Climate Change and India

This was the article that i wrote for The Hindu Business Line. An abridged version was published on 03, May 2007. 

Our Indian planners find themselves in a fix in the wake of the fourth assessment report of the U.N.Intergovernmental panel on climate change. On one hand our economy is growing at a robust 9.2 percent and has bagged Investment grade by reputed international rating agencies. On the other hand, we are facing a huge environmental threat. The fourth assessment report testifies a crisis in the making for south Asia in general and India in particular if businesses go as on today.

So what are our options? Do we put brakes on our economic growth? Do we radically transform our manufacturing process? The latter will not happen overnight and is not an immediate solution. The former will be paying a price or atoning for mistakes which we never committed.

Pointing fingers at India and china for increasing the emissions of Green house gases and forcing them to put a cap on the emissions is clearly unjust. India is doing exactly what the so called developed countries did a century ago. It is true that India has maximum reliance on fossil fuels for her energy needs.  But at the moment she is helpless and fossil fuels are the only immediate available window for her growing energy needs.

Our way ahead must be carefully planned and holistic. Today we stand as one of the world's economic powers. Along with strong macroeconomic fundamentals, we have a very strong lobby in the world and particularly in America. We must put these to good effect to clinch our objectives at the international level.

 India must use her international lobby to cajole the industrialized economies to act on the affirmative to control the emission of green house gases. The developed countries who are responsible for damage caused should act with urgency and seriousness to atone for it. India must lead the developing economies in pressurizing the industrialized nations to correct the damage by reducing their emissions of dangerous gases and other suitable measures.

Professor Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, has developed an economic model to show that stabilizing emissions to a level of about 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide (nearly double the quantity in the atmosphere at the start of industrial revolution) appears possible with an investment of just 1 percent of GDP by 2050. In the backdrop of such affirmations, it is high time that the industrialized economies act with some concern and accountability to make space for developing economies like India and others.

On the domestic front, parallel to moving on to the higher growth trajectories, we must develop innovative and greener technologies. Fillip to research activities in harnessing tidal, wind, bio and solar energy would bear rich fruition in near future. Heavy impetus must be given to research and development activities in developing our thorium based third stage fast breeder nuclear reactor. Great emphasis must be laid on creating environmental awareness among the youth and children.

Though environmental sciences are thought in most science and engineering courses, adequate justice has not been done to the subject. Students learn the subject strictly from the examination point of view and the teachers do the lip service to satisfy the former. There is an urgent need to transform such out of place systems. I have taken part in seminars and talks on environmental issues in reputed institutions where beverages and snacks are served in plastic tumblers and plates. Disappointing are few students who take part in such seminars do not even know that the air conditioner in the hall is emitting chlorofluorocarbons and expensive deodorants and body sprays they use do not do much good either.

Environmentally concerned people ought to be rewarded and recognized. For instance, the property tax on people who make use of environmental friendly materials like use of fly ash bricks, soil cement blocks etc or adopt rain water harvesting techniques can be reduced. People must be encouraged to use energy efficient materials.  Bourgeois community using high energy consuming materials like glass and aluminum (Aluminum and glass consume almost 150 times the energy of regular masonry structures) must be heavily taxed.

It is high time that the Indian community becomes sensitive to climate change. If we do not take urgent measures in combating environmental pollution, if convenience rules over concerns, inconvenient truth will be inevitable.