The Grass Is Green

Whose Money Is It Anyway ?

2012-01-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

I am not an economist.
Neither do I subscribe to The Financial Times nor to The Economist. Nor do I care to seriously read any of the salmon colored newspapers.

Despite all of this, I am amazed at how, in the very recent past, there has been a flood of articles, op-eds, stories, blog posts, tweets and re-tweets on the rise in income inequality. Outrage seems to be on how we have allowed capitalism to grow into the form that it is today - which is killing equality, destroying the world’s ecology and causing severe environmental degradation .The manner in which there is an overzealousness in natural resource exploitation , one would imagine that our natural capital is here for us to last till perpetuity.
The rise of disparity of incomes is not limited to countries such as India, where there has been a history of stark inequality, but the rise of income inequality is growing notoriously in developed countries such as the US and UK. A recent study done in the US showed that the top 1% households' income grew by 275% - this is just one revealing statistics – there is a lot more data out there to show that more wealth is shifting to fewer people, with few bankers having a disproportionate control over the economy. As a recent New York Times article puts it – it has been the era of the rise of the super rich. If not the ultra-rich.

Forbes annually tallies the fortunes of the world’s billionaires. The world’s 1,210 current billionaires, Forbes reported in March 2011, hold a combined wealth that equals over half the total wealth of the 3.01 billion adults around the world. Something is seriously going wrong. Despite India s economy growing anywhere between 7% and 8 % in the last few years, income inequality has doubled in 20 years. Surely, GDP growth cannot be the only measure of development and progress or for that matter prosperity.
Nevertheless, why is all this happening? What are we missing that is driving this rapaciousness? Is it because of our inability to perceive the difference between public benefits and private profits?

I have come to see this polarisation more acutely and closely over the last 12 months in my work with the Karnataka Growers Federation. I have been working extensively with the small to medium-sized coffee farmer in the southern state of Karnataka. Coffee is now big business in India. According to India’s Coffee Board, domestic consumption has been witnessing a steady growth of five to six per cent in the last five years. And we can see this – almost all of urban India today is dotted with coffee bars. Coffee is the preferred choice for the upwardly mobile and uber cool. With the ubiquitous Café Coffee Day, Baristas, Costa Coffee, and the much awaited entry of the more expensive Starbucks into India, the latte and cappuccino are here to stay.

The world has been gulping down so much coffee that it is now the second most globally traded commodity after oil. But coffee is one of the few internationally traded commodities that is still mainly produced not on large estates or plantations but on small holdings. The economies of the some of the poorest countries are highly dependent on trade in coffee –in some African countries like Ethiopia and Burundi -but the producer today hardly makes a living from his or her coffee bean, given their small holdings – the majority being anywhere between 2.5 acres to10 acres.

The story is no different in India.
Contrary to popular perception, 98.5% of coffee growers in India are small farmers. Today India produces 4.5% of the world’s coffee. This is good news – to some.

The bad news is that coffee is produced by 90 countries globally but consumed by just 40 countries. The global coffee trade today is close to USD 96 billion. Of this USD 96 billion trade, a meagre USD 8 billion comes back to coffee-producing countries. There is not a chance in hell that the farmer, who produces coffee on say a 10 acre holding, has any control on the market prices or access to any share of this mega profit. The producer s share of this profit is unusually low while the usual suspects in between and at the end, laugh all the way to bank. The world’s big four coffee roasters also have big coffee brands – and therefore enjoy huge margins - while the producer benefits the least. Squeezing the small farmer for the lowest possible price – in the long run is a bad business idea – it will drive the coffee farmer out of business.

Coupled with no control over prices, there is another challenge facing the farmer today – that of unseasonal rain and unpredictable weather patterns. Whilst climate change is just one of numerous factors that may affect global coffee production, the International Coffee Organization considers it will likely be one of the most important ones with smallholders (who produce the majority of the world's coffee) the most vulnerable group. In Karnataka, the state that produces about 70% of India’s coffee, there were 3 years of continuous drought during the coffee season from 2002 to 2005 followed by heavy rainfall in 2006 and 2007. This lead to severe infestation of pest and disease, like stem borer and leaf rust, which resulted in huge crop loss. For the first time we heard of suicides among coffee farmers.

When it comes to coffee, India is unique. It is the only country on the world map that grows all its coffee in the shade. Indian coffee is grown in forest like conditions –verdant and rich in biodiversity. India also grows both the varieties of coffee – Arabica (Coffea Arabica) and Robusta(Coffea robusta). Arabica is high-end coffee – it is rich and yet delicate in flavour and therefore commands a higher price. Robusta is the low-end variety – it is hardier but commands a lower price. One would think that Indian farmers would want to grow Arabica and get a higher price for their coffee bean. But sadly the trend is the reverse. Arabica-growing farmers instead are opting out of this highly-flavoured cherry to grow the Robusta variety (which requires less care), partly because the Arabica plant cannot stand up to climate variability and unpredictable weather patterns. And this is the other thing – we are now drinking more and more coffee but of less and less quality.
So whether Arabica survives or not, or whether farmers only grow Robusta because they have to, I know that if Baba Budan were around today, he would have probably been a very rich man.

For the love of coffee

2011-04-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

Before the Café Coffee Days, there was Baba Budan and his 7 coffee beans.

Baba Budan, a 17^th century Sufi Saint, smuggled 7 coffee beans into India from Yemen, thereby, part breaking the Arab monopoly over coffee. The story goes that Baba Budan smuggled out 7 coffee beans from Al Muckha (Mocha), a port city in Yemen. Between the 15^th and 17^th century, Mocha was the main market place for coffee trading. It is from this Red Sea port of Mocha, that the English word mocha has its origin.

Coffee arabica plant and seed

While the earliest history of coffee goes back to antiquity - there is evidence that point to the existence of the coffee plant in 13^th century Ethiopia. Till the mid 17^th century or so, the Arab rulers enjoyed their monopoly over coffee. They did what they could to ensure that the cultivation did not spread – so they would strip the bean of its outer layer, roast it and render it infertile. They banned the export of the coffee bean – it could be taken out only if it was boiled or roasted so as to prevent the bean from germinating. Coffee had been colonized.

This is why Baba Budan, an Indian pilgrim to Mecca, had to smuggle his 7 beans out of Yemen. It was not just Baba Budan who broke the coffee colonization, there was fierce competition between the European colonizers to get hold of coffee. It was the Dutch who in the late 17^th century first managed to get some seeds and attempted to grow coffee in their colonies. The Dutch were by now already growing some coffee in the Malabar region of India as well as in their other far eastern colonies. And before you knew, the British started coffee plantations in Jamaica -the rest is cruel ,colonial history.

There are myriads of stories of how coffee found its way out of Arabia and how it was transported by colonizers, travelers, wanderers, investors ,missionaries and traders – with the rise in the demand for coffee, came a rise in the demand for sugar, both becoming important commodities. Coffee was a commodity that formed part of the trade triangle – from England to Africa to the Americas. Coffee houses sprang up and became meeting places and were centers of social interaction.

But behind all this energy and movement, the story is really not sweet. The well-known coffee historian, Antony Wild, in his book “Coffee : A Dark History”, takes us to the early days of the history of coffee, on how the, European merchants came across it in Arabia and brought it to Europe. Soon hugely popular, they quickly realized that they could make more money if they planted coffee themselves, in their plantations, using slave labour in their tropical, colonial outposts. Coffee was now on its way to becoming global – from the colonies in Caribbean to the colonies in Java – coffee was leaving its footprint.

As Antony Wild says, this is the legacy of coffee – tropical countries produce it and rich countries drink it. Even today this legacy is almost true . Quite unlike tea – countries that produce tea mostly drink it.

Meanwhile, on his return to India, after Mecca, Baba Budan planted the Arabica beans in the hills of Chandragiri, situated in today's Chikmagalur district of Karnataka– and thus is the story of the birth of Indian coffee. Today ,India produces almost 4.5% of the world’s coffee, grown mostly by small and medium growers, and is grown mostly in the three main Southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, with Karnataka contributing to 72% of what is grown. (A little bit is also grown in the Northeast and Andhra Pradesh). With the rise of urban India there is a rise in coffee shops – coffee bars are becoming ubiquitous in urban India.

The once less known South Indian filter "kaapi" , served piping hot in steel tumbler with a small dabarah (cannot find a similar word in English) for cooling, has now morphed into cappuccinos and lattés , finding its way onto menus across India’s burgeoning cities and youth.

India’s coffee is both special and unique - right from its planting to its traditional style of drinking. And that is really the idea behind this blog post. It is not to re-tell the well known but bitter history of coffee but more to inform about its current crisis and uncertain future.

Indian coffee is the finest shade growing coffee in the world and it is rare because all the coffee grown in India ,is grown in natural conditions , is dependant on monsoon rain and thrives in shade growing areas. There are close to 250,000 coffee planters in India – of which 98% are small farmers, cultivating on less than 10 hectares. There is almost no mechanization – it is labour intensive , employing about 2 million people directly thereby generating rural livelihood.

Drive through any coffee growing district in South India – From Coorg to Chikmagalur and what you will discover are verdant coffee forests, acres of coffee estates full of all kinds of trees with coffee growing under a thick canopy of natural shade, often mixed with ginger, pepper and vanilla . With most of the coffee estates located in the Western Ghats, coffee forests are located in biodiversity hotspots that have a high level of endemism, bio diversity and wide array of flora and fauna. From Indian mahogany, to teak and sandalwood , to the silver oak, and white cedar, trees stand majestically tall . It is almost as if the forests nurture and protect the coffee berries . Maintaining forests ensure a healthy coffee crop and the coffee planters almost has a sacred relationship with nature. There are wide species of butterflies and birds . Protected wildlife parks often dot the region. Elephants wander about, sometimes destroying coffee plants - the famous langur, slender loris, ,spotted deer are some of the animals that live in the region.

And here’s the other thing – five major South Indian rivers have its origin in coffee estates, the most popular one being the River Cauvery -that starts in the coffee growing region of Coorg. Here the river is venerated and worshipped as Goddess Cauvery – as a protector of their land. Coffee is so closely linked to the elements – and over time the coffee growers have developed a deep tradition to preserve rivers and forests.

But the picture is not about the sweet fragrance of the coffee plant in bloom or misty rolling mountains. It is about a rapid change in climate that has resulted in rising temperatures and unseasonal rains , sometimes heavier rainfalls , periods of drought and flooding ,prolonged higher day time temperatures and sudden drop in night time temperature – all climatic impacts that have resulted in lowered yields that are making coffee cultivation almost economically unviable. There is a growing need to invest in technology to adapt to changing and unpredictable weather patterns but since the farmer is small, these are not always accessible or possible. There is a shift that is taking place. Slowly growers are selling their estates, part by part, the price the land fetches for the timber it holds, is more profitable than cultivating coffee in a climate changing world. More worrying is that there are no takers in the next generation as high profits on coffee cultivation start to dim.

So is coffee all about about cash and commerce ? Is its value limited to commodity indices and high menu prices? Does no one recognize its intrinsic value and its role in maintaining biodiversity, acting as a carbon sink, globally sequestering about 6 billion kgs of carbon, and conserving wildlife and ecosystems ?The value of coffee lies way beyond its economic price tag – its value in providing ecological services is indeed priceless.

During my recent visit to Chikmagalur, I met a coffee planter who said that he himself had personally planted over 100,000 trees in his life time – this was way before the world was hot on climate change , carbon trading and clean development mechanism. And standing on his coffee estate I thought to myself - indeed these small planters are not Gordon Gekko s children !

The silent coffee planter that protects India s rich biodiversity and forests, does not need a trading mechanism to protect our natural resources and create a better world. What he needs is for his voice to be heard while a different crisis brews.

It is indeed time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Rig the Climate

2010-07-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

The climate denial lobby is beginning to look really silly.

It creates loonies out of people -the most recent one - Lord Monckton - who claims that climate change, is a conspiracy, a new flag of the left and rebukes the very idea of global warming. For someone who has no training in science whatsoever to discount the IPCC s body of some 800 scientists, he is irresponsible and certifiable.

The science is now loud and clear - warming of the earth is unequivocal and there is no doubt that much of the change in climate is due to human induced action. Scientists at NASA-GISS have confirmed that the first six months of 2010 have set a global temperature record.

But I am not going to write about the vicissitudes of climate change of my generation or the politics that world leaders has been engaged in over the last decade to try to solve the climate crisis or what is the planet we are leaving behind.

It has been about 2 decades since the Earth Summit in Rio and we are still struggling for an agreement to protect our planet and its ecosystems, its forest, water tables, atmosphere, oceans and mountains. In the last 50 years or so millions have been spent in UN conventions, declarations and pledges for environmental protection. While we may have failed the earth in the last 100 years or so – there were some who paid it glorious tribute 5000 years ago.

The best tribute ever paid to the environment can be found in the Vedas.

The Vedas are considered the most sacred books for Hindus. The word Veda means “wisdom”. There are 4 Vedas .The Rig Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda.

The Rig Veda , a collection of hymns ,are the most ancient of all Hindu texts, probably about 5000 years old but codified much later.This is concerned with the worship of gods that are largely personifications of the powers of nature.

The Rig Veda contains the most popular mantra , the Gayatri mantra. I don’t know any Indian who does not know the Gayatri Mantra – it’s the mother of all mantras.

Aum Bhoor Bhuwah Swaha

Tat Savitur Varenyam

Bhargo Devasaya Dheemahi

Dhiyo Yo Naha Prachodayat

There are various interpretations of this simple mantra - I do not wish to go into the existential meaning of this mantra, its metaphor or its esoteric meaning.I am no expert in Sankrit or ancient texts. Not at all and cannot even remotely claim to be. But this much I know -when I do a word to word break down of the Gayatri Mantra it is telling me something – a prayer to the "giver of light and life" - the sun (savitur). Its power remains unchallenged and unrivalled.

It is not only the Rig Veda that pays tribute to nature. There are 63 mantras of Atharva Veda (12.1.1. to 12.1.63) pertain to Hymns to the Earth, which glorifies Mother Earth.

The Rig Veda regards trees and plants as possessing healing properties. Tree planting is considered a religious duty. So ecology is not a modern day science that was started in Europe. Its root can be found in our ancient texts and its modern day manifestation in the Chipko Movement that began in the early 70’s in the Garwhal – where villagers formed a human chain and hugged trees marked to be cut down for the development of a sports equipment factory. Since then, the movement has grown as a ecological movement.

So while world leaders break their heads over complex documents on carbon emissions,legal frameworks,binding targets,offsetting, de-forestation and afforestation, Indian Rishis understood this 5000 years ago but instead,chose to express it through beautiful, 4 line hymns - that are still chanted today.

The Age of Innocence

2010-07-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Like the players in Edith Wharton‘s The Age of Innocence, climate change seems to be plagued with scandals. There have been a series of climategates – from hacked emails of the University of East Anglia , to accusations of unnecessary alarm on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, exaggeration on the sea level rise that the Dutch objected to, lack of peer reviews within the IPCC, to CDM fraud and its unintended beneficiaries and even to Dr Pachauri s high carbon miles and his vested interests in clean tech businesses. That he wrote a racy sex novella immediately before the scandal broke did not help the good doctor.

Ah. There was even Amazongate – which attacked the IPCC, claiming their data on the Amazon Rainfall was false. The claim was aired in hundreds of publications. Only to be subsequently retracted by the Times. But the damage had been done.

Now wait till the full Al Gore sex scandal with his masseuse comes to he fore. There will be a settlement of a few millions – it will get more eyeballs than 2010 year being another temperature record year, or USD2.65 billion needed to clean up the BP oil spill or the rapid Arctic Sea ice loss that we experienced in June or even drought in parts of the rainforests in the Amazon. That we are likely to head towards a 4 degree temperature increase leading to near-total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet will get a dot of a mention.

Why even go to such sibylline locations of the Arctic or the Amazon.

In our own country we do not hear about environmental refugees from the Ghoramara islands of the Sunderbans due to sea level rise, who are forced to vacate their community. Or the threat to our national security due to melting of glaciers along our borders with Tibet. That we already experience more severe droughts and floods is taken as business as usual. Food security will be under severe threat.

Neither is the rapid melting of the Gangotri glacier, a source of drinking water for 40% of the world’s population even newsworthy . That some of our revered rivers will become seasonal before they disappear completely has not caught the attention in any news reporting circles.
How desperate does the climate crisis have to get before we even acknowledge it.
Will we forget our Ganga as we did our Saraswati ?

From Markets With Love

2010-06-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

The carbon super market may just get another goodie

At the Carbon Expo, carbon traders are discussing the launch of the Green Bond or International Carbon Bond.
Like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that pays developing countries to reduce GHG emissions , the Green Bond will do just the same.

To the uninitiated, the CDM is the principal tool for engaging with developing countries on mitigation policy. This allows developed country governments and companies to meet emissions reduction targets in part by purchasing certified emissions reduction credits (CERs) which they receive in return for financing projects in developing countries which reduce emissions. This is also known as “offsetting”.

India and China are the leading countries in CDM projects but recently China has over taken India. While India entered the CDM market in 2003, the size of projects is small – largely driven by mid-sized companies. However this could change, should some of the Indian Public Sector Units chose to enter the carbon markets.

Like some bonds, including Daniel Craig, this is also hot .And here is why.

Unlike the CDM process where there is a lengthy review process, with the Green Bond, the money is paid up front by investors and the returns guaranteed to the investor. The Investor then would be free to trade the bonds in international market. And governments will earmark funds exclusively for carbon abatement programmes.

And here is the sweet spot.It would be like a sovereign debt.So if the project fails and there is no reduction in emissions,the investor is protected as the bond is backed by the World Bank or some such financial institution.

So if you want to make some quick bucks, watch this space and keep in touch with your investment banker - he is very likely to sell you the bond and not the sun.

Of banana peels and popcorn

2010-05-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, I met Peo and Satoko Ekberg.

Peo is from Sweden - a country that is fueling ahead to be the world's first oil-free country by 2020.This is without increasing its nuclear energy capabilities.I would call this ambition, to a point of being far fetched.,but Sweden seems to be on its way. From 70% energy from oil in 1975, today only 30% of its energy comes from oil.

So are the 9 million Swedes committed to this idea. Is it really possible to break the oil dependency and still run a first world country efficiently? From what Peo tells me, yes.

Buses run on banana peels and kitchen waste, elevators are solar powered, taxis ferry you on coffee wastes collected from coffee shops. The capital, Stockholm, has reduced its household wastes by 97% - a big part of the garbage is recycled into energy to power homes and transport. Public transport in Stockholm now runs a 100 % on bio-energy. The list goes on.

So I asked Peo, what does the city smell like with all this garbage in buses, taxis and cars? Oh ! Fresh pop corn.

So next time you get a whiff of fresh pop corn, remind yourself that you may not be in a cinema house watching “An Inconvenient Truth” but you are probably in Sweden, on a bus, going to watch Bergman’s “Autumn Sonata”

Here Comes Christiana

2010-05-19T23:39:00.000-07:00

About 24 hours ago, Christiana Figueres was named the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

In my mind this could have been breaking news.

Christiana is from Costa Rica, a developing country, and is a woman. A great combo. And if you did not know, Costa Rica is well on its way to becoming the first carbon neutral country by 2020. We finally have a woman who will head a traditional old boys club. So there. She is not your usual suspect in the least. She has the perfect CV to qualify for the job and having been around and part of the international negotiations since 1995 she knows the climate politics machinery all too well. She is a well recognised International leader on strategies to address global climate change .Nothing really could have denied her the job .

There is hope by the South that she will from time to time where the hat of the LDCs, the OASIS, the developing countries .Something that her predecessor was accused of not doing enough of. The voice of the most vulnerable will at last be heard and there will be action!

But this is what I am thinking.

Carbon trading, Clean Development Mechanisms, REDD,REDD Plus, Carbon Tax, Kyoto Protocol, COP 15 and even COP16 ,Bali Action Plan, Emission trading, Carbon pricing, will not solve the problem . And sadly neither will Christiana.

Spill Baby Spill

2010-05-18T01:05:00.000-07:00

A very predictable header but after going drill baby drill, this is what happened at British Petroleum s “ultra” Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. About 70,000 barrels of oil a day (and still counting) are being spilled into the ocean since April 20, 2010. The drilling was really “ultra deep”. The worry is not so much about when the spilling will be contained but where the oil will land up.

With no end in sight, the blame game has begun among the 3 actors. The project is owned by BP. Transocean owns the rig and has leased it to BP till 2013 and Halliburton, the oilfield services company, did the cement work to cap the well.

The impacts have not even begun to be considered. The toxic compounds in oil are known human carcinogens and hydrocarbons are particularly relevant if inhaled or ingested –for both humans and animal. For birds, the timing could not be worse. They are breeding and nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore. Nothing short of a catastrophe.

It will ruin for years to come the abode of the resident seabirds, waders, waterfowls, heron, pelicans, oystercatchers, migratory birds (swallows, buntings) that use the Gulf Wetlands as a stopover. With waters and coastal regions already feeling the impact of the oil spill, these birds could be at risk. It will totally disrupt migratory patterns and could result in mutations of certain species. Short-lived species such as shrimp or crabs may disappear in the region. The fishing industry in the area will pay its price.

While I am no expert on oil -from rigs to spills, this much I know. That when you get ultra greedy, you ultra dig and recovering will be ultra costly.

So my message for British Petroleum is this.

Drop that hubris .Admit that there are better forms of energy that we deserve.

And if this is not the right moment to improve your energy mix, you deserve to stay at the “bottom of the barrel”

Summertime and the fish are not jumpin

2010-05-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

While mercury soars across the sub continent, parts of the wettest state, Kerala, suffers from drought. This is unusual for God s own country. It is also unusual for the garden city, Bangalore, to touch 38 degrees centigrade. It is unusual that there are no glaciers in the summer months, even 40 km around Srinagar's east-side mountains. While Rajasthan is known for its desert heat, it is unusual that many of its districts are experiencing about 6 degree centigrade temperature increase.

But this is not about an unbearable summer where everything and everyone seems to wilt away and there is general listlessness. This is really about some myths and reality.

The myth is that climate has always changed so this is normal. The reality is that the climate is changing at a speed like never before.
The myth is that we can wait. The reality is that we have no time.
The myth is that climate change action is costly. The reality is that inaction will cost us more.
The myth is that money grows on trees . The reality is that it actually does.
The myth is that we can change – the reality is that we can t change fast enough.

MOEF Must Not Die

2010-05-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have to give it to him.

Jairam Ramesh is the best Environment Minister India has had. And I am saying this as he completes his very first year in office. So for someone who said that this was a ministry he was least expecting to head, Jairam has done rather well.

The list of his hits is long.

For once, we have an environmentalist leading the Environment Ministry. We have someone who comes with independent thinking – and this is like music to my ears !

Starting with transparency, public consultation on bt Brinjal, cancelling projects that were given bogus environmental clearances ,creating a proper, user friendly website for the Ministry, knowing the difference between REDD and REDD Plus, getting rid of retired bureaucrats who have been negotiating India’s future , efforts to ramp up India’s mitigation efforts on climate change, Jairam Ramesh needs applause.

I don’t want to get into all the details of his accomplishment and neither do I want to get into his boo-boos, but what strikes me is the courage of his conviction, his willingness to fight to the end, his determination to change a corrupt ministry and to cleaning up the mess that he inherited.

Jairam Ramesh is clearly one of the Pet Shop boys and with good reason .While he is certainly no puppy, his pedigree, his penchant for strategy and independent thinking, surely makes him the leader of the pack.

If he goes, MOEF will go back to being on its death bed and will languish. We will then continue to degrade our forest, continue to classify forest as wastelands, only to be given away to mining giants, we will once again create a ministry of collusion and corruption in the name of development.

So yes, Jairam Ramesh must stay put.
For a change I can chant - the right man in the right job .

The Copenhagen Call and Beyond

2009-12-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

As Jairam Ramesh prepares to leave New Delhi for Copenhagen this week, there is much that is being debated at home on the role that India will play in reaching a global agreement on climate change. Much drama was witnessed at the start of this week.
Firstly, two seasoned climate negotiators from the Indian delegation refused to leave for Copenhagen .They were Ambassador Dasgupta and ex-environment secretary Prodipto Ghosh.
Secondly, there was a united walk out by all the opposition parties in the RS on the issue of India changing its position on climate change. Arun Jaitley alleged that the government had unilaterally altered the position it held all along. The overall discontentment around Jairam Ramesh with this new position was that India had sold its future and had weakened its position as a Negotiator.So had Jairam Ramesh altered the Indian position after all these years?
Yes he had. And very rightly so.
What Jairam Ramesh has done in the last 6 months since he took over the Ministry has been to quickly fill up the leadership role on a climate agenda. There has been virtually no leadership in the climate change space in India –it has been vacant –almost a leadership free zone. Government voices on climate change in India had so far been inaudible. He started to think out of the box, he started to change the game and started playing a different card. So just what did he do and what did he change around?
For the un-initiated on climate change politics, here is the background.
Decades of high fossil fuel consumption by rich countries has created the climate crisis by pumping large amounts of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere - the onus to clean up and give room to others to develop in a carbon constrained world, therefore, lay with the rich countries. The rich countries had to pay for damages. But this reached a deadlock with developed countries not committing to emission reduction targets nor putting money on the table. India’s argument was that in order to continue on its development pathway of a 7 to 8% GDP growth it had a right to emit and therefore could not take on any target for reducing emissions. Its development story had just!
Nothing wrong with this argument – it is the “polluter pay principle” in action. Those who pollute must clean up and pay up. However, the developing countries continue to suffer climate consequences through no fault. Infact, in a recent estimate, the World Bank suggests that the developing world will suffer 80% of the damage from climate change despite accounting for only one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So discussions have been around issues like –who pays whom and how much, transfer of technology, funds – issues around equity has been central.
With 1.1 billion people – or a population of just under one sixth the global total – India’s per capita emissions are a mere 1.7 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per capita, compared to 23.5 tons CO2e per capita for the US. China is at 4.5 tons per capita (China has recently moved to Number 1 polluter in aggregate terms). Having such a low per capita emission really means that India must continue to emit to ensure its road to development continues – nothing can come in its way. India had a carbon emission right.
But this argument is unhelpful – the per capita argument allows rich Indians to hide behind the carbon strapped poor.
Playing the blame game has not made us prepare for the climate onslaught. India has spent year after year fighting this argument, justly so, but 15 years have gone by. While our GDP continues to gallop anywhere between 6 and 8% ,the most vulnerable continue to bear the brunt of climate change – floods, droughts, water scarcity, rising temperatures and disease, agricultural impacts, rise in sea level along coastal areas are some areas of intense vulnerability.
From the days of Kyoto Protocol lots has changed for India. Jairam Ramesh was quick enough to recognise this and get India to Copenhagen with a number .The Minister wants to show that we are a climate responsible nation – not for the sake of Copenhagen but for the sake of millions of Indians at risk.
A target to reduce its carbon intensity by 20 to 25% by 2020 was announced. This is indeed ambitious and has taken people by surprise. Further, India has joined the other developing countries (and NOT the developed countries) to go to the table and demand deep commitment targets from developed countries. It goes into the talks better equipped to negotiate having puts its ambition out on the table along with the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China.)
This new position shames the developed world - there is a sudden reversal in leadership. Jairam Ramesh has made it very clear that there is “no dilution” in India’s position and at no cost will India take on legally binding emission cuts. India’s interest and India interests alone shall dictate the negotiating stance while continuing to insist that developed countries take on legally binding deep emission cuts.
I do not know what the outcome will be on December 18th 2009 when the Copenhagen summit ends but this much I know.
That the challenge for India will be to build a new economy and build it at a speed that will allow us to meet climate deadlines – a world where our forests will expand, our food will be local, where our renewable energy sources rise, where rainfall will be predictable, where farmers do not live under uncertainty of droughts and floods, where are coastal cities are safe, where are glaciers continue to feed our rivers and where we can safely say we have secured the future of our children’s children.

Climate of Coincidence

2009-12-08T06:30:00.000-08:00

As the world leaders were preparing to gather for the 2 week long climate change summit in Copenhagen on December 7th 2009 in an attempt to reach an agreement on climate change there was a sudden kerfuffle around hacked emails from a climate research institute. The now famous or rather infamous email hacking known as “climate gate” attempted to move focus away from the immediate need to solve the climate crisis. Whoever hacked into the email system timed the release well.
Timed the leak so perfectly so as to coincide with the opening of the Climate Summit.
The details that emerged from the hacked emails attempted to wipe out 21 years of climate science and research carried out under the IPCC .*
The IPCCs 4th Assessment Report of 2007 states:
• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
• Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations
• The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%
The body of evidence that human activity is a key agent in global warming is overwhelming. There is no question now that since the industrial revolution temperatures are rising faster than ever before in the history of mankind. It is true that temperatures and climate has changed in the past but never this fast. Changes in temperatures have occurred over thousands of years and not over a few decades. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere today stands at about 380 parts per million – never before in recorded human history have we had such high level of atmospheric CO2.
The first ones to react to this “breaking news” was Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh’s chief Climate Negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban told the BBC. “Climate is changing for thousands of years, but for natural and not human-induced reasons”. He went on to say he expects it to derail the single biggest objective of the summit - to agree limitations on greenhouse gas emissions."It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change,"
No relationship between industrialisation and increased temperature? I mean ,even school kids know that but Al Sabban does not – maybe he chooses otherwise.
As the world’s biggest oil producer, too much is at stake for the country if the world agrees to a global deal to reduce its dependence on fossil fuel.
On December 7th – the opening of the summit, it was worth noting that of the 192 countries represented at Copenhagen, only Saudi Arabia raised the hacking incident. Saudi Arabia made a strong intervention in the opening plenary .They cast doubt on the science based on the hacked emails .Earlier this year in the pre COP 15 meeting in Bon, Saudi asked for hand outs, if it had to invest in adaptation to fight climate change! Saudi – too broke to invest in fighting climate change. And most recently asked for compensation if they were a loss of revenue due to a decline in demand for oil as the world struggled to move to clean energy.
To blame Saudi only for the resisting to acknowledge and fight climate change may be unfair - there are other oil producing countries and companies that align with Saudi .
But the sooner the Saudis and their ilk discover that when the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned and the last fish is dead, we can’t eat money, the better it will be for all of civilization.

* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body tasked with evaluating the risk of climate change and was established in 1988 by UNEP and World Meteorological Organization under the UN . The IPCC is headed by Dr. Pachauri.

The countdown to Copenhagen has begun.

2009-12-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Suddenly the media and internet is abuzz on climate change news and views.
And like everyone and everything else, there is a scramble for carbon space.

So what is the Copenhagen buzz all about and does it mean anything for India?

Here’s the deal.

Three days from today, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be holding its 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) at Copenhagen from 7-18 December 2009 in Copenhagen.

More than 190 countries will gather to agree a way forward on climate change as the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
One hopes that the meeting will end in a political agreement at the Head of State Level, with legally binding targets in 2010 and the outcome will be FAB.
Fair, ambitious and binding. Yet another climate acronym!

More than 65 Heads of State, including President Barack Obama – albeit on his way to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Angela Merkel have confirmed their attendance at Copenhagen.

Will Dr Manmohan Singh attend? We do not know that yet.

This is indeed a disappointment.

India will be at the frontlines when it comes to climate impact.

While India has historically not been a major emitter of GHGs and its per capita emission is a mere 1.2 tons/ per person compared to 23 tons/per person in the US, it will suffer severely due to climate change.

Sadly though, as the IPCC states, India will be most vulnerable to climate impacts. We are already feeling the heat of climate change – rising temperatures, shorter and less severe winters in some parts of India, erratic monsoon with impacts on agriculture and livelihoods, droughts, floods, sea surges, cyclone, outbreak of diseases, desertification, disappearing glaciers. For the 700 millions living in rural India, there will be helplessness and uncertainty.

All this will not only have huge impacts on our everyday lives but a huge impact on our economy. India already spends about 2.3 % of its GDP on climate adaptation and this will only increase as the intensity of climate change increases. Food and water security will be one of the biggest challenges facing government. With rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers, that is a source of drinking water for 40% of the world’s population, wars over water will be inevitable.

Can India sit back and play the blame game or should we act?

The blame game has lead to inaction while year after year millions have been ravaged by climate impacts. We have wasted far too many years on blaming the developed countries while not doing enough domestically – India has not invested in climate research, nor built climate resilient cities ,nor assessed vulnerabilities at various levels.

It’s a tough road ahead for India s policy makers. Development challenges in India are now even more complicated by the reality of climate change – they are linked like never before. Policy makers must counter the climate impact and yet ensure that it gets millions of out poverty. Both daunting challenges but challenges that India can meet and must meet.

India today is the 4th largest emitter of GHG emission in aggregate terms and hence it is inevitable that it will have to be responsible for future emissions. As we go into Copenhagen or COP 15, it has been about 15 years since the first climate conference, we have had enough and more of climate denial and climate inaction by developed countries - its time policy makers across the world respond.

Indian civil society, generation next and the media must come together to ask the Government for more transparency into the climate negotiations and discussions, the Government has to engage civil society much more and not keep Copenhagen discussions in the closet. In the end, it is our future and the future of our children that is at stake.

India must play its part .Whatever maybe the outcome at Copenhagen – whether we see legally binding targets or politically binding targets, whether the US, the world’s largest emitter of green house gases commits to targets or not, in India s own self interest we must act.

This is no time for any hesitation – whatsoever.