The Hindu Business Line : Climate change and India

A recent Nicholas Stern report says that global warming could shrink global economy by 20 per cent. The worst affected will be the world's poor, India included. But acting now will cost less than 1 per cent of India's GDP.

Imagine the entire Kerala coastal belt, stretching from Kanyakumari to Majeshwaram, being inundated by the sea, and coastal cities such as Kannur, Kozhikode and Kasaragod getting submerged. Or, the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Indus, India's perennial rivers, becoming seasonal, going dry between monsoons as Himalayan glaciers continue to retreat, possibly vanishing by 2035.

Or the already low crop yields nose-diving in the dry tracts of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and so on as temperatures soar. Or, finally, millions of Bangladeshis crossing over into West Bengal in search of a livelihood as the country loses close to 1000 sq. km of land to floods.

Surely the portents are dangerous, as the latest confidential report of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which met in Brussels in the last week of March, warns. Global warming is beginning to take its toll.

Grim scenario

Here are some of the grim aspects of climate change. Sea levels are expected to rise by at least 40 cm by 2100, inundating vast areas, including some of the most densely populated cities. Rising temperatures will pull down crop yields; the poor, who already suffer from low calorie intake, will be the worst hit as food becomes ever more expensive.

Both agriculture and fisheries will be affected, the former due to rising temperatures and loss of cultivable area and the latter because of nursery loss due to inundation and coastal erosion in the low lying areas. Mortality due to heat-related deaths will climb, with the poor, elderly and daily wage earners and agricultural labour suffering the most.

Climate change related to glacier melting would severely impact a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindu Kush region because of the unfavourable consequences for downstream agriculture in most South Asian countries that depend on glacier melt for irrigation; India would suffer the most.

Himalayan glaciers are very vulnerable to climate change. It is not just that higher temperatures lead to more ice turning to water. The "ablation period", when glaciers melt in summer, has lengthened and the snowing time has shortened. It is often quite warm in Jammu and Kashmir in October/November. Glacier melt in the Himalayas will increase flooding, rock avalanches from destabilised slopes and affect water resources badly the next two- three decades.

Who is the culprit?

Despite all the pollution it has caused with the high living standards, there is no need to blame the West for all the problems. It may pay to put our own house in order. The top 2-3 per cent bracket of the really well-off in India is amongst the highest polluters in the world. Quite often, policy planners point to the national average to justify that India is among the lowest polluters. In truth, though, the national average hides the real level of pollution contributing to global warming, because, the vast majority of Indians living in the rural setting simply cannot pollute. The national average also misses out on those who lead an environment-friendly lifestyle, influenced by traditional cultural habits.

Go to the countryside. How many own a second air-conditioner or a second petrol-guzzling car? And how many mothers keep changing the diapers of babies ten times a day? Does any of us have an idea how much energy goes into the production of just one single baby diaper? And to top it all, where is all the e-waste discarded? Do we ever pause to think what havoc all this is causing to the environment and contributing to the global warming? Go round the computer malls and computer kiosks in the IT savvy Bangalore, you will be aghast at the pollution-in-the-making.

A key point economic analysts overlook is that clean-up and pollution prevention are cost intensive exercises; they may discover that the country's "net economic value" has been falling over 20 per cent, though the illusion is that the nation is growing at 8 per cent plus. The irony is that the economy would grow better and also be on firmer footing if the environment was factored in. The policy-makers simply fail to do that or have no tools to do it. A lot more jobs can be created and a better quality of life ensured by leveraging traditional knowledge.

The Road ahead

Foremost is the recognition of an indisputable link between environment protection and socio-economic benefits. A recent Nicholas Stern report says that global warming could shrink global economy by 20 per cent. The worst affected will be the world's poor, India included. But acting now will cost less than 1 per cent of India's GDP.

Next comes a push to alternative energy sources, solar and wind being the foremost, followed by biofuel. And for agriculture, it is high time the focus shifted to organic farming, away from the chemical-intensive agriculture — the so-called "Green Revolution", characterised by high-input technology. But India has to do it on an economically feasible scale.

Jatropha cultivation is profitable only if the extraction plants are nearby and the seed availability is made cheap.

Last, but not the least, punish the polluter by imposing an additional tax on the use of fossil fuel. The next time the super-rich draws up into the petrol pump in a sleek luxury car and asks for the "high speed" low octane petrol, tell him there is a penal tax on its excessive use. The Dutch have been using this tactic for almost four decades now. That is why the environment-conscious Nobel Laureates there ride their bicycles to the university campuses.

(The author, a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium, can be contacted at nair_kpp@yahoo.com)

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