Read the full text of Jairam Ramesh's lecture here.
Jairam Ramesh delivered a lecture on the topic “Climate Change and India's Energy Policy” at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bengaluru at 5:30 pm on November 10, 2014, as part of The Hindu Centre’s public lecture series.
"India is most vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change. Because of pressing domestic realities, India needs to change its traditional mindset and provide bold new leadership to global climate change talks”, said Mr. Jairam Ramesh, MP, Rajya Sabha, and Senior Visiting Fellow, The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, at a public lecture on “Warming up to the Climate Change Challenge”, in Chennai on October 24. The event was jointly organised by The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy and the Asian College of Journalism, and focused on increasing awareness about the need for concerted policy interventions in managing the impact of climate change on India. The lecture was well attended by about 200 people including Mr. N. Ram, Chairman, Kasturi and Sons Ltd. (KSL), Mr. N. Murali, Co-Chairman, KSL, Mr. K. Venugopal, Director, KSL, Dr. A.R. Venkatachalapathy (Member of the Board of Advisors, The Hindu Centre), Dr. Vasanthi Devi, former Vice Chancellor, Manonmanian Sundaranar University, Mr. M.B. Nirmal (Founder Chairman, Exnora), Mr. Nityanand Jayaraman (environmental activist), Mr. Sam Rothenberg, Political/Economic Officer, U.S. Consulate General, and journalists, academicians, scientists, students and members of the general public.
- A Global Call for Climate Justice
- Climate Change and Agriculture: Current and Future Trends, and Implications for India
- Developed World Must ‘Walk the Talk’ on Climate Change: India
- National Action Plan on Climate Change
- Rethinking India’s Climate Policy and the Global Negotiations
- UN Climate Summit 2014: Catalyzing Action
- The UN Climate Summit Reveals India's Hypocrisy on Saving Forests
- J& K Floods: Flood Aftermath
- World Bank Data on Climate Change
- The Global Climate and Health Alliance
- Opposing View: BASIC Climate Changes
- Climate Change Articles from The Hindu
- How Climate Change Impacts Human Health
Introducing the event, Mr. Sashi Kumar, Chairman, Asian College of Journalism, highlighted the role played by Mr. Ramesh, in policy making aimed at decreasing India’s footprint on global climate change. Apart from being instrumental in the framing of several important Acts, he has also played an important role in placing forest conservation on the national political agenda.
Mr. Ramesh, who has also widely represented India at climate change conferences worldwide said, “Climate change has not just been part of human history but has also shaped it decisively.” He argued that over the past six decades there has been a growing concern about global warming following the publication of a seminal paper in the journal Tellus in 1957. Today it is widely agreed that global warming is linked to anthropogenic factors and human interventions. There is also a widespread consensus that a build-up of greenhouse gases has caused global temperatures to rise thereby raising the probability of weather-linked events, he said.
Mr. Ramesh drew attention to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty that was negotiated into existence at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 with the explicit aim of having signatory countries work towards stabilising their emissions of greenhouse gases or keeping them within certain specified limits. A few years later in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was ratified by 55 countries with 83 signatories, and came into force in 2005 and aimed at enforcing policy to ask specific states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol, explained Mr. Ramesh, was more binding on advanced countries, included in Annex 1, because historical logic suggested that these countries were more responsible for the current global warming, having industrialised at a time when there was lesser understanding of the impact of rampant industrialisation. These countries, he said, took binding emission cuts and accounted for two-thirds of emissions worldwide. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol lasted from 2008-2012 and was renewed for a second time for 2012 only to lapse in December of that year.
Such treaties and protocols, said Mr. Ramesh, are anchored in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. The Kyoto Protocol was supposed to be a follow up of the Rio Summit. A second commitment period was started in January 2013 and this will end in December 2020. This Protocol includes countries in the middle of economic transitions to market economies, like China and India. By 2012 countries that took on emission cuts, he said, covered only 20 percent of all world greenhouse gas emissions. “In December 2007”, he added, “the Bali roadmap was adopted to enable the full implementation of the Convention through long term cooperative action.”
On India’s position on global warming and climate change, Mr. Ramesh offered that the traditional and oft-heard Indian argument rests on three ideas – India did not start global warming, India needs to be incentivised through technology and monetary incentives if it has to work towards curbing its emissions and finally that the priority for India is to reduce poverty and for this growth is essential and if the environment suffers, so be it.
Mr. Ramesh, termed this the “grow now, pay later” model, but cautioned the audience that there were domestic vulnerabilities that would upset the consensus around this model. First, he said that India’s economy is still heavily dependent on the southwest monsoon. Agriculture now accounts for less than 15 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but the livelihood and incomes of over 600 million Indians are still dependent on the monsoon. Elaborating on the country’s reliance on climatic conditions, Mr. Ramesh pointed out that 60 per cent of India will continue to remain rain-fed even after all of India’s irrigation potential were to be harnessed. Second, he suggested that with a long coastline, any rise in the mean sea level rise is a domestic challenge. Third, Mr. Ramesh drew attention to the Himalayan region where some glaciers (like Siachen) are advancing, but most (like the Gangotri) are in fact, retreating. This, he said, has major implications for livelihood and food security in the Himalayan-Gangetic region. Fourth, Mr. Ramesh pointed out that most of India’s coal and iron ore is located in forest-rich areas in east and central India and is prone to deforestation and the loss of carbon sinks.
“A Public Health Issue”
“India wants its GDP to grow more. This is necessary as nearly 9 million youth are added to the labour force annually. India’s population is at present 1.24 billion. We are going to add 400 million people by the middle of the century. This is our demographic karma. We will be the most populous country”, Mr. Ramesh stated, reiterating that sustainable growth was an imperative. “We have to aim for rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth. It has to be sustainable as there is evidence that pollution and contamination are serious public health concerns. This is not a lifestyle issue. It is a public health issue.”
Speaking about a possible pragmatic Indian agenda at the Conference of Parties in Peru in 2014 and Paris in 2015, he offered the following suggestions. First, he said that whatever be its international stance, India must build up its own scientific capacity and standards to measure climate change and utilise satellites to monitor climate change patterns. Second, he said that hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Montreal Protocol need to be phased down. “India”, he said, “is now the only major country holding out on a talk on HFCs”.
In a lighter vein he added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent joint statement with U.S. President Barak Obama was a welcome change even though it is a replica of the September 2013 statement between Obama and former Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which the current party had opposed last year.
Third, he said that Indian industry needs to look into ozone depletion and India must pass concerted legislation on emission standards and frame laws to domestically police these emissions, while supporting an option which gives the country flexibility.
Fourth, India must take the lead for designing a non-intrusive and non-punitive system contained in the Copenhagen Declaration, wherein, countries will submit their own reports and technical analyses and give it to the UNFCCC.
Fifth, he said that India needs to rework its articulation of equity and differentiation. This must not become an opportunity to rework or reiterate differentiations of the past.
Finally, he said that India must begin to shift demonstrably to the trajectory of low carbon growth by making better technology choices. If a comprehensive valuation of benefits is done, even with high GDP goals, a low carbon growth strategy works. A low-carbon growth strategy depresses GDP growth only by 0.1 -0.15 percentage points.
During a lively question and answer session with members of the audience, Mr. Ramesh said that he was deeply concerned and pessimistic on the prospects of any positive thinking on the environment. He said that it is important to redefine the parameters of the debate. “If it is growth versus the environment, growth will always win”, he stated.
In response to a question about India’s energy strategy, he said that for the next 10 years there does not seem to be any alternative to coal, so India needs to rethink its strategy on renewables. One of the odd things, he said, was that now a country can buy the right to pollute if they invested in India or China.
He also agreed, in response to a question on the link between environmental change, natural disasters and state capacity that one could find a direct correlation between tribal groups, conflict over land and resources and internal security issues.
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