Here comes Hopen-Copenhagen!

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 does more climate homework

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.