the government. That is undoubtedly a good thing, because so as far as reach goes, they beat anyone else. What with the power to make policies, issue policy directives, enact bills and create directed programmes such as the Remote Village Electrification Programme.

Apart from policy and programme related actions, the Union government has taken it upon itself to green the Parliament House, and to push for all government buildings to install solar panels on their premises. Then there is the very likely possibility of solar electricity getting subsidised by 30 percent for those who wish to install solar panels on their rooftops (grid connected). If states back this with more subsidy, home owners could get a total of 50 percent subsidy on power generation from solar panels.

A proposal by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to mandate all mobile service providers to to get their power from solar panels rather than from diesel, could translate into a saving of 5 million tonnes of CO2 annually, and about 2 billion litres of diesel each year.

All of these initiatives are either part of or tie into, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).

New Delhi, courtesy the Commonwealth Games has taken it upon itself to go greener. The Thyagaraja Stadium will be run on solar energy for the period of the games, following which the power it generates will go to the grid. Naveen Patnaik, Orissa's CM has pushed through rural electrification using solar power, for 3000 remote villages across the state. The Punjab government in collaboration with US companies are all set to create a network of solar power plants that are expected to generate 1000 MW of solar power.

Then there are the private and the public-private players. BHEL wants to re-enter the wind turbine manufacturing market. Suzlon just landed a massive deal to produce wind turbines for a company in Gujarat.

The list of announcements and projects in the pipeline goes on. Although India is a big country, the thought that comes to mind is, are we on the path to a game-changer? Are we at that tipping point that Malcom Gladwell so expertly enumerates in his book with the same title? Arguably India is a big country with a billion plus people, and clearly, we are still far from that tipping point. But just to preempt some thought, are the 'settings' right for us to get there there and beyond?

The government is trying to tweak settings across the board - the JNNSM and the NMEEE are two examples. Even hard core 'developmentalists' would agree that a move towards energy sources that ensure energy security are in any nation's best interests. And we have no dearth of people and networks who can potentially create a meme so powerful that it spreads like a virus.

So here's to a new hope and a new tipping point!

Why the State is key to a real green jobs market

2010-03-18T17:41:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The pre and aftermath of Copenhagen has undoubtedly been the heightening of interest in the key words: green jobs (among others of course). However, the excitement and buzz around the notion of a low-carbon job, runs ahead of the actual creation of a successful 'green job' market.

Success is relative, but a real green job market would be one that fuels the clean energy economy. And for that, we need a pre-planned change in the policy climate. One that fuels a clean energy economy and takes green jobs along with that growth curve.

We don't need targets just for the National Solar Mission, we need a bigger vision. We need a thought-space in India's national climate policy, on how to use this opportunity to create green jobs (not just jobs). We need the people deciding national policies to pen down the pathways by which the country will get green jobs fuel clean growth, and for clean growth fuel green jobs. That will be the real game-changer.

If not, it is likely that a green job will remain a 'green MBA', a LEEDs certified green building consultant, and a carbon analyst. And clearly, only some buildings will be green, not all. In addition, the words 'green job' will continue to give the impression that such work automatically brings you below-par a normal job vis-a-vis the pay scale or career prospect path, possibly because you tend to associate the word green with non-profit.

If we want green jobs to deliver to their true potential, an electrician in a retrofit company, a public transport employee and an engineer in a wind energy company won't be the only ones holding a green job. Even the plain old investment banker, librarian and local salesman should fit the bill.

While the librarian and salesman are currently idealistic green jobbers, they are not unreachable Utopian goals.We can get to Stage I of green jobbing the country by getting the State to create demand for green jobbers, and focus on capacity building though green skill training. Focus on the industries and development that can scale-up green jobs. A good start would be the energy efficiency, renewable energy and agriculture sectors. Green skill training does not create a 'green certified' mechanic, rather it incorporates additional new technology and methods training into existing curricula.

To get to Stage II, we need policy reforms that will create the regulatory environment and give the impetus for low-carbon growth. Including mandatory industry standards in product supply chains and life cycles, operations and maintenance. That is what will move green jobs into the 'open sea' of competition, and make many more jobs green than they currently are.

And the colour of the 2010-11 Union Budget is...

2010-03-08T14:16:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Pranab Mukherjee's Union Budget of 2010-11 proposes an initial step forward in India's transition to clean energy and lower emissions. In his budget speech he said 'while we must ensure that the principle of 'polluter pays' remains the basic guiding criteria for pollution management, we must also give a positive thrust to development of clean energy'. And so the budget aims to give that thrust to clean energy through a series of initiatives: higher outlays, tax and customs breaks (some continued from 2009-10), and a clean energy fund.

Note however the government target of adding 78,000 MW of power by 2012. For this, and in keeping with Planning Commission recommendations, Pranab Mukherjee announced the government's plan to accord the highest priority to capacity addition in the Power Sector. Plan allocation has been doubled from 2,230 crore last year to 5,130 crore this year. The eventual aim of such capacity addition is to get power to the 500 million Indians who currently have no access to electricity. However, the means to that end are currently through increased production of coal and of supercritical thermal power plants.

After a wait of nearly two years, the pet mission of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) - the Jawharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (NSM) has gotten its first allowance. Accordingly, the outlay of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)'s has nearly doubled: from 620 crore (USD 135 million) in 2009-10 to 1000 crore (USD 218 million) in 2010-11. Another major proportion of money for the NSM is expected to come from a clean energy cess on coal (both domestic and imported) - at Rs 50 (USD 1) per tonne. This money, will be channeled through the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) - designated for funding research and innovative projects in clean energy technologies.

This coal cess is expected to generate 3250 crore in 2010-11. For sure, inflow to the NCEF is bound to increase as coal consumption rises in the country year on year (as it has been over the past few years), and is expected to be able to generate millions for the NCEF.

The second NAPCC pet mission - the yet-to-be-announced National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) - is second in line. While mission details are not out as yet (but rumoured to be launched on 1 April 2010), money-before-plan seems to be the approach for this mission. Nevertheless, energy conservation gets143.94 crore, and the Bureau of Energy Energy Efficiency (BEE) gets 66.92 crore.

These provisions as well as a boost to the renewable energy sector through a cut on excise duty for electric vehicle parts, wind turbines, LED lights and CFL lights promises growth in these sectors. LED lights, wind turbine components and solar cycle rickshaws get reduction in excise duty. Small hydro, solar and micro power projects in Ladakh (J&K) get 500 crore.

However, there is as yet no concerted strategy for India - one that lays out India's plans for changing its renewable energy mix by (for example) 30 percent by 2020, 40 percent by 2025, and 60 percent by 2050. These is as yet no plan that will help realise India's voluntary commitment to the international community - of 20-25% reduction of emission intensity by 2020.

Business as usual is likely to be the growth trend: with coal continuing to make up a major proportion of the energy mix of the country in the near future.

So despite a partial roll-back of fossil-fuel subsidies and an increase in taxation on motor vehicles, a clean energy fund funded by dirty energy is rather similar to nature conservation grants coming from petroleum and mining companies. Much like the old Hindi saying 'Ek hath se lo, ek hath se do'. (Give something away with one hand and take an equivalent amount back with the other).

Disclaimer: admitted - funds must start somehow and somewhere. For now, what better than levy a charge on coal. Therefore, by no means does one trash the fund itself, nor its intent. One just questions the point of having a source that you eventually, and ideally want to contain.

The colour of the budget is pale green.

Tell the truth about climate change

2010-02-24T19:30:00.005+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Media reporting on climate: Effective in clouding perspectives, but to what effect?

Ever since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change retracted a statement saying that Himalayan glaciers are 'likely to melt by 2035', speculation in the media has been rife as to whether the Himalayas are melting at all. Anyone with some capacity of reason would realise that the number (2035) was not as important as worldwide observations that corroborate the 'widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades, which are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century'.

This clearly goes to show that glaciers around the world are retreating. If by some magical force or chance of probability, Himalayan glaciers remain immune to such effects, we still need tremendous investment in Himalayan glacier research to tell us that very fact. The fact remains that there are woefully few studies on Himalayan glaciers - particularly those published in international peer-reviewed journals, to come to the conclusion that there is little, no, or all reason to worry.

The IPCC on January 20th officially acknowldeged that this 2035 number was based on 'poorly substantiated rates of recession for the disappearance of Himalyan glaciers'. While there is little doubt that the IPCC comes under the scanner for failing to implementing scientific best practice in preparing its own reports, the ramifications of that point are 'outside the scope of this article'.

Media-created super-hype - of Himalayan glaciers not melting by 2035' gives the average reader who has no initiation into the methods of scientific process, nor the gift of deciphering scientific jargon (sometimes superbly complicated and often undecipherable), the opinion that there is little to worry about as far an Himalayan glaciers are concerned.

But the fact remains that studies about the state of Himalayan glaciers are woefully inadequate. Even mountain research organisations such as ICIMOD repeatedly bring up the issue. Nepal and Bhutan wouldn't cry hoarse about something they are not threatened by or not experiencing (read glacier lake outburst floods).

But the fact remains that media persons reporting on sensitive and highly scientific issues such as climate change must be 'initiated' enough to understand what scientists are trying to say through their publications.

Admittedly scientists are not a communicative lot when it comes to their findings - they publish their reports but do not publish a common man's decoded version of the same. In their defense, they are often constrained by the ethics of science, of remaining objective about their findings.

The constrained nature of scientific expression must literally 'get the goat' of a media culture that depends on controversies and immedeate conclusions to get the necessary eyeballs. But this, more than anything, increases media responsibilty levels. It demands that the media understand the importance of objectivity in science as much as the ramifications of raking up enough dust to create a storm - one that makes everyone forget the reason for the harangue in the first place.

Through the entire month of raging controversy, how many voices of reason did we hear? How many were more concerned about what future steps needed to be taken in order to gain a better understanding of the Himalayan ecosystem and its glaciers? The answer is there to all to see. Not even governments raised a voice.

Instead, media was rife with scientists vindicating themselves, ministers defending their pet 'grey literature' and unsubstantiated reports, and general IPCC-bashing. What's more, it was a field day (month or more) for climate sceptics (more on that in a separate article), and a black month for those of us who know that climate change is a reality we must now come to terms with.

This Indian New Year: sweet news on climate action

2010-01-11T17:10:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Yugadi marks the beginning of a new year in the Deccan regions of India: ‘yuga’ means era and ‘adi’ means new beginning. While the day that marks Yugadi is still a few months away, India’s new engagement to the Copenhagen Accord and with climate change has begun this January.

To mark the new year, in typical Bevu-Bella (Neem and Jaggery) style (although certainly not intentional) India is preparing a bitter-sweet offering for climate change – one that symbolizes life’s highs and lows.

The bella news first - the announcement of a planning commission body that will draw out a detailed roadmap for the implementation of India’s carbon intensity reduction plans. The group has till April to finalise its report, and will present its report in September. Drawing heavily from representatives of the public and private sector including Deepak Puri of Moser Baer and Tulsi Tanti of Suzlon, the report aims to be the foundation of India’s low carbon strategy.

Sweeter bella news second – PM Manmohan Singh, at the launch of the Solar Mission today said India should aspire to have Solar Valleys, along the lines of Silicon Valley, transforming India’s energy prospects. PM Singh said the ambitious 20,000 MW target is doable despite the costs it entails, if we ‘single-mindedly strive to achieve it as a priority national endeavour’. While some civil society bodies are skeptical of the 20,000 MW target, which might require an investment of 54 billion USD over the next twelve years, what is heartening is that the government is not yet willing to give up its ambitions.

As of now, the neem-taste is mellow – it appears that the BASIC countries are still to coordinate the pledges and proposed actions for emission reductions they will put forward before 31st January this year. On the invitation of Jairam Ramesh, BASIC country ministers are due to meet in the third week of this month – and one only hopes that they do not shy away from putting out their targets, and do so without the fear of these pledges being converted into international commitments in the future.

May this year be filled with more good news!!!!

Action Stations!

2009-12-24T16:39:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Two years of promises and hope ended in major disappointment as we watched world leaders – the biggest muscle-flexers at that – pushing for a greenwash, poorly drafted Copenhagen Accord, to which not a single country could be held accountable for its actions.

The world was expecting something not unlike what we see in the movies as a Copenhagen Outcome - a happy end to a bad patch in history – a kalyug of sorts. But let’s face it: what we have is the Copenhagen Accord – a document that makes no promises on emission reduction targets in the mid or long term (the one thing the planet badly needed).

Nevertheless, that is what we have. It might not be as good as “what could have been”, or “what could have emerged out of the Long-term Cooperative Action process” of the UN Climate Convention. But it is admittedly better than a failure of talks. And yes, it is better than having a deal in which the (now) second largest emitter of greenhouse gases refuses to accept its fair share of responsibility for the sake of protecting its sovereignty or for reasons best known to it.

For now, the existence of the Accord means we have work to do. It is time to invest in re-pushing for all countries to convert a modified Copenhagen Accord into a legally binding and fair outcome by Mexico City 2010. It is time to push all major economies to pledge ambitious targets into Annex I and II of the Copenhagen Accord by 31st January 2010.
Instead of ourselves beginning a blame-game analyses and explaining to the world what we think went wrong, it is time to ‘adjust maadi’ and move on from here. Let us push for ambition from now on, rather than wishing for what could have been.

Why would we be so willing to settle for such a bad deal so easily? Simply because we would be naïve to think that the Copenhagen Accord will be retracted. And to think that us fighting over points of order and history, and what should have come out, will help combat global climate change.

We need the forward-look and proactive civil society engagement on this, and as soon as possible.

Making a big deal out of a bad deal

2009-12-22T16:25:00.006+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Nations of the world had a small window of opportunity to zero-in on a deal that would begin taking serious steps towards preventing dangerous climate change. Admittedly, the decisions would not have been easy to take, nor to follow through. But certainly, taking those hard decisions would have been the right thing to do.

Never before has there been such large-scale political willingness to act on climate change. And thanks to the Danish Presidency, never before had 112 heads of state come to a climate conference to lock-in some serious ambition. But that opportunity was lost because leaders managed to cook the climate soup and evaporate all ambition.

If only you peruse the Copenhagen Accord, you will see the glaring absence of two things crucial to a strong deal – numbers and strong legal terms.

Copenhagen Accord: What it says and [doesn't say]

Deep cuts in global emissions to limit temperature rise to 2°C [Targets for emission cuts, mid-term and long-term global goals]
Peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible [Peaking year (even if only an ideal number)]
Enhanced action on adaptation (focus on small island states, Africa & least developed countries) [Mechanisms for action on adaptation]
Industrialised countries to implement (individually or jointly) economy-wide emission targets for 2020 [Details on who does how much, proportion of offsets, level of compulsion (legal or not) for targets and finances]
Developing countries - implement mitigation actions – communicated through National Communications every two years [For major economies no required deviation from BAU, details on national MRV procedures]
Scaled-up, new and additional financing and improved access to finance. Focus on mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer, capacity building and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). 30 billion USD fast-start financing for 2010-12, and 100 billion USD per year by 2020, particularly through a Green Climate Fund through a variety of sources.
Assess implementation of this Accord by 2015 [Proportion from public financing, who gives how much, how to convert pledges into action, mode of disbursing finance]

Leaders will defend the Accord saying it was the one saving grace of Copenhagen. It was the reason the talks did not collapse. The UN will try too. They are undoubtedly in serious denial. And if they think they will achieve much in Mexico City in 2010, they are sadly mistaken. That is, unless they give their negotiators some strong mandates for the planet and not their individual countries.

Yes, the Copenhagen Accord is a start. And yes, it can become something solid – once numbers and strong legal language come in, and once it becomes legally binding. But that is possible if and only if environmental integrity is preserved even in its most starved form. The Copenhagen Accord was simply not enough. It pales in comparison to what the science requires (it can in fact, almost assure us of a 3 degree Celsius world). It does not even ensure low-lying island states of their survival beyond 2050 or thereabouts, and at its core, it is by no means ethically sound - it cares two paisa for the planet.

The blame-game has begun, and while that is not a fruitful exercise, I am most tempted to ask all leaders who drafted that agreement – what were you thinking?

Here comes Hopen-Copenhagen!

2009-12-07T17:12:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The Fifteenth Conference of Parties is here – COP15 – in Copenhagen. The outcome itself is to be a political statement – way below initial expectations. But it can still be fair, ambitious, equitable and all of the other things it once promised. While we await the start of the opening ceremony, at which the Danish Prime Minsiter Lars Lokke Rasmussen is due to speak, one cannot but help reflect on the week gone by and the rapid pace of developments back home in India.

Jairam Ramesh visited Beijing at the express request of China, to meet with other developing country giants and sign on to a counter proposal for a draft political statement, now called the BASIC draft. Soon after, he spoke in the Lok Sabha and later in the Rajya Sabha, announcing that India too would take on voluntary, unilateral and non-legally binding emission cuts. The proposal is to reduce India’s carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020, and includes mandatory fuel efficiency standards and building codes to help make that reduction. Considering India’s historic position and unwillingness to put forward any targets or numbers, this is a watershed development of sorts. And the timing could not have been better. India was, by the time of the BASIC meeting (other than South Africa), the only key player in the negotiations to have refrained from putting forth any ‘intent of action’ statements on the table.

Jairam Ramesh’s proposal in the Lok Sabha, last Thursday, was not met with a walkout, but with concerted discussion about climate change and what it means for India. While many members of Parliament asked for India to clarify what its stand would be at Copenhagen, and were clear on developed countries acting first and fastest, the discussion indicated that climate change was on the minds of many MPs, and that many were ready for change. The Minister’s good fortune did not however, carry through to the Rajya Sabha, where opposition party members led by Arun Jaitley did stage a walkout, termed the current proposal as an ‘abandoning’ India’s historical position, and accused the government of unilaterally changing India’s position. While Jairam Ramesh and India have made it repeatedly clear that they will at no cost take on legally binding emission cuts, and there is ‘no dilution in our stand’, the BJP called the unilateral emission cut a ‘bad strategy’.

Some delegates of the Indian negotiating team also showed dissent at this announcement, and have not arrived in Copenhagen as yet. They include Ambassador Dasgupta and ex-environment secretary Prodipto Ghosh. Ambassador Dasgupta said he delayed his departure in order to seek clarifications from the minister on the implications of this cut in carbon intensity. While he claimed he had no issue with the cuts in emission intensity itself, his main concern was that this was a unilateral action that demanded no reciprocity.

While that may be a point to note, the very act of developing country giants China, India, Brazil and South Africa putting forth voluntary cuts predicates reciprocity of action from developed countries even on fundamental ethical levels. And we would be wrong in saying India has as yet played all her cards. This is the first hand – and a good one to start with at that!

India give us a number!

2009-11-30T17:41:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

A mid-October European Commission conference might have severely dampened our hopes of any flesh to a Copenhagen deal (the flesh itself is highly conditional and must be palatable to 192 plus nation states) anytime soon. Nevertheless, while ambitious hopes for Copenhagen may have come crashing down, what we do have is a political statement to be issued by end of COP – to be produced by the Danes as a possible basis for the upcoming negotiations starting December 7th.

If one thought that the political agreement would be easier to broker, fresh developments come from the BASIC quarter. Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) –through China’s initiative, have prepared a counter-draft. They now have a ten-page draft that details the ‘non-negotiables’ as far as the developing giants are concerned, that will be released in Copenhagen by China’s special envoy on climate change, Xie Zhenzua. Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Environment and Forests rushed to Beijing to represent India at the meet held on Friday 27th, and while he admits that he had no inkling of such a draft-in-making, he is inclined to agree that the four developing giants are in full agreement with one another on the points of no negotiation. In any case, such an initiative from China shows they have taken a ‘leadership role’ in the Minister’s own words.

Amidst all the brouhaha, India’s Solar Mission – officially now okayed by Parliament - went unnoticed. Could this possibly be because India is putting forward missions (and drafts of missions) without any absolute calculations as to emission reductions that would result from such actions? Why does the Indian government fear mapping even five possible trajectories of emission growth up to 2030 and then estimating – in theory only – a deviation from business as usual if all these missions and related plans were to be implemented by then? Why, that would give us a lot more bargaining power that just releasing and tom-toming missions wouldn’t it?

One hopes India’s negotiators have this card up their sleeve. If they were to put down a number, a figure, and suggest that by implementing India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change and all other allied climate-friendly policies, India’s emissions would drop by say 20 percent below ‘Business As Usual’ by 2030, or to put it in a more convoluted way, that India’s rate of emission increase would decreased by 2.234% (completely hypothetical figures) each year in exponential fashion until 2030.

‘The number’ so to speak, need not imply taking that number into a legal agreement. It just means making things clear to the world in these nebulous times, that India too is capable of commitments and emission cuts, and is as serious if not more about climate change as the rest of the nation states.

Power-ful mantras for climate change - Surya evam Gai

2009-11-23T13:27:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Surya the god of light is coming nearer to getting the credit he deserves as the source of life and primary source of energy. The National Solar Mission got a nod from the Parliament on 20th November, and what’s more, the Cabinet sanctioned over 4300 crore for initial kick-off. In other power-ful news, four state-run firms will sign a joint venture to form a company that will work towards energy conservation and climate change – the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Power Finance Corporation Ltd, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd and Rural Electrification Corporation Ltd.

Also in the pipeline is NTPCs intention to set up solar power generation units at all its existing thermal power plants. The NTPC is the country’s largest electricity generator. What is heartening is the willingness of a thermal power corporation to move to solar power generation, even if it is in a small way. While power and coal lobbies in the United States are rather unhappy about carbon mitigation laws and shifting to lower carbon electricity and energy, here in India we have power corporations joining forces to implement massive solar ‘road maps’ and plans. What is also heartening is the fact that many of these initiatives are in tandem with the National Solar Mission – indication that change is not haphazard and ad-hoc, but somewhat planned.

Surya also happens to be the master chef – chief controller of all life. Meat eating is energy intensive -no wonder wild carnivores are at the top of the food chain but few in number. In support of rationalizing global meat-eating, India’s Minister for Environment and Forests (independent charge) has a new offer on the cards. The minister is now chanting the ‘gai-mantra’ of no-beef. He practices what he preaches, as do many Indians, needless to say. But such advocacy coming from a vegetarian Indian actually means a lot more to people around the world, and his leadership on this issue is actually getting accolades. From Pachauri to other politicians around the world, his statements have the logic of reason and the backing of a non-beef eating community.

So a key take-home is for India to start working on the Surya Mission – using the planning phase as a means to an end. But the Gai Mission is not a bad idea either. We can start working on the uber-rich and the die-if-I-don’t-eat-beef characters – there are plenty here too. But it isn’t a bad idea to preach it to the world either.

While We Wait - Solar Mission Release Delayed

2009-11-16T12:40:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

We awaited eagerly, the launch of the National Solar mission on November 14th, as did several corporate houses, young and upcoming entrepreneurs and investors in the green business space. But we hear that the new possible release date is 19th November.

Even a recent CII green business summit held in October reflected the level of anticipation in Indian industry about the solar mission and its promised profit goodies. However, this rather secret mission’s release was delayed by a few days, as was the target year for the completion of the mission, from 2020 to 2022 – reportedly to be in sync with the 5-year plan cycles.

While citizen consultation on missions and plans seems to have become a thing of the past, even several stakeholder business houses say they have not been consulted while preparing the mission details. Consultations with businesses in the sector would have been the ideal way to get maximal industry buy-in. However, an even bigger hole in the planning process is the lack of consultation with states on the solar mission – after all, electricity and power is a state subject.

The draft of the solar mission had been approved by the PM’s council on climate change (who met again on October 26th). The official reason for delay was because Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was unavailable at the time.

In practice, the plan should have been passed by the FM long before its release. However, we hear that a key piece of financing for this mission has been dropped. Funding for the mission was to come from a cess on coal – a minor 4 paise per tonne of coal mined anywhere in the country. But the Ministry of Coal and Power objected to this surcharge. With this key financing strategy now opposed, key bureaucrats are asking how the solar mission will be funded.

Placing levies on coal mining to generate financing for solar research appears to be but a feeble attempt to address the real issue. That of subsidizing coal power, and failing to account for its environmental effects as inbuilt cost. A balm on the expensive shoulders of solar power is this small cess. But is this the best cess that could have been levied? Couldn’t a surcharge on energy production from thermal power, however small, also be incorporated into the package as a first-step towards removing subsidies from coal and oil-based power?

These are but a few chinks in the armour. A recent television interview on the forest rights Act (2006) and the glaring lack of action or even debate on it after it being passed in 2006, indicates just how famous we are for bringing in acts and rules, plans and strategies, but just how bad we can be on follow-up.

Firm in their belief: Himalayan glaciers not retreating 'rapidly'

2009-11-11T09:42:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The Ministry of Environment and Forests has recently released a discussion paper reviewing glacial studies and glacial retreat in India. Minister Jairam Ramesh has a clear caveat in the report that the views so expressed are not endorsed by the Union of India, and that it is only mean to ‘stimulate discussion’. Interestingly, India does not have a position on glacier retreat in the Himalayas.

Prepared ex deputy chairman of the Geological Survey of India V.K. Raina, the paper provides a summary of the literature on glacier studies so far, but its main claim to fame is that it challenges internationally accepted views that the Himalayan glaciers are receding due to climate change. It says there is little evidence for the same, and that ‘none of the glaciers under monitoring are recoding abnormal retreat’.

Data from a large proportion of the studies considered in this report indicate that glacier mass balance – a measure of the difference between melting and sublimation – is negative, and that most monitored glaciers have retreated since the earliest records. Nevertheless (and despite credible evidence from around the world and closer home - China, Nepal, Bhutan), concluding remarks suggest ‘glaciers in the Himalayas, although shrinking in volume and constantly showing a retreating front, have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat…’.

Of note also, is the fact that ‘recent years’ implies 2007-2009 – a period of time that is clearly far too short to come to such sweeping conclusions, particularly on climate-related studies.

While the report suggests that the Sonapani glacier has retreated 500 m in the last century, the Kangriz glacier has ‘practically not retreated even an inch’. These statements however, are not backed by studies, neither does the ‘even an inch’ give an indication of the exact measure. In direct contrast, photographs of these glaciers in the report clearly show significant retreat – but it might be that photographs are not sufficient evidence.

The report also suggests that while glaciers are climate indicators, they need not respond to ‘immediate climatic changes’ for if that were the case, all glaciers in the region would retreat ‘equally’. Nevertheless, elsewhere in the report, an uneven retreat pattern across nearby glaciers has been justified on the grounds of local variations.

The report omits references to key scientific literature including GSI survey and studies including Vohra (1981) on Satluj River Basin glaciers, Shukla and Siddiqui (1999) on Milam glacier, all indicating significant retreat, and other scientific including the WWF (2005) report and the ICIMOD (2007) satellite-based studies and reviews on Himalayan glaciers across India, Nepal and China. It ignores known fact that small glaciers in the Bhutan (not so far away, as one may well see), have disappeared completely.

Glacier changes are recognized as high-confident climate indicators, and even considered as evidence for climate change by the IPCC. Reports from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) indicate that measurements taken over the last century ‘clearly reveal a general shrinkage of mountain glaciers on a global scale’ (WGMS report). Despite this, this report suggests that ‘to postulate that a glacier can warn of climate changes likely to take place in the future is a big question mark’. In that case, even the IPCC might be wrong in assuming that rapid glacier retreat (even in the Himalayas) is a confident indicator of climate change!

The report awaits ‘many centuries’ of data to conclude that glacier snout movements are a result of ‘periodic climate variation’ or to make a statement that glaciers in the Himalayas are ‘retreating abnormally because of global warming’.

Climate Action: India Looks Inwards and East

2009-10-26T17:25:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

While multilateral agreements such as the ones through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are the ideal solutions for global action on climate change, a ‘Grand Unification Theory’ on climate action that all countries agree to, is a hard ask for now.

While it is becoming increasingly clear that 192 counties are finding it rather difficult to come to a common consensus (political or legal) on climate change, there can be no excuses for inaction ‘until such time. ..’.

While India is committed to engaging ‘fully and meaningfully’ in the multilateral process, this ‘emergent’ has been stretching its wings on internal action, bilateral deals and regional cooperation – all in the short span of one month.

India has also played host to a high-level conference on technology development and transfer – in an attempt to provide some serious international impetus to technology transfer to developing countries. This was Part 2 of the Beijing high-level conference on technology and climate change held last year.

Andar Ki Baath: Action at home awaits the release of the much talked about solar mission - 14^th November 2009 – it will provide massive impetus to installed solar capacity, nearly 20 massive gigawatts of it by 2020. To ramp up internal knowledge and information on climate change, India launched the National Network of Climate Change Assessment (INNCCA), along the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the pipeline is climate monitoring though ISRO and talk of implicit mitigation targets and a renewable energy law.

Bhai-Bhai: On bilateral deals India has signed an MoU with Norway, largely focusing on boosting Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) contracts in India. A US-India meet is coming up in November, with PM Singh expected to discuss climate change mitigation among a range of bilateral and multilateral issues.

Nevertheless, one major MoU on which several details are out is the one between India and China. The two sides have agreed to a five-year India-China Partnership on Combating Climate Change. Among other things, the agreement establishes the need to strengthen and exchange views and cooperation on policy action for adaptation and mitigation, technology development, demonstration projects for emission reductions, and cooperation on capacity building.

Regional Cooperation: Just over is the ASEAN leaders meeting, with a joint statement on climate change emphasizing common concerns on the impact on the economy and the environment, and the need to work together and with other partners closely for a successful Copenhagen climate conference.

Zooming into the sub-continent, we have the recently concluded SAARC environment ministers’ summit, with climate change and forest conservation as key focus areas. Here, ministers underlined the crucial importance of close cooperation in the run-up to COP15, and specific cooperation on adaptation, disaster rapid response measures and regional cooperation and south-south support.

This hotbed of activity undoubtedly points to the fact that the pressure to act on climate change is mounting, and that heads of state are feeling the heat on climate change. If not, why would they be so keen to move on regional and bilateral agreements when the big multilateral agreement was showing little promise or progress? In short, the pressure has worked – maybe not to the full and desired level, but certainly enough for some action.

On another note, what does all this south-south and regional cooperation do to change global geopolitics?

EU Climate Finance Still At Zero Cents

2009-10-22T10:05:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag
While civil society expectations from Copenhagen might officially be sky-high, even the executive secretary of the UNFCCC thinks a ‘fully fledged new international treaty” is not on the cards this December.

The signs are there to read and no adept Magus is needed to make us see that for now, the path may only show a slight deviation from Business As Usual (BAU). Another round of conferencing of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in London, with UK ‘throwing everything in’ to meet the climate challenge, fell flat. The US is still not ready with an internal policy that can make domestic actions compatible with international expectations, and unless the President (or a global climate deal with the US on board) has Congressional support, the agreement will only result in positioning minus action.

With the US taking some time for internal policies to mesh with external expectations, the baton is in the European Union’s hands. EU Finance ministers met just a day ago to agree on a EU climate finance offer for Copenhagen. While murmurs indicate that no real outcome was expected here but rather at the EU Council meeting a day from now, this development in itself is reflective of a larger problem.

No negotiators, bureaucrats or even ministers seem to have the power to decide on the key sticky issues (which remain finance, targets and mitigation actions). The EU finance ministers meeting was hoping to get the EU to accept a figure of 100 billion euros starting from 2012 to help meet developing country needs. However, a number of countries including Poland wanted fast-start financing (for up to 2012) to be on a voluntary basis, and to contribute less to the EU share over time – a position that was unacceptable to the majority of EU member states. The decision on finance has now been left to heads of state at the EU Council meeting later this week.

This meeting will effectively be the last big meeting for a major block of industrialized countries to agree on a climate finance proposal. After this, the case rests with all Heads of State who will make a trip to Copenhagen in December.

Push your key ministers and Head of State to attend the Copenhagen climate negotiations. Also push them to find ambition and drive before they reach, and remember to put it on the table!

Waiting for Inspiration

2009-10-15T10:22:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The Copenhagen-minus-two round of climate negotiations came to a close last week, on 9^th October. Complicated as multilateral negotiations are, this one was particularly successful in spreading some serious despondency. This was particularly so because many big hopes had been reserved for the Bangkok talks.

As far as the negotiation process, it was hoped that a massive negotiating text would be seriously edited in the eleven days (and nights) of negotiations. As far as ambition and political will go, it was hoped that the highest level lobbying by Ban ki-Moon at the UN Secretary General’s climate summit would push political leaders to scale up their ambition, put finance on the table, and some targets to reduce industrialized country emissions for a post 2012 agreement. But also that these political statements would be converted into negotiating text.

Within a few days of the negotiations commencing, it was clear that negotiators did not have a mandate from political up-aboves to move on any of the big stumbling blocks. There was still a massive silence on the scale of finance that industrialized countries would put on the table, on the nature of the financial architecture, on their emission reduction targets up to 2012. Therefore, they did not have the mandate to cut down any text. Progress on substance was minimal, all text is still bracketed (and that means it is still to be edited) – an estimated 2500 brackets (possibly more) are said to be in the current text.

To make the waters murkier, new proposals and text continue to be put forward, when realistically speaking there is little time even to whittle down what text is already in hand. However, the nature of this process is that it is Party-driven. So Parties are allowed to make it as messy as they want to, or as neat as they prefer. New ideas on the nature of a post 2012 agreement are also on the table. Some Parties have suggested that the Kyoto Protocol be done away with (the only legally binding agreement to ensure that industrialized countries meet their commitments), and that the architecture and legal framework of Kyoto be taken into a new Copenhagen outcome. Opposing this is most developing country Parties that categorically do not want the Kyoto to die, and do not want a watered down deal in Copenhagen that does away with international legal commitments and brings down the level of ambition.

What Copenhagen holds, only December knows. Will we get a Greenwash, Failed or an Above-Expectations ambitious deal? Will there be a political declaration or a legal framework? Will the

United States

come on board? Will the scale of finance be announced? Will developed country Parties agree to deep cuts in emissions by 2050, without heavy dependence on offsets? Will key developing country Parties agree to ‘significant deviation from business as usual’ by 2050? Will technology transfer and capacity building be made accessible and affordable?

Should individual Parties stall domestic action until a multilateral deal gets done? If history is any precedent, countries must not wait to action their domestic plans. International finance may take many years to come, by which time enough damage will have been done to deplete state coffers significantly.

Healthy internal debate on India climate stand missing

2009-09-29T08:40:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

The Indian high command has been gunning for a change in image and a slight shift of position on climate change. In what is internationally being acknowledged as a welcome move, minster of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh has been globe trotting and publicising India's actions and future plans on climate change.

In China he said India could benefit from Chinese collaboration on climate. Back home in India he agreed we had a long way to go. Soon after in the United States, at the UN climate summit he vociferously emphasised India was keen to be a deal-maker, and show leadership on climate issues.

Apart from speaking of domestic plans, he publicly stated the possibility of a national bill on climate mitigation, implicit or soft targets, and the possible formation of a National Climate Change Mitigation Authority, that would direct and guide mitigation efforts and aspirational targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. There has also been recent reference to making the process of reporting on mitigation cuts more transparent and accountable. These are welcome moves that show that India can be a leader in the climate debate.

However, Opposition silence on this key issue is worrying. Agreed that the UPA has a strong majority in Parliament - enough to silence any serious dissent. But amidst all this frenetic political activity, a robust dialogue on this hot issue is seriously lacking. The opposition has neither welcomed the move, nor slammed it. They only 'unofficially' or 'softly' think that politicians are undermining the 'hard-fought' stand on climate change, and that there is little political discussion or consensus before taking a decision on such vital matters.

Surely the BJP (after handling their internal crisis) and the Communists can voice their concerns at the least? Or is the future of 500 million people by 2050 not worth the effort of debating? Jairam Ramesh says internal political dialogue and consensus is an essential - it is most important that future governments carry forward the stands and positions taken now. Flip flop in 2020 is not an option clearly, so why the silence?

India puts its weight behind climate deal

2009-09-24T10:56:00.004+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

It is possible that with all the numerous high-level international summits taking place this month, with Japan's new Hatoyama Initiative, and China's serious pledges on climate action, the international community missed out a rather important development in India changing its position on climate.

No, India hasn't yet made a complete turn around. It hasn't said it will agree to legally binding emission cuts on a deal that could be made at Copenhagen. But it has said what it has consciously refrained from even stating, in the past fifteen odd years.

The big shift is in India publicly stating that it agrees to pursue unilateral voluntary measures (no values on the table as yet) for 2020. In a move welcomed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, our environment minister Jairam Ramesh said 'we are now talking of voluntary unilateral implicitly targeted mitigation outcomes, not just actions with specific quantitative targets enshrined by law'. He also mentioned a 'per capita emission plus'.

Always one to shy away from legally binding targets, and one of the key players to push for an equitable treaty mirorring historical responsibility (necessary and key guidelines of climate negotiations today), India had probably gained the reputation of a deal-staller. Word has it that India's negotiators talk tough and have talked tough ever since the Kyoto Protocol came into action. India and China's refusal to change their negotiating position despite the need for a compromise, even after the EU's commitment to big emission cuts, has meant that Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and the United States would not commit to any ambition. This was clearly visible in Australia and New Zealand's caveats to cut even 10 percent emissions from 2005 levels 'on the condition...'.

China in the mean while, has quietly become the world's largest emitter, but also has the largest installed wind energy capacity, solar photovoltaic manufacturing units, and has reportedly planted twice the number of trees as compared to the rest of the world. They have also calculated their current and projected emissions, say they will peak by 2030, and have committed to participating meaningfully at the climate negotiations.
Clearly, it is time for India to bite the bit. India is now angling for a change in international perception. But patience wears thin as talk (and no action) on our National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and other domestic actions to cut emissions have remained on paper. The secretive draft of the solar mission suggests it will be released on 14th November 2009, everything else is 'proposed to be out by December'.Surely we are rather famous for Missions, Policies, Missions and Policies?

Only recently has the rhetoric changed, with the PM asking India to be a deal-maker, not a deal breaker.
The PM has spoken of a National Climate Change Mitigation Authority (NCCMA) - that will help realise implicit targets, and Jairam Ramesh has been speaking of a proposal to introduce an overarching central law that will guide the process.Opposition from the opposition is an drama we must expect once our ministers ready for the November session of Parliament. But as Jairam Ramesh says, we need to have everyone in the country on our side before we push for international commitments.

At this point in time, with a real climate crisis looming large (non-believers please see the IPCC report and anti-alarmists please read the papers), global collective cooperation is of utmost importance. This opportune moment will pass us by in a few years from now, and that would really make us 'the age of stupid'.

India does more climate homework

2009-09-22T14:57:00.003+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Makes 'nuanced shift' on climate position

He may not have made one bolt-from-the-blue statement that got him in trouble and on prime-time news although he may have come close. But many would agree that Jairam Ramesh, our Minister of State for Environment and Forests, has managed to keep the environment and his Ministry in the news every single day since the time he assumed office – whether owing to the introduction of new legislations, statements or interviews.

This in itself is a record for any environment minister in India till date. But Jairam Ramesh hasn’t stopped at that. He has exercised thought leadership in making the ministry more accountable, transparent and accessible, and in his efforts to bring in policies that will live on after he leaves office.

Sure enough, Mr. Paryavaran Bhavan has made his ministry a much more interesting and ‘happening’ place to be in. But intentional or not, he hasn’t stopped at that either. Right from the time UPA 2.0 took effect, Mr. Ramesh has been towing the government line on India’s position at the international climate negotiations. India has long maintained that developed nations must bear historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, that they must act first and fastest on the issue, and that they must pay developing nations for using up their ‘development space’, for adapting to climate change, and to buy expensive but cleaner technologies.

But August and early September saw the PM himself urging India to be more proactive in climate discussions, and for India not to be viewed as negotiation blocker. This resulted in a ‘greening the face’ of India’s negotiating profile and position. There has been a steady increase in policies that can dually benefit sustainability and emission mitigation. A slew of independent publications on India’s emission trajectory also boosts the greening move, and provides indigenous food for thought on the climate debate.

At the core of it, India’s international position has changed little. However, Ramesh accepts there is a ‘nuanced shift’ that India is ready to make, by agreeing to possibly quantify cuts in emissions into a ‘broadly indicative number’.

By a ‘nuanced shift’ Ramesh means that India is ready to set itself non-binding targets to cut carbon emissions, through the use of implicit targets – say a mandatory fuel efficiency law and building codes by 2011, or that 50% of all coal power must come from clean coal. To bring this into effect, Ramesh has proposed an overarching central legislation to help guide actions that will cut emissions. While this may well be a difficult proposition – it involves stepping on the toes of the heavyweight ministries of power, urban development and agriculture and the opposition, just to mention a few, the wily politician in Ramesh realizes that there needs to be enduring political consensus within the country which can then result in successful international agreements.

The Prime Minister has also proposed to set up a National Climate Change Mitigation Authority (NCCMA) that will assign and monitor green targets to be achieved by 2020 and after.

This slow volte-face is the first time ever that India has talked of quantifying emissions, or of making moves to reduce them. These developments are also refreshing in that one is reassured that India’s positions on climate neither are staid rhetoric nor cast in stone. They indicate that the debate is still evolving, moving towards a promising balance between adaptation and mitigation, and that this is a rather momentous achievement.

Wanted! Renewable Energy Policy for India

2009-09-15T17:16:00.008+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Renewable energy is today, the fastest growing energy sector in the world, with the capacity to supply half the energy needs of the world by 2050. It continues to remain a top candidate for a safe and optimal development strategy that decouples high-carbon technologies from economic growth.

Nations that can afford to invest in renewable energy unilaterally are making strong choices; several have even enacted renewable energy laws as early as 2000. India too, as a major developing economy, is taking similar strides, although not at comparable speeds.

In recent years, India has emerged as favourable destination for renewable energy investors, and continues to introduce promising policies that will bring down the cost of renewable energy technologies, and make it on par with coal-based power in a decade or two from now.

However, a glaring gap in India’s grand renewable energy plans is the lack of a National Renewable Energy Policy, still under development through the MNRE. International trends indicate that in spite of electricity laws, countries like Germany, China, Australia and Austria for example, have renewable energy policies and laws that build stability and security that investors seek in making the required large-scale investments for renewables.

Nevertheless, particular positioning still gives India an advantage. A latest McKinsey report suggests that 80 percent of 2030-India is yet to be built. In addition, India currently has an installed capacity of 13.2 GW of renewable energy, but at full stretch and owing to its tropical geography, has the potential of generating 90 GW of energy from renewable energy sources. The combination of geographic position and being at an initial stage of growth give India a unique opportunity to deploy low-carbon and energy efficient technologies that will strengthen the country’s energy security and leapfrog inefficient technologies. But this is an advantage we will not have by 2030 or even 2020.

So far, although steps in the right direction include policy-level, top-down drivers and soon-to-be-announced missions, we show our desire to move along the low-carbon track with a typical Indian inertia capable of flummoxing any fast-acting nation.

While the Energy Conservation Act 2001 and the Electricity Act 2003 exist for electricity and energy conservation in India, most renewable energy sources do not come under the purview of any law. To add to this glaring lack of general direction, constitutionally, electricity is a state subject. This means that rules and policies vary between states, and renewable energy promotion is left to individual states. In total, this has translated into fewer incentives for investment in the sector.

Efforts to streamline policies are already under way – the outcome of the National Action Plan on Climate Change has been a Renewable Energy Certificate Mechanism (REC) and the proposed National Renewable Portfolio Standard, both due to be released by December 2009. Both these aim for a holistic approach and integrated energy planning, while accommodating pre-existing laws and policies.

However, large-scale and ambitious development and deployment of renewable energy is only possible with government legislation, policies, and financial and other incentive mechanisms that then create and build the necessary environment for investment and business opportunities. The Indian juggernaut must move forward faster and capitalize completely on this dually beneficial opportunity.

References: 1.Handbook of Best Practices for the Successful Deployment of grid-connected Renewable Energy, distributed generation, cogeneration and combines heat power in India. USEA for APPCDC, 2008; 2. Overview of Renewable Energy potential of India. Meisen P. 2006. Global Energy Network Institute; 3.Environmental and Energy Sustainability: An approach for India. Mckinsey & Company 2009; 4. India Wind Energy Outlook 2009. Global Wind Energy Council; 5.Climate Change and India – Some Major Issues and Policy Implications. Prasad H.A.C. & Kochher J.S. 2009. Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India; 6.Identifying optimal legal frameworks for renewable energy in India. 2008. Baker & McKenzie.

Climate Security: Himalayas on Thin Ice

2009-09-11T10:53:00.002+05:30

By: Kaavya Nag

Climate change is no longer just about tackling and solving an environmental and social crisis. Nor is it just about changing the energy challenge. It is also being recognized as a challenge that carries serious implications for international peace.

With seven nations, two economic giants, mountain territory, unclear and contested borders and a fair number of ongoing disputes, the Himalayan region is a potent mix of elements already on thin ice.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), the mean annual temperature in the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayan region is expected to go up by 3.8 °C. Will rapidly melting glaciers and permanently ice-covered regions alter high-altitude battlefields, and exacerbate conflict to even higher heights? Will global warming change the dynamics between India, China and Pakistan – the three key players in the region?

The Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau are regions with large-scale military presence, and have been marked with the sounds of war ever since India’s Independence and the formation of Pakistan in 1947, and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1949.

Whether on the Aksai Chin, the Baltoro, Siachen, Kargil, Arunachal, Sikkim, Sino-Bhutan border, Tibet, or the Karakoram, the Abode of the Gods has always been a hotly contested region. War at 14,000 feet has always been strategically too important to too many nations to give up without a serious fight.

Given the history of high-level conflict in the region, de-militarisation is out of the question in the foreseeable future. However, the Himalayas are strategically sensitive for more important reasons. Seven major rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers - their waters feed an estimated 1 billion people. The ice that feeds them is melting fast, and this also has serious implications for glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and landslides in the region.

Access to water is likely to become a key security issue for India, China and all Himalayan states, as they try to maintain high economic growth rates and sustain large agrarian populations.

That is not all. Climate refugees are likely to be a serious issue to deal with especially in the high altitudes. High altitude disasters will become more frequent with climate change, and armed forces play an important role in providing timely aid, rescue and in rebuilding infrastructure - a role that will possibly take up a considerable portion of their time in the near future.

A report published by Indian military think tank, Institute for defense studies and analyses (IDSA) attempted to understand the geopolitical dimensions of climate change.

The Indian government has announced its willingness to cooperate with Pakistan on the issue of climate change. India has also initiated work with China on glacier research, although it is wary of ‘Chinese scientists walking all over Indian glaciers’ (read caution after 1962).

These processes mark the start of crucial trans boundary dialogues outside of border disputes that will play an important role in de-escalating overt security tension in the Himalayas and hopefully moving towards a more secure region.

Ref: Pai, N; April 2008; Indian National Interest Policy Brief.