Why South cannot yield more ground in battle
The declaration released after the extended G8 summit at L'Aquila, Italy, has sparked a controversy in India. Hardened climate negotiators in New Delhi say Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conceded too much ground, endangering the South's hard-earned negotiating positions.
These apprehensions were underlined during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to India, when President Barack Obama's top climate change diplomat tried to push New Delhi into a corner, prompting India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to respond at the same press conference that it would not be possible for India to accept binding emissions cuts. Clinton had to intervene - but her message to the emerging world wasn't encouraging. This poses a danger - the developing world must take a stand and stick to it.
At L'Aquila, India had an even greater responsibility to push the developing world's case because Chinese President Hu Jintao, who would have helped combat the North's pressures, had to rush back home even before the extended summit had begun.
India and China, leading the charge on behalf of the South, have done an excellent job at climate change negotiations, making the point that the developing world is not in a position to take on binding greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cuts and it is up to the North not only to keep itself committed to the cuts sanctioned by the Kyoto Protocol, but also to deepen them.
What the climate negotiators in India are objecting to is that New Delhi has uncritically endorsed the L'Aquila declaration's commitment to cap the rise in global temperature at 2C above pre-industrial levels.
In itself, this is not too alarming, given the fact that science has now established the need for such a cap. What India should have insisted on were riders reiterating that the primary responsibility for making this cap must rest on the developed world.
It's not just the South, the UN, other multilateral agencies and many European countries, too, have accepted that the North bears the preponderant share of the responsibility for climate change and, therefore, must bear the greater share of the responsibility for its mitigation.
There is first the historical logic. The US and West Europe have been spewing GHGs into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution in last quarter of the 18th century. Science has established that these gases have a very long shelf life, which means that developing countries have emitted a minuscule percentage of the gases that are causing global warming.
Given this, developing countries have demanded and must continue to demand, led by China and India, that they should be provided the "emissions space" to industrialize. The Kyoto Protocol had been designed on this basis and this fundamental leg of climate negotiations must not be violated.
The world has just a few months before the climate change conference in Copenhagen convenes in December to finalize a deal to succeed the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 1912. The developing world must go into that with eyes wide open and force the issue. The developed world must also see the justice of the South's position.
But history provides just one part of the argument. The other is democracy. For long, emerging economies and environmental advocates, lawyers and diplomats have pointed to the issue of per capita emissions, which unfortunately has not been taken on board.
Justice demands that GHG emission quotas take into account average emissions across countries. The numbers are crystal clear.
The developing countries have far higher per capita GHG emissions than their developing counterparts - the US emits 20.4 metric tons per capita and the UK and Germany 9.7, in comparison with China's 3.8 and India's 1.2. The developed world can hardly try to ram binding emission cuts down the South's throat while such inequality exists.
As we ponder the contours of a post-Kyoto settlement, however, developing countries cannot completely abdicate any role in combating climate change. The report of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, along with other studies, shows clearly that we have reached the tipping point.
Developing countries must now chart industrializing trajectories that will not replicate the carbon-heavy strategies and technologies of the developed world. China, India and other developing nations must explore leapfrog technologies and strategies. They must push both for financial help - not necessarily in the form of aid - and smooth technology transfers.
In return, countries like China and India must show genuine commitment to controlling emissions. A lot can be done simply by implementing efficiencies, managing demand and regulating better.
The controversy over the L'Aquila declaration may prove to be a minor signpost on the road to Copenhagen. Manmohan Singh's special envoy on climate negotiations, Shyam Saran, has said that India's position has not been compromised.
Since it's not just India, however, the developing world must remain unified, as it has so far been, to ensure that its scope for industrializing is not constricted by inadvertent concessions to the West.
The author is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Kolkata, India
(China Daily 07/30/2009 page9)
