Climate change and energy will be key elements of discussions between Germany and India when German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes her maiden visit to the country between October 29 and November 1. The two countries will also sign an MoU on energy efficiency and renewable energy with Germany committing 150 million euros.

Germany has a pact with India on energy effiency under which it provides support to the Indian government on industrial and building energy efficiency. But Merkel’s visit gains importance with Germany holding the presidency of the G-8, which had recently held parleys on climate change with five emerging economies – India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.

The G-8 formation and EU have been pushing for developing countries, such as India, to take on some form of commitments on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate climate change. As of now, only the rich countries have fixed targets for reducing their GHG emissions. But the Kyoto Protocol, under the international convention on climate change, is up for review in the UN meeting of countries in December.

Sources in the government pointed out that there was very little chance that EU or US may get serious on target-based reduction of absolute emissions for developing countries.

But, they said, another way of pushing for curtailing emissions could be by asking India and other developing countries to increase the efficiency with which they use energy in different sectors. While neither the EU or US has put any firm proposals along the lines on the table, sources said signals were emerging that energy efficiency targets could be one proposal that could be hard-sold to India by the rich nations.

While Merkel is not expected to present any concrete proposals to India during her visit, the talks will help India prepare its position before the crucial December meeting.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 02 Oct. 2007

There have been two recent meetings on climate change, one involving 150 countries at the United Nations and the other convened by the United States, but little new ground was covered in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. is the single biggest contributor to historical emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, that will warm the planet for decades and lead to potentially damaging climate effects. There is some relief that President George Bush, who has refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, chose to make a departure from his administration’s well-known scepticism and acknowledge climate change as a “real threat.” He expressed America’s intention to launch a technology fund aided by governments around the world; support the United Nations on climate change; and work on advanced technologies. His resolve might have impressed the invited audience representing 17 major economies in Washington more had he followed the example of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and offered to introduce mandatory emission cuts for the U.S. California is praised for ordering emission cuts for power producers, introducing fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, and giving solar energy a major fillip.

Stabilising climate change and managing its impact should be a priority not just for the wealthy countries with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol but also for major developing economies such as China and India. Several technologies for clean development are available and progress depends on the ability and political will to absorb them. Considering the inevitability of coal as a major fuel for a long time to come, the policy must focus on carbon capture and storage. Power plants that adopt the integrated gasification combined cycle technology for coal hold promise because they have greater efficiency and lower environmental impacts. Solar energy also shines bright as an option. In a trend that is growing stronger, there was a 45 per cent increase in solar-based power generating capacity worldwide in a single year, 2005; Japan, Germany, and the U.S. added large capacities while Kenya is a leader in the developing world in taking to solar power. India can do a lot more to promote its solar industry and make this green source of power mandatory for commercial consumers to meet part of their growing needs. Urgent interventions are necessary in the campaign to reduce greenhouse gases. The alternative could be a dangerous tipping point for global climate.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 02 Oct. 2007

Negotiations on an international framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol are getting into full swing. As host of next year's summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations to be held at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido, Japan must be actively involved in the negotiations.

Two international conferences in the United States last week discussed measures for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming. About 160 nations participated in the first high-level meeting on climate change held at the United Nations, while representatives from major emitting countries were invited to attend the forum, which was sponsored by the US government.

About 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are spewed into the atmosphere by the European Union and the 16 nations, including Japan and China, that sat at the table of the US-sponsored conference.

The United States sniffed at the 1997 Kyoto pact and its calls on signatory nations to cut such gases between 2008-12 from 1990 levels, saying it would harm the US economy. However, Washington changed its stance after some US states adopted laws requiring cuts in emissions in an attempt to combat global warming. Last week, the United States even chaired the major emitter countries' meeting.

At the conference, participants confirmed they would establish a new framework by 2009, and aim for the goal set by leaders at this year's G-8 summit meeting in Germany to cut global gas emissions by half their current levels by 2050.

Split over mandatory cuts
There has been much head-scratching over what kind of framework should be created to achieve this target.

The Kyoto accord assigns mandatory, country-by-country emission limits for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to signatory nations. The EU insists similar mandatory limits should be incorporated in the post-Kyoto pact, a move apparently aimed at nurturing the international market for trading greenhouse gas credits.

However, the United States has shown no sign it will budge from its opposition to mandatory targets on global warming.

China, which apparently has dethroned the United States as the world's largest emitter, was not required to make emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol because it was regarded as a developing country. Beijing has bristled at suggestions it should shoulder obligations on a par with those undertaken by developed nations.

Japan, meanwhile, insists the post-Kyoto Protocol framework must be flexible and all-encompassing.

No easy answers
It is imperative that the post-Kyoto pact has every major emitter onboard; the shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol must not be repeated. Japan's strategy aims to bring major emitter countries to the same table, but the government will have its work cut out trying to get the plan off the drawing board and turning it into action.

Transferring clean technology to developing countries is an issue that needs to be addressed. US President George W. Bush called for the creation of a global fund to promote technology on reducing carbon dioxide emission for developing nations. Japan should actively participate in designing the fund's blueprint and its operation.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 03 Oct. 2007

As the issue of climate change becomes an ever greater source of anxiety throughout the world, advocacy groups have pushed hard for the UN to step up its efforts to halt the rush towards environmental disaster. The secretary general has tried to take an initiative at the current’s session of the General Assembly, for the UN’s role is crucial and the essential international instruments aimed at remedial action were devised under UN auspices.

The main agreement is the Kyoto Protocol, which was hailed at big step forward when it came into being but soon lost its effectiveness owing to President Bush’s decision to withdraw. The Kyoto Protocol, with all its virtues and insufficiencies, is due to expire in 2012 and the talks of replacing it with some thing more usefull has already begun to command attention. Meanwhile, the evidence about global warming continues to accumulate, with a spate of alarming stories about where it could be leading.

Bizarre outcome
As the UN session was getting under way, there were fresh reports about the rapid summer melting of the Arctic ice cap, to the consternation of scientists who have been observing and measuring the occurrence. Normally ice- clogged sea passages beyond Canada and Siberia became visible, perhaps usable by regular shipping, and loss of habitat seemed to threaten the long-term survival of the polar bear, prime predator in its region. A some what bizarre outcome of global warming is the race to lay claim to the newly accessible ocean floor below the North Pole, with Russia and Canada in the van among the contending nations.

In a wry prognostication the great Czech leader and savant Vaclav Havel has written that even if matters continue as they are the earth will survive, though with a different plant cover animal population, but the human race may well perish.

Refusal to accept internationally ordained action on a number of issues, including climate change, has been from the star one of the hallmarks of the Bush Administration. It has preferred to follow its own course rather than conform international standards, such as those prescribed by the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, when it resiled from that agreement, the USA was at pains to criticise its limitations, especially the exemptions it offered to developing countries, India and China in particular. In the US view, as major and growing major polluters, these countries should have been asked to take their fair share of the burden of adjustment instead of being given the special consideration they had received. More controversial was the US skepticism about the phenomenon of global warming itself, which it believed was not sufficiently proven and required further scientific investigation.

Environmental activists have been much dismayed by the US position on this matter which has been regarded as an effective brake on further concerted action by the international community. Most recently, however, there are signs of some rethinking in Washington leading to a fresh US initiative on the environment.

While still keeping aloof from action at the UN, the USA called a meeting in Washington last week to discuss the subject. This was a high level affair, called by the president and hosted by the secretary of state. The 16 biggest polluters in the world were invited to attend, mainly industrial countries but including also the major developing countries. Indian had the somewhat dubious distinction of being there with the other major polluters. Despite the top level involvement of the US leadership, the participating countries were represented at relatively modest level. This was an indication of the small expectations they had of what the outcome could be. No great breakthrough was anticipated and at most a few minor gains were hoped for.

In the event, the conference did not have too much to deliver. The briefing by Dr. Rice after the first session showed some advance in that she acknowledged that global warming was a real problem, so the reality of the phenomenon was no longer denied. Moreover, she acknowledged that the USA was a major polluter and was not detached from the international community on this issue. She said that the growing problem should be solved under UN auspices and asked for a new global consensus, and called also for reduced dependence on fossil fuels without harming national economies. While these observations seemed to indicate a greater US readiness to join with others, Dr. Rice also called on all nations to tackle climate change in ways they deemed best. This was in effect a reaffirmation of the principle of voluntarism which has divided the international community, where the preponderant demand is for mandatory measures. Thus on this central issue, the USA remains wedded to an approach that is unlikely to command consensus.

After the second and final session of the conference, it was President Bush who briefed the media on what had transpired. It did not appear that there was much to add to what had already been made public by the secretary of state. It was widely noted, however, that the form of the briefings had been kept deliberately restricted, without the free flowing questions and answers that are more common on such occasions, and without any opportunity for delegates from other participant countries to express their views and comments.

Partly because of the tightly managed format of the meeting, quite a few observations about its import were circulated on the sidelines. Some of these, especially some attributed to European sources, were frankly critical, presenting the view that the Washington initiative would weaken the parallel effort by the UN.

Biggest pollution
There was also much disbelief about the value of voluntary restraints for these had been tried and had failed. So on the whole the participants emerged unconvinced by the US viewpoint on the issues under discussion. Whether such skeptical views had been expressed at the conference itself in a bid to change US opinion is not known. However, it was feared by some that the voluntarism propounded by the host country could have a damaging effect by encouraging some others to drift away from mandatory targets.

In this context, China came in for particular consideration. According to a number of reports, China will soon overtake the USA as the world’s biggest polluter. Its environment has already been severely damaged by industrial pollution but its drive for pell-mell growth remains its principal goal. The fear was, therefore, expressed that China and the USA may come together in an arrangement that dooms the larger effort of the UN. This may be noting more than speculative concern at this time but it is an index of the anxieties raised by the environment issue.

In these circumstances, some observers of the events of last week have concluded that the present US administration will not change its way no matter how the evidence of an approaching environmental disaster piles up, so nothing better is possible than to wait for the new Administration after the elections of 2008.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 05 Oct. 2007

All eyes are on Greenland’s melting glaciers as alarm about global warming spreads. This year, delegations of US and European politicians have made pilgrimages to the fastest-moving glacier at Ilulissat, where they declare that they see climate change unfolding before their eyes.

Curiously, something that’s rarely mentioned is that temperatures in Greenland were higher in 1941 than they are today. Or that melt rates around Ilulissat were faster in the early part of the past century, according to a new study. And while the delegations first fly into Kangerlussuaq, about 100 miles to the south, they all change planes to go straight to Ilulissat – perhaps because the Kangerlussuaq glacier is inconveniently growing.

I point this out not to challenge the reality of global warming or the fact that it’s caused in large part by humans, but because the discussion about climate change has turned into a nasty dustup, with one side arguing that we’re headed for catastrophe and the other maintaining that it’s all a hoax. I say that neither is right. It’s wrong to deny the obvious: The Earth is warming, and we’re causing it. But that’s not the whole story, and predictions of impending disaster also don’t stack up.

We have to rediscover the middle ground, where we can have a sensible conversation. We shouldn’t ignore climate change or the policies that could attack it. But we should be honest about the shortcomings and costs of those policies, as well as the benefits.

Environmental groups say that the only way to deal with the effects of global warming is to make drastic cuts in carbon emissions - a project that will cost the world trillions (the Kyoto Protocol alone would cost $180 billion annually). It means spending an awful lot to achieve very little. Instead, we should be thinking creatively and pragmatically about how we could combat the much larger challenges facing our planet.

Nobody knows for certain how climate change will play out. But we should deal with the most widely accepted estimates. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ocean levels will rise between half a foot and two feet, with the best expectation being about one foot, in this century, mainly because of water expanding as it warms. That’s similar to what the world experienced in the past 150 years.

Some individuals and environmental organizations scoff that the IPCC has severely underestimated the melting of glaciers, especially in Greenland. In fact, the IPCC has factored in the likely melt-off from Greenland (contributing a bit over an inch to sea levels in this century) and Antarctica (which, because global warming also generally produces more precipitation, will actually accumulate ice rather than shedding it, making sea levels two inches lower by 2100).

A one-foot rise in sea level isn’t a catastrophe, though it will pose a problem, particularly for small island nations. But let’s remember that very little land was lost when sea levels rose last century. It costs relatively little to protect the land from rising tides: We can drain wetlands, build levees and divert waterways. As nations become richer and land becomes a scarcer commodity, this process makes ever more sense: Like our parents and grandparents, our generation will ensure that the water doesn’t claim valuable land.

The IPCC tells us two things: If we focus on economic development and ignore global warming, we’re likely to see a 13-inch rise in sea levels by 2100. If we focus instead on environmental concerns and, for instance, adopt the hefty cuts in carbon emissions many environmental groups promote, this could reduce the rise by about five inches.

But cutting emissions comes at a cost: Everybody would be poorer in 2100. With less money around to protect land from the sea, cutting carbon emissions would mean that more dry land would be lost, especially in vulnerable regions such as Micronesia, Tuvalu, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Maldives.

As sea levels rise, so will temperatures. It seems logical to expect more heat waves and therefore more deaths. But though this fact gets much less billing, rising temperatures will also reduce the number of cold spells. This is important because research shows that the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat.

According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change’s health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It’s estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.

The Kyoto Protocol, with its drastic emissions cuts, is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heat waves. At a much lower cost, urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures more effectively by planting trees, adding water features and reducing the amount of asphalt in at-risk cities. Estimates show that this could reduce the peak temperatures in cities by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Global warming will claim lives in another way: by increasing the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 per cent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 per cent. On the other hand, we could spend $3 billion annually – 2 per cent of the protocol’s cost – on mosquito nets and medication and cut malaria incidence almost in half within a decade.

Of course, it’s not just humans we care about. Environmentalists point out that magnificent creatures such as polar bears will be decimated by global warming as their icy habitat melts. Kyoto would save just one bear a year. Yet every year, hunters kill 300 to 500 polar bears, according to the World Conservation Union. Outlawing this slaughter would be cheap and easy – and much more effective than a worldwide pact on carbon emissions.

Wherever you look, the inescapable conclusion is the same: Reducing carbon emissions is not the best way to help the world. I don’t point this out merely to be contrarian. We do need to fix global warming in the long run. But I’m frustrated at our blinkered focus on policies that won’t achieve it.

The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012. U.N. members will be negotiating its replacement in Copenhagen by the end of 2009. Politicians insist that the “next Kyoto” should be even tougher. But after two spectacular failures, we have to ask whether “let’s try again, and this time let’s aim for much higher reductions” is the right approach.

Even if the policymakers’ earlier promises had been met, they would have done virtually no good, but would have cost us a small fortune. The typical cost of cutting a ton of CO2 is currently about $20. Yet, according to a wealth of scientific literature, the damage from a ton of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. Spending $20 to do $2 worth of good is not smart policy. It may make you feel good, but it’s not going to stop global warming.

We need to reduce the cost of cutting emissions from $20 a ton to, say, $2. That would mean that really helping the environment wouldn’t be the preserve of the rich but could be opened up to everyone else - including China and India, which are expected to be the main emitters of the 21st century but have many more pressing issues to deal with first. The way to achieve this is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy.

I formed the Copenhagen Consensus in 2004 so that some of the world’s top economists could come together to ask not only where we can do good, but at what cost, and to rank the best things for the world to do first. The top priorities they’ve come up with are dealing with infectious diseases, malnutrition, agricultural research and first-world access to third-world agriculture. For less than a fifth of Kyoto’s price tag, we could tackle all these issues.

The Tribune (Chandigarh), 09 Oct. 2007

Strong world wide economic growth has accelerated the level of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere to a dangerous threshold scientists had not expected for another decade, according to a leading Australian climate change expert. Scientist Tim Flannery said a report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due to be released in November will contain new data showing that the level of climate-changing gases in the atmosphere has already reached critical levels.

What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause dangerous climate change,” Mr. Flannery, who claims to have to claims to have seen the raw data that will be included in the IPCC’s Synthesis Report, told Australian Broadcasting Corplate on Monday.

“We are already at already at great risk of dangerous climate change, that’s what these figures say, it’s not next year or next decade, it’s now,” Mr. Flannery added.

According to Flannery, whose recent book The Weather Makers, made best-seller lists world-wide, new and improved scientific data showed that the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions had reached about 455 parts per million by mid-2005, well ahead of scientists’ previous calculations.

“We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade, that we had that much time,” Mr. Flannery said.

“I mean, that’s beyond the limits of projection, beyond the worst-case scenario as we thought of it in 2001,” when the last major IPCC report was issued.

The recent economic boom in China and India have helped to accelerate the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but strong growth in the developed world has also exacerbated the problem, Mr. Flannery said.

It’s a world-wide issue. We’ve had growing economies every where, we’re still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels,” he said.

“The metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course clearly with the metabolism of our planet.”

The new data will likely give added urgency to the next round of UN climate change talks on the Indonesian island of Bali in December, which will aim to start negotiations on a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Mr. Flannery said that with the level of greenhouse gas emissions already so high, the talks should also focus on preserving tropical forests in countries like Indonesia, Brazil and Papua New Guinea.

“We can reduce emissions as strongly as we like. Unless we can draw some of the standing stock of pollutants out of the air and into the tropical forests, we’ll still face unacceptable levels of risk in 40 years time,” he said.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and dense tropical forests are believed to be particularly efficient at this.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 10 Oct. 2007

The world isn’t just getting hotter from manmade global warming, it’s getting stickier.

The amount of moisture in the air near the surface – the stuff that makes hot weather unbearable – increased 2.2 per cent in just under three decades. And computer models show that the only explanation is man-made global warming, according to a study published in Nature on Thursday.

“This humidity change is an important contribution to heat stress in humans as a result of global warming,” said Nathan Gillett of the University of East Anglia in Britain, a co-author of the study.

Gillett studied changes in specific humidity, which is a measurement of total moisture in the air, between1973-2002. Increases in humidity can be dangerous to people because it makes the body less efficient at cooling itself, said University of Miami health and climate researcher Laurence Kalkstein. He was not connected with the research.

Humidity increased over most of the globe, said study co-author Katharine Willett, a climate researcher at Yale University. However, a few regions, including the US West, South Africa and parts of Australia were drier.

The finding isn’t surprising to climate scientists. Physics dictates that warmer air can hold more moisture. But Gillett’s study shows that the increase in humidity already is significant and can be attributed to gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

To show that this is man-made Gillett ran computer models to simulate past climate conditions and studied what would happen to humidity if there were no man-made greenhouse gases. It didn’t match reality.

He looked at what would happened from just man-made greenhouse gases. That didn’t match either. Then he looked conditions and greenhouse gases. The results were nearly identical to the year-by-year increases in humidity.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 11 Oct. 2007

Where does science end and politics begin? For over a decade we have seen an increasingly bitter debate between environmentalists and sceptics about the extent to which the globe is warming, who is responsible and what, if anything, we ought to do. Presented with two sets of “experts,” the public is left confused, as opinion polls show.

The real truth — that all major scientific questions about global warming have long been settled in a way that largely supports the environmentalist position — remains obscured by political trench warfare and media debate. This is why Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth — despite its largely accurate portrayal of climate science — was this week criticised as “one-sided” by an English High Court judge in a case about a British government plan to show the film in U.K. schools. He said the film contained nine scientific errors — but still ruled that pupils could see it.

That is not to say that Mr. Gore got everything 100 per cent right. It is true that the apocalyptic scenario of Gulf Stream shutdown (leaving Europe shivering in a new ice age) is now out of favour with oceanographers, and Mr. Gore was wrong to imply that the very close relationship between carbon dioxide and temperatures during ice age cycles proves cause and effect.

He should also have been clearer about the timescales involved with any collapse of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets. Yes, if the Greenland sheet melted sea levels would rise by seven metres. But no one thinks that the entire ice sheet could melt in this century. This is an area of real scientific uncertainty: glaciologists are still struggling to understand ice-sheet dynamics.

Lake Chad and Kilimanjaro are even trickier. Yes, Lake Chad has lost 90 per cent of its water — but dams and overgrazing will have aggravated any fall in precipitation. Kilimanjaro’s glaciers, because they mostly sublimate (turn from ice directly into water vapour) rather than melt, are unusual in comparison with most mountain glaciers. But so what? Rising temperatures are clearly behind the glacial retreat observed in every major mountain range on the planet.

Moreover, the judge was wrong on coral bleaching — which is unambiguously related to rising sea temperatures — and in downplaying the sea level impacts experienced by atoll states. As it happens, Mr. Gore’s statement on this subject was based on a photo I took in Tuvalu in 2002, shown in the film, at a time when increasingly severe flooding during high tides was already a reality, driving negotiations with New Zealand about evacuating the entire population.

All these points, however, are trivial in the context of the film’s main argument, which is unambiguously correct in its portrayal of mainstream scientific understanding of climate change. The judge, to his credit, stated this clearly. But the case serves to illustrate how science and politics collide on climate change: so long as the political debate demands absolute scientific certainty as a prelude to serious action, a tiny seed of doubt on any issue — a single lake or mountain among 10,000 — can be used by the denial lobby to cast doubt on the entire global warming thesis, and so undermine public understanding.

Hence, the need to move the debate from science and towards precaution. It is now very likely that global warming this century will present major challenges to the survival of human civilisation — and to our children’s and grandchildren’s lives. If we listen to the deniers, we are taking a very dangerous gamble — a bit like playing Russian roulette with five bullets and only one empty chamber. That’s not a game I want to play with my kids.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 13 Oct. 2007

Global warming remains a major concern for obvious reasons. More carbon dioxide (CO2) has been emitted into the atmosphere in the last five years than in the second half of the 1990s, high prices of oil and gas notwithstanding, reads a poignant statistic from World Energy 2007. China leads the robust demand for energy, accounting for 15 per cent of global energy consumed that sadly includes 70 per cent of the world’s coal burnt, easily the most polluting of all fossil fuels. This, despite crude prices relentlessly soaring to record highs. And there is little by way of respite for energy consumers from the upward spiral of oil prices on the horizon.

A combination of factors is conspiring to keep oil prices high. These include an unprecedented surge of economic growth fuelled by demand in Asia. Other key contributors include Katrina-like natural disasters that impede oil and gas supply and production, increased import of refined products on account of inadequate capacity expansion as a result of under-investment in refineries, the geopolitical uncertainties arising from the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and another bout of sabre-rattling in the context of Iran’s nuclear programme, not to forget the totally suicidal tendencies displayed by Nigerian oil politics (which has emerged as a saga of its own).

Of the world consumption of 86 million barrels per day of oil, Asia—not counting West Asia—accounts for 25 million, which is 29 per cent, a share that is growing fast. However, Asia produces only a third of its oil needs, and imports about 16 million barrels per day. The Middle East, which includes the oil-rich Gulf, supplies 73 per cent of this requirement—which reflects a heavy exposure of these fragile Asian economies to the geopolitical vagaries of the volatile region to its west.

Most Asian Markets further suffer from unviable government subsidies and artificial pricing mechanisms that insulate the ultimate consumers from steep market escalations, and thus neither promotes thrift nor provides incentives for the discovery of ingenious alternatives.

China and India, by far the two most rapidly advancing economies in the world, are also, without surprise, the two most rampant Asian offenders that are adding to environmental pollution and global warming in alarming proportions. Paradoxically, however, these two countries have been set no limits by the Kyoto Protocol to rein in their pollution.

The rapid Asian economic growth has spiraled its way into another unexpected urban challenge—currently, Asia houses 13 of the world’s 20 largest megacities. The expanding populations in these cities place an increased demand for transportation. A high priority of governments must be to improve public transportation and infrastructure to relieve the pressure on private car ownership, which is being fuelled by fast growing wealth.

While tight supplies, refinery bottlenecks, rising demand, geopolitical developments and price volatility have thrown up huge challenges, on the positive side, it has also led to a paradigm shift in seeking newer energy sources. This is spurring the industry towards exploration and production of new oil and gas fields in areas that were once relegated as “difficult”. Consequently, inhospitable terrains in the Arctic or under the oceans in water depths exceeding 4,000 metres are being routinely explored today.

Concomitantly, thanks to the Kyoto Protocol and the compelling evidence of the negative fallout on global warming and the multitude of environmental ills in its wake due to greenhouse gases, many countries are looking to “greener” alternatives and dangling the carrot of tax breaks and innumerable subsidies to catalyse altogether new sources of energy that would at once reduce the dependence on imported fossil fuels while equally, propel the engines of the economy forth on the wings of ecological sustainability.

Further, governments, businesses and consumers in these countries should work together to take responsibility for the environment. Less polluting fuels such as LNG and biofuels must be encouraged, while simultaneously reducing the dependence on coal, which generates the largest amounts of carbon dioxide, contributing hugely to global warming.

Diesel is a better source of fuel than petrol, being less polluting, and must be encouraged. So too, hybrid fuels that utilise a combination of fossil fuels—petrol and NPG/LNG, fossil fuels with battery power, or biofuel blends. Regular fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are rapidly losing favour amongst those who are conscious of the world’s future and the need to keep it in balance.

For any of this to happen, widespread awareness is required, and all intellectual nodes of influence must be pressed into service. A sharper sense of the imperatives of a clean environment should begin through systematic education from the primary school level, so that the concern for sustainable development and the urge to leave a better morrow are not some esoteric lectures heard in some high-falutin’ conference, but things people act upon.

The Financial Express (New Delhi), 13 Oct. 2007

Climate change is not only an environmental issue, but a security issue. This Nobel Prize for Peace is recognition that climate change and its consequences are issues that are important for our security and stability. If we don’t address the climate change issues, disruptions will set in the ecosystem. If ecosystems are disrupted, the stability of the society will be affected.

While Al Gore has done great work in creating broad awareness at the political and the global level, Rajendra Pachauri at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has worked hard to generate consensus among its panel of more than 2,500 scientists on anthropogenic climate changes and its adverse impacts.

The Nobel prize is a valuable recognition of IPCC’s role in tapping information coming out of a broad and diverse scientific community and spreading that scientific awareness all over the world.

It’s impressive how both Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri have influenced people’s thinking and driven home that these climate change issues have an adverse impact on people’s lives.

The Nobel prize is a valuable recognition of their invaluable work. I extend my congratulations to Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC and Al Gore on winning the award. The award was unexpected, but not underserved.

In essence, it’s an award to the issue of climate change. It will prompt the society, businesses and governments to address the issue and find solutions. Governments also need to provide enabling environment for businesses to tackle the issue of climate change.

The award is not going to change the basic viewpoint of the US government or for that matter the Chinese government or the Indian government, but they will have to make it a point to deal more with the problem of climate change.

The recognition is one more step in the direction of securing global action. It will be one more reason for people to look at the issue and take action. It’s very significant from a long term perspective. At the World Business Council for Sustainable Development we see climate change as a very important issue. We realise that addressing it is important for our sustainability. We will step up our activities.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 14 Oct. 2007

India and China must enlarge their cooperation to fight global warming as its coastal cities of Kolkata and Shanghai were among the most vulnerable to climate change, says R.K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"If the Himalayan glaciers start melting at a faster pace, these cities could face serious flooding due to a rise in the sea level," Pachauri, who heads the panel that has been named for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, said here Monday.

"India and China will also face serious water scarcities if global temperatures continue to increase at this pace," he told a seminar held by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Pachauri welcomed the recent initiatives of European countries like Germany for targeted reductions in the carbon emission levels through the implementation of programmes to raise the share of renewable sources in their energy mix.

Addressing the conference earlier, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde reiterated India's commitment to support the global effort to fight the menace of greenhouse gas emissions.

He said although India was not in a position presently to cut its dependence on coal as fuel for power generation, measures were being taken to make coal-fired power plants more environment-friendly by adopting latest technologies.

The Tribune (Chandigarh), 16 Oct. 2007

The Assocham President Venugopal N. Dhoot said that there is a need to initiate and develop a strategy and adopt measures to counter the impacts of climate change. However, addressing climate change is a challenge in developing countries like India, as it is perceived to interfere with the ongoing process of economic development. This challenge could be addressed if the efforts to address climate change is integrated with sustainable development.

He further said, in a growing economy like India, the increasing demand for products and services have resulted in the exploitation of resources by all sectors. Considering India’s current development strategy, which focuses on strengthening the economy, this pressure on our natural resources is expected to increase further and would ultimately result in their exhaustion, if not acted upon in time and wisely. Hence, the need for just use of limited resources, such as energy and water, is becoming a necessity considering long-term economic growth and development.

The Assocham chief further stated that finding alternatives for limited resources, reducing their usage, more efficient and cleaner technologies and better utilization of waste would not only help India in continue following the path of development but would also help in reducing the overall environmental impact of operations and processes on the society, and help the nation in preparing itself against climate change impacts.

Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 16 Oct. 2007

Haruhiko Kuroda, President, Asian Development Bank, has underlined the need for policymakers in Asia to create the right incentives for development and use of low-carbon technologies, address market failures and barriers and attract financing.

Asia-Pacific partnership Addressing an interactive meeting on Technology and Finance for Clean Development under the aegis of the Asia Pacific Partnership (APP) on Clean Development and Climate, Mr. Kuroda, said it was important to put a cost on the external impacts of carbon emitting activities, and to develop innovative mechanisms to finance the additional cost of new technologies.

The ADB President said effective mechanisms for cooperation, technology transfer and knowledge sharing would be needed and as APP has demonstrated, private-public sector partnership would play a crucial role.

Mr. Kuroda said ADB’s commitment to supporting Asia’s transition to a low carbon economy would be demonstrated in an updated energy strategy to be finalised soon.

With focus on India and China, he said the multilateral lending agency has earmarked $1 billion for funding clean energy and environment programmes in the region.

Financing “The clean energy and environment programme comprises several distinct initiatives, including the energy efficiency initiative which aims to expand our clean energy investment to $1 billion by 2008,” Mr. Kuroda said. As part of the carbon market initiative, the ADB would provide upfront financing and technical support to developers and sponsors of the projects with greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation benefits, he added.

The lending institution, he added, would assist those projects which qualify for benefits as clean development mechanism (CDM) projects under the Kyoto Protocol.

James L. Connaughton, chairman for Council on Environmental Quality of the White House, said that as per the estimates of the International Energy Agency, between 2005 and 2030, $20 trillion would be spent on energy-supply infrastructure, much of which will be invested in the APP countries.

Almost 85 per cent of this investment would have to come from the private sector. There was thus a dire need to harness the projected investment to advance clean and sustainable energy as the demand for energy is expected to rise by 50 per cent in the coming decades, he elaborated.

Meena Gupta, secretary, Environment and Forests, said, “We need to look at the issue of financing of technology as well as providing resources for R&D into critical and affordable technologies. In this connection, we need to explore innovative means of financing while ensuring that current channels of financing are not diverted.”

The Hindu (New Delhi), 17 Oct. 2007

The Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship, has docked in the Sundarbans to campaign for firm action to protect the world's largest mangrove forest in coastal West Bengal from the adverse affects of global warming. On Monday, the Sundarbans witnessed a gathering of 12,000 people who sent across a strong message to the world to protect the region from submergence. Today (Tuesday) we are following up with a massive mangrove planting programme," Greenpeace activist Ruchira Talukdar told IANS.

The Rainbow Warrior reached Sagar Island in the Sundarbans Monday from Kolkata, where it reached Oct 12, to highlight the extreme vulnerability of this ecologically sensitive region to a rise in the sea level due to global warming.

"The ship carries on the message to Bali in Indonesia where in December world governments will meet to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol on climate change," Talukdar said.

"Mangrove planting can extend the life of islands facing submergence from sea level rise by only four to five years but what we need is to put pressure on governments to meet their emission standards," she said.

A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) World Heritage Site, the Sunderbans archipelago faces a threat from global warming and attendant climate change. A recent United Nations study revealed that a mere 45 cm rise in the sea level will destroy 75 percent of the forests spread over a 10,000 sq km area in India's eastern state of West Bengal and adjacent Bangladesh.

"There are already 7,000 environmental refugees in the Sunderbans and the numbers can only increase with the sea devouring more islands as a result of global warming and climate change," Pranabes Sanyal, a professor at the School of Oceanographic Studies of Jadavpur University (JU), told IANS.

The school had conducted a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal and concluded that the sea level was rising 3.14 mm a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of two mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, six Greenpeace activists who were arrested for trespassing and scaling a chimney of a thermal power station in East Midnapore to paint "Smoking Kills" on it were granted bail Monday. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for Dec 19.

The Himanchal Times (Dehradun), 17 Oct. 2007

It could cost India a whopping $ 2.53 trillion in investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.7 per cent by 2036 if 1990 emissions levels are taken as the baseline. Worse still, undertaking technological changes that help increase efficiency in the way India uses its fossil fuels (like petroleum which emit GHGs) will become extremely exorbitant.

This startling figure has been thrown up by studies being carried out and commissioned by the Indian government to understand the impact of climate change and its mitigation.

The revelations were made by Dr. Prodipto Ghosh, retired secretary of the environment and forests ministry, speaking at a conference organised by The Energy and Resources Institute and KAF, a Germany based think-tank and funding organisation.

While there was some scepticism about the figure, the meeting saw an emerging consensus among the gathered experts that the toll such emission cuts and adopting of new technologies would take is huge.

“If India undertakes any kind of commitments under the UN framework on climate change, it bound to hit Indian economy,” said a key Indian negotiator on the sidelines of the meeting. Developed countries have begun a loud campaign demanding that India and China too undertake some kind of binding targets to cut emissions just like the developed countries do under the existing regime.

TERI has been commissioned by the environment ministry to bring out a white paper on climate change ahead of the critical UN conference of all countries on climate change in December.

Dr. Ghosh, speaking at the meeting, said that the amount needed for abatement of climate change causing gases under existing technological innovations would be so massive that it would exceed the GDP of all countries except Japan and the US at 2004 levels. Also based on computations made at TERI, taking into account data and methods also used by the International Energy Agency, France, the cost of demanding high levels of efficiency from the manufacturing sector from India could hit Indian economic growth beyond a limit. The calculations show that India could achieve another 3 per cent efficiency in its total energy consumption methods without pinching its growth but any further push to increase efficiency would hurt the economy and future growth. Trying push the industry for more than 9 per cent efficiency could mean explosively high costs, the TERI study concludes.

This data was presented to the international community at Vienna last month in an international meet of countries in preparation for the big event in Bali in December. The figures come in complete contradiction to the famous Stern report commissioned by U.K. Stern had stated that it would not hurt developing economies, such as India, to undertake emission cuts and action now could save them greater economic damage in the years to come.

While the Indian experts present at the meeting said that there could be some questions about the calculation, a veteran international negotiator for India on climate change said, “Even by conservative estimates, the cost to India to undertake emission cuts would be to the tune of $500 billion and that would hurt India’s economy.

While India prepares the grounds to defend its right to economic development, one thing is becoming adequately clear: the Nobel Prize to climate change warriors is not going to change the way the battle over climate change-essentially a battle over energy security – is fought in the international arena.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 17 Oct. 2007

In awarding the Nobel peace prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore, the Nobel Committee recognised climate change as the most serious problem affecting human security. In awarding it to Gore, the committee recognised his efforts to put climate change on the political agenda. In awarding it to IPCC, it recognised the institutional framework that collects, collates, and assesses the available science. In awarding it during the leadership of Rajendra Pachauri, it sends a strong message - the future of the climate problem lies in countries like India.

Why? The problem cannot be addressed unless all countries participate and especially the big ones. At present 170 countries are participating in climate treaties. However, the momentum has slowed down since the US has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. In 1996, the US made its acceptance of quantitative greenhouse gas (GHG) targets dependent on developing countries like India and later tried to co-opt these countries through bilateral agreements.

While everyone recognises that at a per capita level the emissions of the latter are low, the sheer size of total emissions makes it critical to include the three largest emitters. However, the US tendency to unilateralism sets a dangerous precedent. If China and India join the US and go unilateral as large powers are often tempted to do, the climate policy regime will collapse risking the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable who are located mostly in developing countries as the Delhi Declaration of 2002 emphasised.

Indian foreign policy rhetoric has not changed much. In 1989, at Noordwijk, the government argued that it may be counter-productive to lay down targets for countries which are still striving to raise the living conditions of their masses. While preparing for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the government argued that the developed countries are primarily responsible for the emissions, that developing countries need to fulfil developmental needs first and that the North should transfer resources to the South in order to accelerate the response to climate change.

In June 2007, Pranab Mukherjee reiterated this position in Hamburg. The question is: Will not the impacts of the problem itself reduce the prospects for economic growth and poverty alleviation?

Developing countries are justified in their anger with the North about not having kept its side of the bargain. Climate change agreements are based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, for which the North should take action and show leadership. The North should make technologies and financial assistance available to the South for the South to develop sustainably. If the more debilitating consequences of climate change are to be avoided, global emissions of GHGs must peak in 2015.

With the US making its policy conditional on steps taken by key developing countries, there was a crisis of leadership. Developing countries want the North to take the first steps on emission cuts, while the US clings to technological solutions to bail them out of serious impacts. EU is moving ahead with a unilateral, unconditional target, in the hope of breaking this deadlock. However, without followers the problem will continue unabated and the risks for the 150 or so developing countries may be quite devastating.

India is taking a number of measures, China may be ahead. It has a national energy intensity target which it has divided among the provinces and is setting up a reward system for officials down to local level that recognises their contribution to environmental issues. While both China and India are leveraging international resources through the clean development mechanism and the global environment facility, this will not be enough to make more than a small dent in their energy policy. At the same time comprehensive solutions for countries like China and India are not likely to be found in the West.

The Nobel prize brings with it the responsibility for India to unleash its huge intellectual capital and mobilise all social actors in a small sustainable development revolution.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 19 Oct. 2007

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic plan to send tourists on an exclusive leisure trip to space to view the earth from there completely contradicts the aviation tycoon’s professed concern for the environment. Only a year ago Branson pledged $3 billion for research in renewable energy alternatives to combat global warming over the next 10 years. His announcement came close on the heels of US President George Bush’s commitment to spend $3 billion on climate technology research.

Branson had acknowledged that air transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. This provoked him to put money into climate change research. Which is why in February this year in London, he launched - along with Al Gore and others - the Earth Challenge Prize worth $25 million for the best solution to curbing emissions.

High altitude emissions have 2.7 times the environmental impact of those on the ground. Aviation is the fastest growing source of carbon emissions, say experts who quote figures from the data put together by members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The UN body estimates that by the year 2050, aviation will account for at least 4 per cent of all CO2 released by human activity.

Aviation will increase ozone concentrations at typical jet cruise altitudes and will eventually contribute to warmer surface temperatures. Fossil fuel energy used by space shuttles and ships is far greater in volume of both energy used and polluting emissions compared to airliners.

The answer is not to ban space tourism. By adopting clean technology and reducing waste, green practices can become intrinsic to smart economic growth. Similarly, making room for leisure travellers in regular space flights meant for research - space tourists are often part of shuttle teams that go to the International Space Station - will subsidise cost, reduce wastage of resources and prevent additional pollution. Until we figure out a cleaner alternative, why start a new and polluting space travel service?

The Times of India (New Delhi), 20 Oct. 2007

Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world’s species could be wiped out.

Scientists at the University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520 million years and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth’s temperatures are in a “greenhouse” climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during cooler “icehouse” conditions, biodiversity increased.

The results, published on Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earth’s temperature due to manmade climate change could have a similar effect on biodiversity.

Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist and one of the authors of the research paper, said: “Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming they suggest that extinctions will increase.”

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could increase by as much as 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Dr. Mayhew found that of the five mass extinction events in the Earth’s history, four were linked to greenhouse climates where the Earth was covered in heat-trapping CO2 or methane. This includes the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, thought to have been caused by the impact of large asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The largest-ever extinction occurred 251 million years ago, when 95 per cent of animal and plant species were killed off. The most likely cause was floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic region — an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Hindu (New Delhi), 25 Oct. 2007

The fact that we are in the year 2007, with all the knowledge that we have and with all the capacity to do things differently to present to the world at this point a report that essentially says that our response has been woefully inadequate is a very sobering realization, said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), at the launch in New York of the agency’s report, Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development (GEO-4).

The report notes that environmental concerns are much closer to mainstream politics everywhere today than when they were first addressed by the Brundtland Commission in its landmark report ‘Our Common Future’ two decades ago.

But it warns that despite these advances, problems persist which, if not addressed, may undo progress and threaten humanity’s survival.

Over the past 20 years, the international community has cut, by 95 per cent, the production of ozone-layer damaging chemicals; created a greenhouse gas emission reduction treaty along with innovative carbon trading and carbon offset markets; supported a rise in terrestrial protected areas to cover roughly 12 per cent of the Earth and devised numerous important instruments covering issues from biodiversity and desertification to the trade in hazardous wastes and living modified organisms, Mr. Steiner noted.

At the same time, persistent problems include the decline of fish stocks; loss of fertile land through degradation; unsustainable pressure on resources; dwindling amount of fresh water; and risk that environmental damage could pass unknown points of no return, UNEP said.

Climate change, the destruction caused by forest fires and floods and other problems demonstrate the cost of humanity trying to cope with the scale of environmental impacts, said Mr. Steiner.

The report acknowledges that technology can help to reduce people’s vulnerability to environmental stresses, but says there is sometimes a need to correct the technology centred development paradigm.

It argues that the future will be largely determined by the decisions individuals and society make now. Our common future depends on our actions today, not tomorrow or sometime in the future, it cautions.

Widely considered the most comprehensive UN report on the environment, GEO-4 was prepared by some 390 experts and reviewed by more than 1,000 others across the world.

The cost of inaction greatly exceeds the cost of action, said Olav Kjorven, director of the UN Development Programme Bureau for Development Policy, pointing out that local efforts around the world demonstrate the potential for change.

The Himachal Times (Dehradun), 27 Oct. 2007

Energy issues are back in focus. The nuclear deal, now supposedly stalled, is about seeking energy security in a non-polluting way. The Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change currently headed by R.K. Pachauri, is for work on global warming caused by excessive use of fossil fuel. It is further recognition of the incontrovertible scientific evidence that global warming is not a long-term natural cyclical phenomenon but the outcome of human activity. This is notwithstanding some sceptics like Bjorn Lomberg in his recent book entitled Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist Guide to Global Warming, in which he questions some conclusions and interse priority on resource allocation. While the need for concerted global action is inescapable, national governments have a predominant obligation to take action, and the question inevitably arises of whether India is making a responsible contribution.

Leaving aside the rhetoric, there are five areas of growing concern. First, distortionary energy pricing has only got worse in the last two years. Until energy from conventional sources is appropriately priced, commercial investment in alternate renewable fuels will remain tardy. While everybody recognises that the era of help oil is over and oil companies have shifted their baseline price from $55 per barrel, we continue to view current trends as transitional. The accumulated oil bonds as well as bonds to be issues this year, to make up for large under-recoveries in the petrol sector, is just the wrong way to go, irrespective of global crude oil prices. Murli Deora perhaps recognises that this is disastrous not only for the health of the oil companies but intrinsically irresponsible both in terms of fiscal rectitude and India’s response to climate change. Micro-managing day-to-day pricing for petroleum products may be an evil that Deora inherited, but things have only got worse in the last few years. De-politicising tariff and administered petroleum prices is an inescapable ingredient of any energy strategy.

Second, apart from moderating the demand-related issues of energy efficiency in terms of alternative fuel choices, inadequate attention has been paid to new sources of light, architectural design changes and new technology options. The Energy Conservation Act administered by the Ministry of Power needs a new enforcement master.

Third, the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy has traditionally been under the charge of political lightweights. However, issues like R & D on renewable energy keeping ahead of technological changes elsewhere, harnessing our comparative advantage in many renewable sources like solar, biogas and agro-waste, and integrating these as part of our mainstream energy policy, needs far greater political authority and will than has been evident so far.

Fourth, on the issue of India’s international obligations, our traditional position, based on the principle that polluters must pay and that developing countries must be exempt from accepting quantitative restrictions and changes in their pattern of economic activity, has served us well. It is also true that the total stock of pollution (as against flow) is primarily the contribution of the developed countries, and they must bear the basic burden of mitigation. Nonetheless, as emerging markets increase their pace of economic activity, they would be increasingly responsible for contributing to the flow of pollutants, and populous countries like India and China would have an increasingly larger role to play. It would become difficult to persuade the US and others that should continue to remain totally exempt from such obligations. The short point is that while a case for differentiated obligation is a compelling one, a total exemption would become difficult to sustain if we are to assume any leader ship role on climate change.

Fifth, issues of energy policy are scattered over too many ministries and organisations. Petroleum and Natural Gas, Environment and Forests, Coal, Power, Non-conventional Energy, External Affairs and a number of other organisations are involved in some form or the other. Political compulsions may not permit the prime minister of any coalition government to integrate or carve out a truly separate Ministry of Energy. The Kirit Parekh Report on an integrated energy policy, which made many sensible recommendations, does not have an implementation strategy.

I would suggest the constitution of a National Energy Commission to function as an autonomous entity as a part of the PMO to become the implementation agent of the many worthwhile recommendations that have emanated from several reports. The Commission can derive its political authority by being part of the PMO, and should be manned by domain experts and function as an empowered committee. It should report to a Cabinet Committee on Climate Change to be headed by the prime minister.

The recognition of Pachauri as head of the IPCC has refocused global attention on a possible leadership role for India. Issues of climate change and poverty redressal, integrated as they are in many ways, will remain high on the global agenda. India has a long way to go in removing poverty, and by assuming a leadership role on issues of global warming, it can bring synergy to what is inevitably the centrepiece of any development strategy.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 27 Oct. 2007

Cautioning that the world as a whole is living far beyond its means and well being of millions of people in the developing world is at risk, the latest United Nations report has asked for expansion of international institutions for cooperation and creation of legal mechanisms for environmental protection and sustainable development. The UN Environment Programme fourth Global Environment Outlook has asked nations to increase capacity to assess and report on risks of irreversible damage to natural systems, as well as threats to human survival, security and well being. The report states that ozone layer is expected to recover assuming full Montreal Protocol compliance by nations but the effect will not be seen until between 2060 and 2075 as a result of “long lag times”.

According to the report, Asia and the Pacific regions, which are home to 60 per cent of the world’s population have made remarkable progress in protecting environment, even though there has been a tremendous decrease in the ecosystems and human health the these two regions.

“Environmental and economic policies have not been fully integrated, a major obstacle to establishing an effective system of environmental management,” states the report.

The report has emphasised the effect of climate change on all seven regions on the globe, which will be facing more conditions like severe droughts, floods, soil degradation coastal inundation and salt water intrusion caused by sea level rise.

The GEO-4 report released in India by Dr. R.K. Pachauri, director general of The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), has called for emission of greenhouse gases to be cut by 60 to 80 per cent. The report has mentioned that 60 per cent of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded and are still being used in an unsustainable manner.

It states that more than 2 million people die prematurely every year globally due to outdoor and indoor pollution. Also, unsustainable land use and climate change are driving land degradation. Due to effects of global warming, the per capita availability of freshwater is declining globally.

“If present trends continue 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity 2025 and two thirds of the people in the world could be subject to water stress,” said the report.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 27 Oct. 2007

Until very recently, man-made climate change was believed to be a crisis of the distant future. We've learned, painfully, that we are already in the midst of man-made climate change, with worse to come. Rich and poor countries alike have already been hard hit: killer heat waves in Europe, extreme droughts in the US and Australia, major floods and tropical cyclones in Asia and the Gulf of Mexico, extreme floods and droughts in Africa.

Part of our response, of course, must be to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases causing these changes. Another part, however, should be to adapt skilfully to the changes already underway.

Climate change was once simply described as global warming, but we now appreciate that the changes ahead go far beyond temperature alone. Climate changes affect crop productivity through changes in temperature, rainfall, river flows, and pest abundance. Droughts and floods are becoming more frequent.

Tropical diseases such as malaria are experiencing a wider range of transmission. Extreme weather events such as high-intensity hurricanes in the Caribbean and typhoons in the Pacific are becoming more likely. Changes in river flow already threaten hydroelectric power, biodiversity and large-scale irrigation. Rising sea levels in the coming decades may inundate coastal communities and drastically worsen storm surges.

No region, not even the richest, is yet ready for these changes. All parts of the world will have to increase their scientific understanding, public awareness and investments to reduce climate risks and to adjust to climate shocks as they occur. Yet the poorest, as usual, are most in the line of fire. The tropics, home to a large proportion of the world's poor, stand to bear the greatest adverse hits to agricultural productivity.

The impoverished dry-land regions - especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia - are already fighting the multiple disasters of drought, degraded pasturelands and rapidly rising populations. These dry lands are now likely to become drier still, adding further potentially explosive pressures in places like Darfur, Sudan, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yet there are many things that the new adaptation science can allow us to do, to adjust more skilfully to the coming shocks. New sustainable engineering techniques can teach poor farmers new ways to harvest and store rainwater, in order to protect them from the rising risks of drought. Improved seed varieties can add drought-resistant traits to vital food crops. Improved weather and climate forecasting can give a region the advanced warning of seasonal and multi-year climate trends.

Financial innovations can create novel market instruments such as rainfall-linked bonds that enable regions to insure against climate risks. There is talk about a new global fund to help poor countries to stop deforestation, and thereby to help them build up greater ecological resilience as well as to protect biodiversity and reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Many of these changes are already being put into place. The International Research Institute of Climate and Society (IRI), part of Columbia University's Earth Institute, is working in many parts of the developing world to hone the new tools of adaptation science.

The millennium villages led by the UN Development Programme and the Earth Institute, are empowering poor farmers to diversify crops, improve small-scale water management, insure against droughts and build a financial buffer against climate shocks. Countless other successes, at small scale, are also being demonstrated.

It is now time to take the adaptation challenge, and the emerging adaptation science, to a much larger scale. Less than two months from now, when the world's governments convene in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a new climate protocol to follow the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012), adaptation should be high on the policy agenda. We are moving into a new era, when we must not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply, but learn to live wisely with the changes we have wrought.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 29 Oct. 2007

Are the massive fires burning across Southern California a product of global warming? Scientists said it would be difficult to make that case, given the dangerous mix of drought and wind that has plagued the region for centuries or more.

But they said the extreme conditions that stoked the wildfires could become more common as the world warms. Research suggests that rising temperatures are already increasing fire damage in many parts of the West.

In a study published last year in the journal Science, researchers looking at western federal forests found nearly seven times more land burned from 1987 to 2003 than in the previous 17 years.

The analysis mainly attributed this to a 1.5-degree rise in average spring and summer temperatures. With spring arriving earlier and snow melting faster, the forests dried out sooner, extending the average fire season by more than two months.

The study, however, found Southern California was different from the rest of the west, with no increase in the frequency of fire as temperatures rose.

“In Southern California, it’s hot and dry much of the year,” said Anthony Westerling, a climate scientist at UC Merced and the study’s lead author. In other words, Southern California was already perfect for fire.

“That is a fire-prone environment regardless of whether we are in a climate-change scenario,” said Tom Wordell, a wildfire analyst at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

But eventually global warming could make Southern California’s occasional droughts more persistent, exacerbating the fire danger. Conditions as dry as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s could prevail in the southwest by the middle of this century, according to a study published this year in Science.

The study suggested that the transformation may already be underway. The southwestern United States has been in drought since 2000, although tree-ring records show there have been far drier periods during the last millennium.

Scientists said more persistent drought would inevitably lead to more fires, as long as intermittent periods of moisture allowed vegetation to grow as fodder for flames.

In Southern California, hillsides were ripe for fire because big rains two years ago allowed vegetation to flourish, then severe drought during the last year dried it out.

Norman Miller, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, published an analysis last year in Geophysical Research Letters predicting that rising temperatures, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions, would eventually push peak Santa Ana winds from mid-October to late November.

That could, over decades, make fires worse by giving the landscape more time to dry out. Global warming, he said, could intensify wind flow by increasing the difference between inland and coastal temperatures.

The Indian Express (New Delhi), 29 Oct. 2007

Can cities like New Orleans be saved from hurricanes like Katrina in the future? Apparently they can, thanks to a reported breakthrough made by two teams of climate experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. According to them even a fully developed cyclonic storm can be weakened and ultimately steered off course by aerially spraying its upper surface with soot or other dark-coloured particles.

As the particles gradually heat up due to solar radiation, they also warm up the cold cloud layer beneath them, thus reducing the deadly vortex effect caused by the rising warm air from the ocean meeting near-freezing atmospheric layers above it.

So far only computer simulations have demonstrated the method's effectiveness but experiments with small weather systems are next in line.

However, there's a catch: lawyers. If a future son of Katrina were to be veered out of the way and should hit some other smaller town instead, the resulting damages and deaths could no longer be attributed to an act of God. The scientists responsible could be sued by the affected communities. The MIT team, in fact, has already hired a professor of risk management to advise it on steps necessary to protect itself from such legal action.

Actually, the ramifications of scientists playing weather gods can get far more serious than mere litigation. The technology could be used as a weapon of war or economic oppression. For instance, once the methods are fine-tuned, what is there to stop one country from directing nature's atmospheric furies towards an enemy country? Also, it's an easy and tempting step thereafter to move from tampering with the weather to effecting wholesale climate changes.

Largely local benefits like monsoon enhancement or diminishing the El Nino could have totally unknown global consequences as a result of some hugely unpredictable butterfly effect. This disaster potential itself should convince all nations to immediately pre-empt any imprudent attempt by people to fool with the planet's delicately balanced ambient status.

The world has already had one bad experience with man-made warming which, some believe, caused Katrina in the first place; let's not start another impulse of preventable catastrophes without proper safeguards in place.

The Times of India (New Delhi), 29 Oct. 2007

At a time when India is faced with a “false” NGO campaign on child labour and human rights violation by its industry, World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy said environment is linked with the multilateral trading system which must play a “bigger role” as required in the Doha Round.

“There is no doubt in my mind that for the WTO to accomplish bigger things on the environment, it must first complete the first ever environmental negotiating agenda that has been placed before it,” Mr. Lamy said in his address at the Yale University in the US.

Mr. Lamy reminded the global trade negotiators that the Doha Round was the first ever round of negotiations to include an ‘environmental or green chapter’. It was also the “first ever round of negotiations to encourage members to conduct environmental reviews at the national level,” he said.

India and many other developing countries have maintained that issues like environment and labour standars should not be linked with the global trade since these norms could well be used as “non-trade barriers” by the developed countries, particularly the European Union where the ‘green movement’ is quite strong.

Even economists of the repute of Colombia University professor Jagdish Bhagwati have been expressing their staunch opposition to establishing relationship between trade and environment.

Mr. Lamy also quoted Prof. Bhagwati as saying, “If a nation’s trading rights can be suspended simply because it refuses to accept another nation’s idiosyncratic values, everyone could insist on ‘morality-driven’ trade restrictions, and the whole international trading system would head down a slippery slope.”

The WTO director general said in the Doha Round, members were mandated to “explore the relationship between WTO rules and such treaties (environment), with a view to ensuring their mutual supportiveness”.

Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath has recently attacked Europe-based NGOs working in Bangalore and spreading “false” campaign against the Indian textile and shoe units.

Mr. Nath has also written to EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson asking for his intervention.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 29 Oct. 2007

Despite growing interest in clean energy technology, it looks as if we are not going to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide anytime soon. The amount in atmosphere today exceeds the most pessimistic forecast made just a few years ago, and it is increasing faster than anybody had foreseen.

Even if we could stop adding to greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth would continue warming for decades- and remain hot for centuries. We would still face the threat of water from melting glaciers lapping at our doorsteps.

What can be done? One idea is to counteract warming by tossing small particles into the stratosphere (above where jets fly). This strategy may sound farfetched, but it has the potential to cool the earth within months.

Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines that erupted in 1991, showed how it works. The eruption resulted in sulphate particles in the stratosphere that reflected the sun’s rays back to space, and as a consequence the earth briefly cooled.

If we could pour a five gallon bucket’s worth of sulphate particles per second into the stratosphere, it might be enough to keep the earth from warming for 50 years. Tossing twice as much up there could protect us into the next century.

A 1992 report from the National Academy of Sciences suggests that naval artillery, rockets and aircraft exhaust could all be used to send the particles up. The least expensive option might be to use a fire hose suspended from a series of balloons. Scientists have yet to analyse the engineering involved, but the hurdles appear surmountable. Seeding the stratosphere might not work perfectly. But it would be cheap and easy enough and is worth investigating.

This is not to say that we should give up trying reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ninety-nine per cent of the $ 3 billion US Climate Change Technology Program should still go toward developing climate friendly energy systems. But 1 per cent of that money could be put toward working out geo-engineered climate fixes like sulphate particles in the atmosphere, and developing the understanding we need to ensure that they wouldn’t just make matters worse.

Think of it us an insurance policy, a back-up plan for climate change.

Which is the more environmentally sensitive thing to do: Let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and polar bears become extinct, or throw a little sulphate in the stratosphere? The second option is at least worth looking into.

The Asian Age (New Delhi), 31 Oct. 2007

R.K. Pachauri bagged the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his lasting contributions in the field of climate change and global warming. Back home the only centre in the country – a university in Jammu and Kashmir where studies on biodiversity and climate change are being carried out – is playing a no less important role in raising awareness about the issue. While Pachauri has brought these pressing issues to attention in the hope of more systematic research to follow, very few people in India are aware of the role of this secluded centre in conducting pioneering studies on global warming and biodiversity.

The Centre for Biodiversity Studies at Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University, situated in the border district of Rajouri close to the Line of Control, is the only institution of its kind involved in research, extension and education in ecology and the environment and has, over the years, addressed issues as warmly debated as the role of human intervention in the degradation of our life support systems. The Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Environment and Forests liberally fund the CBS to carry out its research-related activities.

It organised a three-day National Seminar on Himalayan Biodiversity: Issues and Concerns in collaboration with the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Over 40 eminent scientist and academics from various national laboratories and central and state-level universities attended.

The themes identified for discussion were: displacement of native species by exotic invaders; impact of biotechnology on biodiversity; biodiversity conservation and the narrowing crop plant diversity.

BGSB University Vice-Chancellor Masud A. Choudhary, in his inaugural address, exhorted the need to not only highlight the problem of biodiversity conservation but to weigh possible options so as to halt the very obvious human onslaught.

Critical of political apathy to this burning issue, he lamented that Jammu and Kashmir was, perhaps, not the only state that still hadn’t set up a State Biodiversity Board, a constitutional requirement under the 2002.

Biodiversity Act passed unanimously by Parliament. He highlighted the importance of biodiversity in a state like Jammu and Kashmir, whose plant and animal resources formed the backbone of its economy. PS Ahuja, director of the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, in his keynote address summed up the achievements made so far in the realm of biodiversity conservation. He also identifies the grey spots where, he said, inputs were required in a big way to boost affairs. Research on biodiversity, he said, had to be treated with a missionary zeal with a view to ward off apocalyptic outcomes.

“It is a matter of immense pride to us that in Jammu and Kahsmir we have India’s only research centre on biodiversity at BGSB University,” Choudhary said. The CBS at the Baba Ghulam Shah Badsha University, he added, was the only institution in the country devoted to the cause of climate balance.

“Cliamte change was, till recently, put under the carpet by the governments of developed countries to skirt the charge of having done maximum harm to our environment,” said Choudhary. That the Nobel Peace Prize has been conferred on two leading climatologists this year, he added, was proof of the glaring significance of some of the alarming issues the Centre for Biodiversity Studies had the foresight to raise its voice against.

The recommendations of the seminar will go a long way to help prepare the roadmap for biodiversity conservation in the herbal-rich state of Jammu and Kashmir. A few distinguished personalities who presented their dissertations were the directors of the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology; the Bombay Natural History Society; the GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development; the Asia Pacific Consortium for Agriculture Biotechnology and the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine.

The Statesman (New Delhi), 31 Oct. 2007