An Indian Perspective On Global Warming

An Indian Perspective On Global Warming

Without timely steps, climate change will impact on farming states like India the most

PURNIMA M GUPTA

Despite hectic pre-summit preparations that went in for the World Summit on Sustainable Development - also popularly known as “Rio+10” - being held at Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4, it did not get the kind of attention that was given to the previous Earth Summit held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which alerted the global community to the hazards of deprivation in the natural environment. At Johannesburg, the global community will take stock of the prevailing situation. As a leading developing country, India is an important participant at Rio+10. Awareness about environmental degradation across different strata of society has increased significantly since the 1992 summit. However, the action taken to deal with the issues involved has not been commensurate with the magnitude of the problems. That environmental issues have still not moved to the centre-stage of political decision-making is evident, particularly in the case of Global Warming (GW). According to climate experts, there are six main greenhouse gases (GHGs) - carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydro fluorocarbons, perfluoro carbons and sulphur hexafluoride. The major culprit responsible for GW, however, is carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossils like coal, oil natural gas, etc. The threat from GW is now accepted to be real. The average global surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.40C to 5.80C over the period 1990-2100, with the frequency and severity of droughts increasing in Asia and Africa. GW is also believed to be responsible for the melting of glaciers. Receding glaciers are affecting the levels of water in rivers. Recent reports have also brought out that the Ganga is drying up because the Gangotri glacier, its main source, is receding at the rate of 10 to 30 metres a year. While the Ganga is drying up, there are signs now of rising water levels in the Bhakra Nangal Dam reservoir. The melting of glaciers in the upper Himalayas has been cited as a major contributor to this. This does not bode well for the physical environment in India. For instance, the extremely deficient monsoon showers in India this year are being attributed to GW. The Centre for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, based in the US, had predicted acute soil moisture stress conditions in major parts of India due to less than normal rainfall and high temperatures. An earlier edition of The Financial Express (July 14, 2002) carried an exhaustive report on this. Moreover, studies at Cornell and Princeton Universities have brought out that climate change has begun to trigger the spread of disease in plants and animals, but which may eventually spill over to humans. Kyoto Protocol The Earth Summit of 1992 arrived at a Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The Conference of the Parties (CoP) held at Kyoto in Japan in 1997 arrived at a Protocol setting legally binding targets for industrialised countries to reduce their GHG emissions by about 7 percent from 1990 emission levels by 2008-2012. The success of the Protocol hinges upon ratification by at least 55 countries, particularly the biggest contributors of emissions. However, the US, which is the largest producer of GHG emissions, despite having signed the Protocol with a commitment to reduce emissions by 25 percent to 30 percent by 2010 as compared to 1990 levels, refuses to ratify the Protocol until the developing countries, particularly India and China, are also brought on board. The Way Ahead - Need for a Roadmap Current political agendas at national and international levels revolve more around Terrorism, relegating issues on Environment to the background. The Development versus Environment debate makes it even more difficult for environmental issues to come to the centrestage of politics. But the problem of GW is here to stay for several decades. The developed group of nations have still not arrived at an agreement on implementing significant cuts in GHG emissions. The principle of “differentiated responsibilities” included in the Climate Change Convention places a greater responsibility on the countries of the North in emissions reductions. Undoubtedly, there has been a lot more than mere rhetoric in dealing with climate change issues, across both the North and South. The international negotiating processes have evolved the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation Programmes, apart from Emission Trading, to bring about “clean energy”, i.e. low carbon energy. Nevertheless, the action taken so far has been significantly less than desired levels. The Indian government and non-governmental organisations have been actively participating in the global negotiations and their follow-up actions with a view to moving along the path of “clean energy” technologies. This is a long term process involving not only resources but also a commitment to implement clean technologies. The entire exercise of bringing about clean energy has to be viewed against the nexus between conventional energy lobbies, industry and political priorities. GW is closely connected with this. It is a “good” dose of incentives, financial assistance and political will that will take forward the process of implementing cuts. Climate change negotiations are hard economic negotiations. This is the predominant reason for the absence of any cuts in emissions by the North over a period of 10 years. This reflects the strength of the existing energy lobbies. India has to work hard to realise the goals of the Kyoto Protocol. After witnessing the impact of GW, the contributory anthropogenic factors (i.e., human-induced) have to be curtailed. If sufficient care is not taken, climate change will add additional stress to the already difficult living conditions for the vast majority of Indians, visible in varying areas such as deteriorating health, food production, water resources along with desertification, sea level rise and loss of biodiversity. It is industrialising countries like India who will be the major losers due to the adverse impacts of climate change because of their dependence on agriculture. India and other developing countries must adopt response strategies to combat climate change on a wider scale. An important response strategy is to prepare the communities and increase their resilience to face and cope with the adverse impacts of climate change. The global community must come forward to help in building capacity in this respect in India. India has to tackle climate change from a short-term and long-term perspective. In the short term, energy-efficient and low carbon fuels need to be encouraged through suitable incentives, eg., tax rebates. A long-term approach to deal with this problem should emphasise the use of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind energy. Greater application of solar energy in rural areas (farming and household energy) would go a long way in reducing dependence on conventional fossil fuels. These suggestions should be put forward at the Rio+10 summit for initiating global action on them. The author specialises on climate change-related issues

Global warming or global cooling?

Almost as soon as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming came into effect on February 15, Kashmir suffered the highest snowfall in three decades with over 150 killed, and Mumbai recorded the lowest temperature in 40 years. Had temperatures been the highest for decades, newspapers would have declared this was proof of global warming. But whenever temperatures drop, the press keeps quiet.

Things were different in 1940-70, when there was global cooling. Every cold winter then was hailed as proof of a coming new Ice Age. But the moment cooling was replaced by warming, a new disaster in the opposite direction was proclaimed.

A recent Washington Post article gave this scientist's quote from 1972. "We simply cannot afford to gamble. We cannot risk inaction. The scientists who disagree are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored." The warning was not about global warming (which was not happening): it was about global cooling!

In the media, disaster is news, and its absence is not. This principle has been exploited so skillfully by ecological scare-mongers that it is now regarded as politically incorrect, even unscientific, to denounce global warming hysteria as unproven speculation.

Meteorologists are a standing joke for getting predictions wrong even a few days ahead. The same jokers are being taken seriously when they use computer models to predict the weather 100 years hence.

The models have not been tested for reliability over 100 years, or even 20 years. Different models yield variations in warming of 400%, which means they are statistically meaningless.

Wassily Leontief, Nobel prize winner for modeling, said this about the limits of models. "We move from more or less plausible but really arbitrary assumptions, to elegantly demonstrated but irrelevant conclusions." Exactly. Assume continued warming as in the last three decades, and you get a warming disaster. Assume more episodes of global cooling, and you get a cooling disaster.

In his latest best seller State of Fear, Michael Crichton does a devastating expose of the way ecological groups have tweaked data and facts to create mass hysteria. He points out that we know astonishingly little about the environment. All sides make exaggerated claims.

We know that atmospheric carbon is increasing. We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that started in 1850 at the end of what is called the Little Ice Age. It is scientifically impossible to prove whether the subsequent warming is natural or man-made.

Greens say, rightly, that the best scientific assessment today is that global warming is occurring. Yet never in history have scientists accurately predicted what will happen 100 years later. A century ago no scientists predicted the internet, microwave ovens, TV, nuclear explosions or antibiotics. It is impossible, even stupid, to predict the distant future.

That scientific truth is rarely mentioned. Why? Because the global warming movement has now become a multi-billion dollar enterprise with thousands of jobs and millions in funding for NGOs and think-tanks, top jobs and prizes for scientists, and huge media coverage for predictions of disaster.

The vested interests in the global warming theory are now as strong, rich and politically influential as the biggest multinationals. It is no co-incidence, says Crichton, that so many scientists sceptical of global warming are retired professors: they have no need to chase research grants and chairs.

I have long been an agnostic on global warming: the evidence is ambiguous. But I almost became a convert when Greenpeace publicised photos showing the disastrously rapid retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina. How disastrous, I thought, if this was the coming fate of all glaciers.

Then last Christmas, I went on vacation to Lake Argentina. The Upsala glacier and six other glaciers descend from the South Andean icefield into the lake. I was astounded to discover that while the Upsala glacier had retreated rapidly, the other glaciers showed little movement, and one had advanced across the lake into the Magellan peninsula. If in the same area some glaciers advance and others retreat, the cause is clearly not global warming but local micro-conditions.

Yet the Greenpeace photos gave the impression that glaciers in general were in rapid retreat. It was a con job, a dishonest effort to mislead. From the same icefield, another major glacier spilling into Chile has grown 60% in volume.

Greenpeace and other ecological groups have well-intentioned people with high ideals. But as crusaders they want to win by any means, honest or not. I do not like being taken for a ride, by idealists or anyone else.

We need impartial research, funded neither by MNCs, governmental groups or NGOs with private agendas. And the media needs to stop highlighting disaster scares and ignoring exposes of the scares.

India's global warming fears

India's global warming fears

Was this caused by global warming?

By Jill McGivering in Delhi

In India, weather-related natural disasters already cause annual chaos.

Two months ago, whole regions of West Bengal disappeared under water - rescue workers had to use boats to give emergency help to more than 16 million affected people.

These were the worst floods for more than 20 years.

One of the problems is that these models are sometimes converted into scary stories which is something we shouldn't fall for

Dr RR Kelkar

Several factors were blamed - from silted riverbeds to mismanagement of resources. But could global warming also have played a part?

Journalist Nirmal Ghosh firmly believes global warming is going to cause far more chaos across India in the future.

"Global warming is going to make other small local environmental issues... seem like peanuts, because it is the big one which is going to come and completely change the face of the Earth.

"We're talking about mass migrations because of changing weather. That will have implications on politics. There are states in India which are fighting court cases over water," Mr Ghosh says.

Shrinking glaciers

As well as floods, India also suffers acute water shortages - earlier this year the western state of Rajasthan was struck by drought.

Nirmal Ghosh says the steady shrinking of Himalayan glaciers means the entire water system is being disrupted - global warming, he says, will cause even greater extremes.

The Himalayan glaciers are said to be shrinking

"Statistically, it is proven that the Himalayan glaciers are actually shrinking, and within 50 to 60 years they will virtually run out of producing the water levels that we are seeing now.

"This will cut down drastically the water available downstream, and in agricultural economies like the plains of UP (Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar, which are poor places to begin with. This is probably going to, over a short period of time, cause tremendous social upheaval," he says.

Not everyone agrees. Some scientists say the glaciers have been shrinking for decades and other factors are to blame.

Certainly, India has a long history of extreme weather patterns - and extremes of temperature across the continent. So is it too simplistic to blame global warming just because recent floods and droughts have been acute?

West blamed

Dr RR Kelkar, the director general of the Indian meteorological department, says it is too early for accurate data to be available yet.

"India is a tropical country, we must remember that. We are used to hot environments, we are used to heavy rains, we are used to cyclones, and really there is no clear statistically significant trend that things are going to change drastically.

India suffers acute water shortages

"There is a need now for scientists to probe into them and find out how they will be affecting us - but one of the problems is that these models are sometimes converted into scary stories which is something we shouldn't fall for," Dr Kelkar says.

Scary stories or not, there are also concerns that knowledge being gathered about the impact of global warming is controlled by the West.

Scientists in the subcontinent do not always have the resources available to challenge data being compiled by developed countries.

Professor SK Sinha is a specialist at the water technology centre at the Pusa Institute. He accuses the West, and in particular the United States, of manipulating the debate.

"They make the rules. In fact, they even lure people from the developing countries to substantiate or to confirm that data, not necessarily always with very valid equipments and arguments," he says.

Cyclones, floods and droughts aren't in themselves new - but how much is global warming likely to worsen them, and how far will countries like India be able to influence the global debate?