[Reader-list] Global Warming [Warming up to Globalisation]

[Sopan Joshi]

from:
http://www.indian-express.com/ie20020313/top2.html

To please Bush, MEA turns India’s climate policy
around

SONU JAIN

NEW DELHI, MARCH 12: LAST MONTH, the Ministry of
External Affairs executed a quiet policy turnaround
which left the officials at the Ministry of
Enviornment and Forest fuming. Bending over backwards
to please the Bush administration, the MEA welcomed
the US policy on climate change though India has been
opposing it all along.

George W Bush was the only head of state out of 170
nations who called the Kyoto protocol ‘‘fatally and
fundamentally flawed’’. After the rejection of the
Kyoto protocol, Bush announced a new policy called the
‘Clear Skies and Global Climate Change’ at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on
February 14. 

The MEA statement issued on February 18 says India
‘‘welcomes George Bush’s policy statement on the US
government’s approach to environment protection and
global climate change.’’ According to sources, the
Ministry of Environment and Forest, which is the
negotiating body for India, was kept out of the loop.

India’s stand has always been that since developed
countries are responsible for greenhouse gas
emissions, they should take the first step. In fact,
India is hosting the Conference of Parties meeting in
New Delhi later this year. Environmentalists feel this
statement will seriously affect India’s negotiating
abilities. ‘‘Considering India’s green paper initiated
the Kyoto protocol, it is shameful that we have gone
this far to please the US,’’ said Sunita Narain,
director, Centre for Science and Environment.

According to Bush’s new policy, Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
emissions will increase by over 30 per cent over 1990
levels in 2010. Under the Kyoto pact, US was bound to
reduce it by emission levels 7 per cent below 1990
levels. 

Instead of capping emission, Bush’s new policy seems
to be reducing its intensity — by 17.5 per cent in the
next 10 years. GHG intensity is a measure of GHG
emission per unit of economic output, usually
expressed in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Though the GHG intensity fell by about 17 per cent
between 1990 and 2000, the emissions increased by 14.7
per cent. The same rate of growth is expected for the
GDP in the next decade.

Global warming — the heating of the atmosphere which
threatens to destablise the climate — is primarily
caused by burning of fossil fuels, coal and petrol.
With the heating of the earth, come climatic
imbalances like floods, droughts and cyclones.

In his new plan, Bush says he will ask his industry to
‘‘voluntarily’’ cut emissions and set targets for
reducing greenhouse gas intensity. The other criticism
is that no reductions have been planned for carbon
dioxide, one of the main culprits behind the GHG.

Bush also said that he does not absolve countries like
China and India of their responsibility. Bush has said
that he rejects the protocol because it would ‘‘cost
us jobs’’. He is in charge of safeguarding the welfare
of American people and workers and ‘‘so cannot commit
to an unsound international treaty that will throw
millions out of work’’.


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