Debit that carbon!

"We can be satisfied that we were able to get our way on this issue (targets),'' Jairam Ramesh, the former Environment Minister, had famously said after he had argued it out with developed nations on legally binding carbon cuts during the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in 2009. He was supported all the way by other BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa and China) in silencing the carping critics composed mainly of representatives from the West. This was important as even Obama, during his Australian tour of 2011, had thrown the onus of environmental spotlight on India and China. “If we are taking a series of steps, then it’s important that emerging economies like China and India are part of the bargain,” he had said.

 

The science regarding climate change is ambiguous, with different nations claiming their own views as being the justified one. G8 nations have agreed to 80 per cent carbon cut till 2050 – leaving the BASIC nations with no option but to view the same with a big shrug. India and China are growing at a rapid pace and to now accept a legally binding carbon emission limitwould choke their growth further.

 

In fact, the very concept of carbon emissions – and global warming for that matter – should be put aside from international debate for a decade or so; and that too with a joint (tacit, if you may) agreement of various nations. And that is because in the midst of the current global economic slowdown, it would be insane to quote the carbon emission argument and choke the engines of growth of the two economies that might have the power to pull the world out of its dismal economic state. 

 

The global hype is also being cleverly manipulated against India; and in more ways than the government can fathom. For example, on September 7, 2012, the United Nations allocated its one-billionth carbon credit under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) very shrewdly to an Indian firm. On September 10, 2012, Adani Power, another Indian company, had announced that one of their power plants had "become the world's first coal-fired thermal project to receive carbon credits from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change". Himachal Pradesh has apparently been awarded a World Bank project that also is claimed to be the world's "largest" carbon credit project. And so on so forth...

 

And sadly, Indian firms seem to be falling for the ruse – the National CDM Authority NCDMA had approved close to 3000 projects for the CDM status as on March 2012. Clearly, India needs to move away from these elitist emission control allusions and focus on not only ensuring it gets its economic cycle back on the recovery path, but also pulls its disadvantaged masses out of the miserable destitution they are in currently.