SP,
You were wise in your analogy to the PM. I can't imagine how painful life would have become for you had you carelessly cited the very visibly obvious turban instead of the tie!
On a more serious note, I read in the Indian media that the Paris meet was a "victory" for India. I presume this refers to the fact that we were successful in sticking to an INDC based on GDP rather than on absolute emissions. I just finished scanning through the UN FCCC adoption document and reading other related reports. Most of the text is well beyond my immediate comprehension and I am unable to see how any one group gets the better of the other, as Ramanan as commented. Irrespective of what any country commits to under the pressure of noble discussions and holy alliances, the path to ultimate accomplishment will be fraught with enough confusion and loop-holes to allow worry-free defaulting. There is no provision for enforcing, only the threat of 'name and shame'. I can't imagine any of our political leaders will lose sleep over that. The dead-line for formal adoption of the Paris Agreement is not till April 2017. What happens if the Republicans take charge and the gas prices stay low to boot? Will CP.21 become defunct or otherwise totally impractical?
India needs to tackle its pollution, particularly automotive, for its own sake urgently, without undue concern about global issues. If that can not be accomplished, contribution to global climatic welfare will become an impossible and irrelevant goal.
Subbu
From: "surya sethi sethisurya@yahoo.com [bitsremembers]" <bitsremembers@yahoogroups.co.in>
To: "bitsremembers@yahoogroups.co.in" <bitsremembers@yahoogroups.co.in>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: [bitsremembers] My writings [1 Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from surya sethi included below]
Dear All
First of all, many thanks to everyone who wrote back. Seeing the interest, I will hence forth post my columns (that typically cover energy and climate change) on this group site. To begin this I am attaching my last months' column on UDAY the new initiative on distribution reform with this mail.
Ramanan, I am very impressed by your insightful questions. They reflect your own knowledge and interest in the subject. I am briefly responding in blue to your questions below and I would be happy to call you for a longer discussion. Please read the longer version too as the newspaper gives me much less space than a web portal.
On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 10:00 AM, "VV Ramanan vvr@bitsoftsystems.com [bitsremembers]" <bitsremembers@yahoogroups.co.in> wrote:
Surya,
Was finally able to read your article is today's BusinessLine. Excellent summary and one that presents the ugly side of the Paris "commitment". This narrative is critical to get a balanced view -- what we heard from the political establishment at the conclusion of COP 21 was a lot of feel good, patting oneself on the back sentiments.
I have a few of questions:
a. How did the geopolitical equilibrium tilt in favor of the developed world on this issue? What kind of machinations did they use to establish such an asymmetric position? After all, the developing world does have the strength in numbers.
The interests of all the developing countries are not the same and the developed world has exploited this beautifully for the last 21 years of negotiations.
But the bulk of the blame goes to India itself. For 8 years that I was a core negotiator for the country, I tried very hard to get India to carve out a group and lead what I call the bottom half of the world. India is one third of this bottom half and her socioeconomic parameters are at the median of this bottom half, not even at the top of this group that contains over 90% of the world's poor. When I first raised this, I showed the PM that this bottom half together accounted for just 11% of global emissions and had a historic responsibility of under 1%. (Today this bottom half accounts for about 17% of the global emissions and has under 3% of the historic responsibility). India, I had argued, was the rightful leader of this group and had the intellectual and moral strength to lead this group. I also argued that by representing the interests of this group, India will serve her own interests the most and even potentially win a security council seat with the support of the number of nations in this group.
My arguments were readily accepted by think tanks overseas and negotiators from developed countries but failed to impress my own country men.
What I realized is how deeply the educated in India misunderstand their own country. They are completely oblivious to the misery of around 900 million Indians who practically have little access to anything. At heart we remain a deeply feudal society and the new feudal lords are the well educated, the well employed, the elitist bureaucracy, the political leaders, the so called intellectuals, the entrepreneurs, and off course the rich. Most in these groupings want to identify with the best in the world and want to sit on the high table with the G-20 and in groupings such as BRICS or BASIC (that include far richer and far more developed countries like China, Brazil, South Africa and Russia). They present India as an emerging super-power even though India, with 17% of the world population accounts for about 3% of the global nominal GDP, 5% of the global energy consumption, 2.3% of the land mass and about 2% of the world's fresh water reserve. India, to me is a premature power and will never become a super power.
This deep desire of no more than a million odd Indians to be identified and treated as the best in the world who lead and represent India in most fora and who are totally blind to India's social, economic and political weaknesses is the root cause for India failing in most international negotiations that impact 1.25 billion of their fellow Indians. By posturing as the best (which most of them indeed are as individuals) they short sell 1.25 billion fellow Indians. We end up on the same side as the world's rich and powerful when in reality we are the world's largest Least Developed Country (LDC) with a human development ranking of 135 among some 180 Nations, 55th worst on the hunger index among 76 nations (we were 67th on this list about 3 years ago) and are home to 35% of the world's most poor.
I hope I have given you a feel for the machinations that are used to isolate India. Most other Nations (by number of nations) in the bottom half of the world are weaned away by throwing crumbs at them as support to LDCs. Individually they are such small countries that they cannot fight or hope for anything more.
b. Why was India, with the size of its population and not insignificant financial clout and a potential marketplace, not able to influence the outcome to suit itself better? Looks like China got a sweetheart deal.
Indeed China always gets away with murder in international fora. They claim to be a developing country despite being a clear super power and the only Nation in the world to have moved some 700 million people out of poverty.
Remember that Shri Nehru seeking global glory gifted the Security Council seat to China when it was offered to India in the 40s. I have answered why India ends up at the wrong end despite some of the facts you point out in my response to the first question. I once told PM Manmohan Singh -- 'what is the point in going to the G-20 with a tie around our neck and nothing underneath'. I have not been forgiven to date.
c. This is the one that troubles me the most. Its the global vs. local aspect of this that affects all of us living in India. While we may legitimately argue that India has/should have more headroom to increase carbon footprint to support our growth aspirations, the reality of everyday life in our major cities and indeed even smaller towns (your city Delhi, my city Bangalore are exemplars) tells a different story. This requires that we seek more earth friendly means of development now and not later - conventional methods are not sustainable. Unfortunately, from where I am sitting, I see us go down the same path as the developed world did starting, as you say, in the 1700s. The world is now a different place and better alternatives are available or should be developed that are better suited to India's needs.
This is the most brilliant of your excellent questions. The paradox that you point out is partly driven by a misunderstanding. The air pollution problem that we face is different from the global warming problem even though there is come overlap of gasses involved. Truth is that the particulate matter that causes air pollution and is detrimental to health actually also reduces global warming and it is estimated that the world would have been 0.3 to 0.5 degrees warmer today (in addition to to the 1 degree Celsius warming since 1750) if this particulate matter is removed. But more on that in our discussion.
The reason that I support more carbon space for India is that if do not seek it about 900 million Indians will simply not be able to survive global warming. In a way it is similar to the nuclear doctrine. By both sides having the capability you deter its use. Indeed to give the 2.5 billion poor in the world (including over 900 million Indians) a fighting chance to survive global warming we have to raise their adaptation capacity. This cannot be done without giving them more access to energy. And you will recall that in my previous article on this issue I had shown that even if India achieves 240,000 MW of solar and wind -- they will deliver only 12% of the electricity we would need by 2030. So by ensuring greater access to energy to the bottom billion people we could be exacerbating the global warming problem but we will give a better chance to a larger number of Indians to survive. An average American has a carbon foot print equal to that of 42 average Indians. So if an American reduces his unsustainable consumption by 10%, I can double the consumption of 4.2 Indians.
India's per capita energy consumption is less than 28% of the global average. India needs to raise its energy consumption at least three time to come close enough to the average living standards (and adaptive capacity) of the world.
Just to give an example, it an accepted practice in agrarian communities to burn agricultural waste products. While it undoubtedly provides heat in the cold season,it contributes hugely to localized pollution. We have the technology to convert the biomass to usable energy (BC's company has products) some of which may be used to keep warm.
Spot on Ramanan. Since you have been regularly following my columns, you will remember, my column from about a year ago where I said that to my mind biomass remains a big part of the solution for India's energy problems. However the elite in India see this as retrograde. I am currently consulting for a foreign project for reducing agricultural burning in India -- such burning impacts both global warming and local air pollution.
Just a few points to kick off the discussions.
Ramanan
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 10:14 AM, surya sethi sethisurya@yahoo.com [bitsremembers] <bitsremembers@yahoogroups.co.in> wrote:
Dear AllAs some of you know, I write regularly on Energy and Climate Change. Do about 15-18 pieces a year. I have never posted my writings on the group site. I am taking the liberty of posting my last of the three pieces on the recent Climate Negotiations in Paris because it is something that should interest everyone. We are rapidly going down the hill to catastrophic climate events perhaps within our lifetimes.My original banner was:"Paris Climate Accord -- The Ultimate Cirque du Soleil which the editor changed to Ten Inconvenient Truths About The Paris Climate Accord.Other than this there were no other changes to the original.Your Critical comments are most welcome.Surya/Suraj
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