Frankly, friendship’s more useful

A battle is being waged against Greenpeace, an international NGO focusing on environmental issues. Is this wise? International reputations rest on perception, and such battles could mar perceptions about India. The Indian government could, instead, ask Greenpeace for holistic solutions.

Indeed, stranger realignments are under way elsewhere in the world: US and Iran, after a decade of hostility, are converging on the ISIS’s actions in Iraq.

Dealing with numbers Development is essential for India. Our population is growing steadily. Coercive measures for its regulation, such as have been taken in China, are out of the question; no international or civil society organisation would recommend them either. And we need to house and feed and clothe these growing numbers, 10 million every year. To do this, they need to get economically productive and have sustainable jobs.

No rational NGO or civil society group would object to this. The only question is how to achieve it in a sustainable, environmentally friendly manner.

The Euro Zone is far ahead of us on all economic and social development parameters. Their per capita consumption levels are also several multiples higher than ours. They stand at the top levels of the world environmental index.

In this context, it is worth keeping in mind that Greenpeace is a Netherlands-based NGO with a long history of environmental activism in Europe. Presumably, it has experience in the area of sustainable development based on its European record; this is experience it could place at our disposal. At least, we might ask them if they are willing to partner us, rather than take an adversarial position.

Ask for advice I suggest we ask Greenpeace for advice on a few issues. First, we ask them to help us solve the problem of power generation. Power, as we know, is one of the basic ingredients for economic development. Here is the World Bank data on power production, studied in the context of data on land area and population databases. As the table shows, in terms of per capita availability of power, we remain far behind European levels. Now it is no one’s case that we should necessarily aspire to consume as much, given our internal concerns of climate change, but we need at least to arrive at a more significant fraction of current European consumption. How do we produce this greater fraction?

Consider the available resources: Renewable energy presently contributes 5 per cent of our total needs and perhaps could, in time, come to contribute 10 or 15 per cent. This is not nearly enough. This is apart from all the documented problems regarding reliability, timing, and so on.

Hydropower generation has its own environmental and displacement effects as civil society activists often point out. Coal production is accompanied by its own protests, relating to sustainability and to the allocation of mining concessions. We have not yet maximised our gas-based generation, but our civil society does not particularly favour domestic gas explorations either.

Finally, a significant proportion of civil society organisations remain opposed to nuclear power — even though that does account for a rather respectable share in Europe. Given all these protests, perhaps Greenpeace could offer us suggestions. Which is the lesser evil?

We could also ask Greenpeace about jobs. Our rising numbers need jobs and the state is making efforts to provide education and skills-based training. Perhaps it could do more, but where should our youth aim to find employment? Again, there is a way out, and perhaps Greenpeace, with its commitment to sustainability, might help us in reaching it.

Check out chemicals Take a look at our chemicals industry. Indian universities have strong programmes in chemistry and its students perform to a high standard, globally. Indeed, Indian pharmaceuticals are a big success story, and our chemicals industry used to be another. We were a strong net exporter in chemicals, but the industry has not been growing in the past few years because it is not getting domestic environmental clearances fast enough. It is also considered by some to be an environmentally dirty industry.

In Europe, the chemical industry in recent years grew slightly faster than other manufacturing segments . The European Union, along with China and US, are the largest exporters. Germany is the largest exporter in Europe. Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, all have exports significantly higher than India. They all have much smaller geographies.

Look at it in terms of exports per square kilometre of land. Of course, technology plays its role, but we also have much to learn about mitigating industrial pollution and improving our environmental performance. Perhaps Greenpeace, with its European experience, could help us devise plans for sustainable production of chemicals. Indeed, there has been some talk of a free trade agreement with Eurozone that could give a fillip to our chemicals industry — maybe Greenpeace could help us achieve that end.

Greenpeace claims to champion environmentally responsible solutions. Given our evident and urgent problems regarding power and jobs, surely that can only be a good thing. Should we then not ask them for help instead of fighting with them?

(The writer is a former chairman of Exim Bank)

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