Copenhagen and beyond: Environmental imperative for India

Copenhagen and beyond: Environmental imperative for India
by Arun Kumar

CESP,SSS,JNU
The Tribune December 16, 2009

The Copenhagen summit has brought the issue of rapid environmental degradation and climate change onto the centre-stage. Sceptics abound but evidence is growing of mounting environmental distress and weather patterns becoming highly variable and uncertain, leading to droughts, floods, melting of polar ice-caps and glaciers, growing intensity of cyclones and so on.
Of course, fluctuations in weather are normal both in the long and the short run, but experts opine that the current changes go beyond the observed historical patterns and are directly linked to the unprecedented scale of human activity. This last fact and that it is having visible effects on the environment is undisputed. The climate sceptics only contest that this is leading to a tipping point, which may cause a global disaster. They have faith in technology providing solutions, as in the past.
Scientists are working hard on ways to deal with the green house gases (GHGs) through sequestering. However, the environmentalists argue that the weather system and the earth itself are complex systems, which we only partly understand so that the visible deterioration can suddenly accelerate, giving us little time to react.
The world is confronted with growing damage to the environment (there is unanimity on this) because human kind equates its well-being with growing consumption. So, every nation, rich or poor, is in a race to increase production. Even the rich nations with historically unprecedented levels of consumption remain unsatiated and desire to consume more. In Europe, in spite of the Green movements, consumption per capita has increased. It is not just that their poor aspire to consume more but even their rich want to consume more.
The developing world ruling elite, brought up on the notion of modernisation being Western modernity, has blindly copied this model, including its consumerism. The elite in the developing world wish to quickly join the global elite, so they have embarked on a path of rapid increase in their consumption. Thus, consumerism, both in the advanced and the developing countries, is resulting in growing pollution.
The advanced countries, to reduce their own pollution, have increasingly encouraged the poorer countries to undertake the production of dirty goods - metals, chemicals, etc. Thus, the developing countries are polluting on behalf of the richer nations. They are competing with each other to increase exports and under-cut each other by overlooking environmental concerns. If all the people of the world were to consume like the average US citizen, several earths would be needed to support this consumption.
Pollution is taking a heavy toll on the poorest since they are at the edge of survival and depend most directly on nature itself. Food stocks started dwindling after 1999 and for some time food prices have been climbing steeply. While droughts have played a role, development- related factors like crops used to produce fuel and land being used for urbanisation or for providing services are no less important.
While the accumulated GHGs are mostly due to the past consumption by the rich countries, the current additions are substantial not only by the rich but also by the poor countries. This has come in handy for the rich countries (trying to maintain their own life-styles) to shift blame on to the large poor countries. They are demanding cuts by India where the largest number of the poor in the world reside. The Indian ruling elite argues that cuts will mean a slowdown of development and check elimination of poverty. Actually, the Indian ruling elite wishes to preserve its consumption, just as the rich nations wish to. The poor are only a bargaining chip.
There was a time when India used to give the lead to the rest of the world by taking morally correct and just stands as it did on the nuclear or trade issues. This position has now been given up in favour of narrow stands to protect our short-term interests. So, on the issue of environment we want to retain the right to increase pollution and, therefore, appear to be no different from others and are unable to assert strongly enough that the rich must consume less and pollute less to save the planet and help the poor.
Our elite has hardly shown concern for the poor in its mad rush for `growth at any cost, and to catch up with the West, with all costs to be borne by the poor and the environment. If we cut our emissions, we can set an example, especially to the rich nations to also drastically reduce their own consumption. It is possible that the rich nations will only use that extra space to increase their consumption further. Given that the environment is global, the problem would not go away. What would be the consequence of our emissions cut? Would we lag behind?
Indeed not. Our rapid growth (if the figures can be believed) is based on the growth of services, which has major components that have low-energy intensity compared to industry and modern agriculture. Further, if we focus on human development in ways other than growing consumption, like on education, health and culture, the output of material goods need not rise fast. The preservation of the environment itself leads to improved health and welfare.
For instance, we are using energy very wastefully and if we check this, we can have a given level of output at much less energy consumption. For instance, transportation needs much energy. In the pattern of development we have chosen, this need is being increasingly fulfilled by private motorised vehicles - cars and motor cycles. However, efficient public transportation can handle this at a fraction of the cost and less pollution, but the auto lobby comes in the way. We could also plan differently so that people could live close to their places of work and either walk or use bicycles and minimise motorised transport, wide roads, flyovers, etc, and save energy.
Our buildings could be environment-friendly, requiring less of cooling and heating. A large amount of energy is wasted due to non-standardisation of gadgets with consequent leakage, sparking and heating of the equipment and eventual burnout. If this is minimsed energy intensity would fall. Corruption leads to the theft of power from the lines in inefficient ways. Modern agriculture is energy intensive and polluting so that there is need for alternatives. Goods can be optimally moved through the railways, leaving only the short haul to the roads. We can promote collective consumption rather than private individual consumption.
In brief, even without sacrificing consumption, we can improve welfare and yet consume less energy. All this and much more was suggested in the Alternative Budget in 1994 but the elite has no place for it since it desires to have the Western life-style. If we can make people believe in their environment we may also convince them to consume less with even greater gains. As a nation, let us do what we can for our poor and our environment and for that we do not even need money or technology from the rich nations. This would show the rich nations up for what they are. Unfortunately, our elite lacks the imagination, has become more and more greedy and wants the easy wayout.

arunkumar1000@hotmail.com