Hot, hot, hot: The price India paid for US aid

Even as the Ayodhya cauldron boiled, the government quietly backed the US on the Kyoto protocol. Sonu Jain examines the possible fallouts

WITH the country burning in the Ayodhya cauldron, this fact could have gone virtually unnoticed. Last month, the Indian government issued a statement endorsing the US government’s controversial view on Climate Change. It was US Ambassador in India Robert Blackwell’s lecture at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi thanking India profusely for its unexpected show of solidarity which made environmentalists sit up.

On closer investigation it turned out India had changed its stance 180 degrees to curry favour with the US. With issues like terrorism at stake, it must have seemed like a small favour to side with the US in climate change, implications of which are not clear to most and not evident immediately in India.

On February 14 this year, Bush announced a new policy which rejected the clean-up formula given by the Kyoto protocol, earlier called the Clear Skies and Global Climate Change, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Within a few days, strangely and without much publicity, the Ministry of External Affairs welcomed the US approach to environment protection and global climate change.

India’s stand so far has always been that since developed countries are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions (from excessive consumption of petrol, coal and gas amongst others), they should take the first step in cleaning up the air and environment. Overnight, it changed to saying that India welcomed President Bush’s emphasis on infrastructure building through cooperation rather than ‘‘imposing impractical and unrealistic targets on developing countries.’’

At the last global meeting on climate change in Bonn, 2001, the US had rejected the protocol proposals, saying it would cost their country millions of job cuts.

Under the Kyoto protocol, drafted on December 11, 1997, Japan and 38 other industrialised nations set a deadline of 2012 for industrialised countries to reduce their combined annual gas emissions to five per cent below 1990 levels. Though the US backed out, Japan and the European Union agreed to honour it.

Interestingly, India is all set to host the Conference of Parties on Climate Change (for Kyoto signatories who oppose the US stand) in Delhi later this year. Environmental ists wonder how this blanket praise of Bush’s statement will allow India to negotiate its previous stand.

Earth watchers who are worried about global warming believe the symptoms will show only years later. With conspicuous consumption of these fuels, the earth will heat up, causing climatic imbalances like floods, droughts and cyclones which India can least afford.

It is not surprising that in a country where pressure groups and environment watchdogs are few, the Ministry of External Affairs rode roughshod over the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The latter is the main negotiating body in international forums.

Under Bush’s new policy, greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions will increase by over 30 per cent over 1990 levels by 2010. Instead of reducing emission levels by seven per cent, as demanded by the Kyoto pact, Bush’s policy only reduces its intensity.

Bush also said that he does not absolve countries like China and India of their responsibility. What Bush ignored in his speech was the fact that emissions are much higher in countries like the US. The Indian government actually went ahead and endorsed this and the implications are not just environmental but economic too in the long run.

Right now, because of low emissions, India is not supposed to do anything immediately but it is expected that by 2008, it will be forced to start cutting emissions.

For example, in the power sector, the cheaper options would have already been sold to developed countries. India, then, would be forced to invest in more expensive technologies like wind energy.