Physician Heal Thyself

Energy analysts of the West are never tired of telling India that our country needs to accelerate its efforts to achieve a clean energy scenario despite the fact that India’s per capita emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are unlikely to exceed those of the developed countries in the near future. The problem, however, arises from the fact that the sermonizers are making a rather unacceptable comparison — between the emissions that some of the First World countries are already actually guilty of and the GHG emissions that India is likely to have by about 2030. There are several things wrong about the developed countries making such bizarre comparisons between what is going on in their countries now and what might happen to India by about 2030. However, for the comparisons and the arguments to signify anything we need to have the comparative figures first. At present, the per capita emission of GHG (in tonnes) in some of the countries is: China 5.5; the United States 22.9; the European Union (EU) 10.2; Russia 13.6; India 1.8 and Japan 10.2. This list shows that India is at the bottom of the list of offenders even if one takes half-a-dozen of the world’s highly developed countries or consortiums. In fact, India’s rank among all industrialized countries (in terms of per capita emission of GHG) is a lowly 121, when China is at No. 72, the US at 7, the EU at 39, Russia at 18 and Japan at 40. So what is very clear from this is that countries for which charity does not begin at home are presuming to tell countries like India to speed up their rate of reducing GHG emissions! Take, for instance, a country like the US that has five per cent of the world’s population and consumes about 25 per cent of the world’s fossil fuels and ranks at the top of the six countries mentioned above in terms of per capita GHG emissions. Yet it has been telling India that it must speed up its efforts to reduce GHG emissions. What moral right does it have to tell anyone in the world anything about reducing pollution when it is one of the worst offenders? The first double standard involved in the US stand comes through loud and clear. It is that the US can pollute the world as much as it likes. But there are different norms for a developing country like India. Emission of GHG is a price that a nation pays for industrialization. One cannot have an omelette without breaking an egg. The US and other countries are trying to tell us that we cannot have that omelette regardless of what they keep doing. In other words, the message is that we must not industrialize. They can go on doing what they like. This is the second double standard.

There are two other parameters that do not make the Indian scenario look very good. One is the absolute emissions in million tonnes per year. Here China leads, because apart from being highly industrialized it also has the largest population of all countries in the world. The figures are: China 7,114 (million tonnes per year); the US 6,788; the EU 4,978; Russia 1,940; India 1,840 and Japan 1,305. India is fifth among six leading countries/consortiums. Incidentally, the order in which the countries have been named also indicates their relative ranks. But no matter how much the West tries to bully India in the matter of pollution control (while leaving out offenders like China, the US and the EU), it achieves no more than yet another double standard: it is comparing their todays with our tomorrow. Countries that warn India of the dangers that the world will face if India and China cannot bring down their emission levels, are countries that will not practise what they preach. True, if India allows its per capita emissions to increase to five or six tonnes per head, we would add five to six billion tonnes to our present absolute emission level and be at the top of the list of offenders. With India adding an Australia to its population every year, this is not an impossible kind of scenario some years from now. At the meeting attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh made it clear that India was not in a position to accept binding caps on carbon emissions. However, he also held out the assurance that India would never allow its per capita emissions to exceed the figures of developed countries. The implied message should be clear to everyone except those who do not practise what they preach. But China, the US, the EU and Russia will go on pretending not to have understood, and therefore, need to be told more bluntly that they must set their own houses in order before presuming to advise other countries that have been far more considerate about this planet in ecological matters. source: THE SENTINEL