The Hindu Business Line : Kyoto

THE MUCH-DEBATED Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, came into force on Wednesday. With this, one should expect the end of the debate on the need to have such a measure but, interestingly, the exchanges have sharpened and show little signs of abating.

As recently as February 12, there was on BBC a confrontation between the supporters of the Protocol and its critics. One participant insisted that climate change is a "serious problem," while another described Kyoto as "an absolute dead end". To "climate change would affect the poor adversely" came a quick retort that the Protocol, if implemented, would "impoverish the poor further."

That the debate would continue should come as little surprise given the intense scientific, economic and political cleavages that the Kyoto Protocol and its parent convention, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) had created. First, it took years for the entire scientific community to accept that average global temperatures were indeed rising.

The scientific view in the 1960s was that the earth was entering an ice age and hence was cooling down. As late as in July 2001 Prof Fred Singer of the University of Virginia claimed in a BBC interview that though global warming was observed till 1940, the trend did not continue in the next 60 years.

Only last year, James Lovelock, father of the Gaia hypothesis, made light of global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. And the statistician-turned-sceptical environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborgh, came to accept the phenomenon of warming rather grudgingly. The latest addition to the list of sceptics is Mr Michael Crichton whose well-researched sci-fi novel State of Fear promises to be a chartbuster.

Second, despite the reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of experts set up under the UNFCC — the underlying causes of global warming continue to remain in the realm of speculation.

It is true that atmospheric concentrations of carbon-dioxide, the principal global warming agent, have risen to 370 parts per million (ppm) from about 280 ppm during the pre-industrial age. The non-believers' argument is that neither this increase nor the rise in the levels of other gases such as methane in the atmosphere can account for the observed warming of 1°C since 1860.

Several alternative theories such as the thickening cloud cover triggered by sunspot activity and perturbations in oceanographic features have been advanced. Also, the earth has experienced a rise and fall in temperature throughout its history. In short, the critics hold that in the face of such natural forces, human activities of burning of fossil fuels or deforestation to extract minerals or expand the arable land cannot significantly account for the observed temperature increase.

Has global warming actually induced climate-related changes already? The answer seems to be in the affirmative. The lengthening of agricultural seasons in the mid-northern latitudes, the shearing away of ice shelves and the receding of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the increasing intensity of hurricanes are cited as telling evidence.

Critics, on their part, dismiss such evidence as tenuous and random, not fitting into a coherent, scientifically acceptable or statistically significant pattern.

Much of the scepticism stems, perhaps, from the dramatisation of the long-term consequences of global warming by both scientists and non-scientists alike. The fear of disappearance of small tropical islands due to rise in sea levels actuated by melting polar ice caps is a case in point. Similarly, the prognosis of fertile agricultural land turning into wasteland and mass extinction of plant and insect species are considered surreal.

The lack of scientific certainty of the adverse impacts and the fact that they may be many decades away have spawned cynicism among political leaders and, more important, among economists. Mr George Bush Sr., aided no doubt by his scientific advisers, made his opposition to accept any cutbacks to fossil fuel based energy generation in the US known to the world at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The US Administration's stand has not changed since. As the world's premier energy guzzler, with more than 80 per cent of its energy requirements met by coal and oil, the US is not able to countenance any jeopardy to its economy which the acceptance of Kyoto stipulations would entail.

Instead, the US would be quite willing, as a first step, to effect an 18 per cent cut in the energy intensity of its GDP in the 2008-12 period.

With such strong reservations on the part of a nation which accounts for 25 per cent of global greenhouse emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, with its insistence on a minimum 5.2 per cent reduction in such emissions below the 1990 levels by 2008-12, had little chance of seeing the light of the day.

The incumbent President, Mr George Bush Jr., remains as unconvinced as his father. The intervening eight-year long Clinton administration, even with an ardent environmentalist like Mr Al Gore as the Vice-President, was forced to resign itself to a stalemate over climate change in the face of a hostile senate.

That cynicism could go along with opportunism was best illustrated by the Russian Federation. For the Protocol to come into effect, ratification by 55 countries including those that accounted for 55 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions in 1990 was essential. By mid-2003, the 55 per cent target was still tantalisingly elusive.

Ratification by Russia, which accounted for a good 6 per cent, was crucial. But the Russian President, Mr Vladimir Putin, had other ideas. He announced his opposition to the Kyoto proposals proclaiming that global climate change would indeed be beneficial to Russia. He intended to use his support for the Protocol only in return for gaining entry into the Word Trade Organisation.

The ploy worked. The European Union, the champion of the Protocol, agreed to back Russia's membership of the WTO. With his mission achieved, Mr Putin persuaded the Russian Parliament to ratify the Protocol post-haste and affixed his imprimatur to the ratification. The Protocol was set to take wing.

Economists have looked upon the happenings with much curiosity. They question not so much the science behind global warming and climate change as the need to make the huge investments and sacrifices today to achieve an uncertain and distant goal.

They would like to weigh the investments of today against the present discounted value of a distant tomorrow's benefits. There is little agreement on the appropriate discount rate. A higher rate will favour a decision to invest while a lower rate will dampen enthusiasm.

This dilemma is, in fact, the crux of not only the climate debate but also of all green debate, in general. Since the discount rate is the yardstick by which economists measure future benefits and current dis-benefits, it is no wonder that in the econometric exercises leading to what is called the Copenhagen Consensus, investments to mitigate climate change were accorded a low priority in a set of alternatives for global development.

What of the features of the Kyoto Protocol? Parleys have begun on proposals for the commitment period beyond 2012. Alongside, efforts are afoot to lay down mandatory cuts on greenhouse gas emissions of the developing countries, notably China, India and Brazil, which are currently exempt from any limits. The implications of such cuts for the highly energy-dependent Indian economy are obvious.

With nearly 80 per cent of India's total installed electricity generating capacity being coal based and the country's economic planners projecting that even in 2020, coal would provide 50 per cent of the energy, the country is in no position to accept mandatory cuts on its emissions without impacting its economic growth adversely.

Yet, India need not be a spoilsport. With emphasis on harnessing renewable energy sources such as hydro and wind power, solar energy, biomass and, more important, with a vigorous adoption of energy-saving technologies in industry and agriculture significant gains can be achieved in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The economics of such measures has received a boost in the form of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) envisaged in the Kyoto Protocol which permits countries with mandatory reduction obligations to meet a part of their targets by purchasing carbon credits from those like India, which do not have such obligations but have ratified the protocol.

Further, Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) can be traded on the carbon exchanges that have sprung up in the US and Europe. It could be a win-win situation for India.

(The author is a former Secretary, Environment and Forests, Government of India)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Extracting more

Temptations to resist, challenge to meet

Can one law defy another?

Do Indians continue to trust and rely on their chartered accountants as much as ever?

CARRs can deliver

Kyoto — behind and beyond

Wagon shortage

East-Coast Railways