Heat From The Haze

Though Indian officials would have liked to refute the existence of the cloud, that was difficult (see graphic). But on August 24, a day before its delegation left for the earth summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the government tore into the report. Environment Minister T.R. Baalu met with a cross-section of scientists and then insisted there was no scientific basis for the alarm.

Toepfer sought an appointment with the minister in Johannesburg and at the end of the half-hour meeting, they agreed scientists on both sides would discuss the issue further. “I can say that the UNEP chief was a little inconvenienced by our denial (of the report),” Baalu told The Indian Express in Johannesburg. “He has agreed that it requires better investigation and more through study before these drastic and alarming predictions were made.”

Why did the government react so violently to the report? After all it was brought out by 250 of the world’s leading scientists, including a Nobel laureate, and 21 Indian scientists employed in government research institutions. That’s because the timing of the report was uncomfortable in the murky politics of climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol — as the world’s effort to reduce greenhouse gases suspected of causing global warming is called — has been signed by 58 countries. India and Brazil are among the major developing countries that have agreed to commitments to limit greenhouse gases. But the Kyoto Protocol won’t come into effect until one of the big polluters signs it. Canada, Australia, and the U.S. steadfastly refuse: they disagree with the prescribed cuts. It’s made them often look like ecological villans.

“It could well have been done to put India on the defensive,” argues a senior bureaucrat of the Ministry of Environment. Ask Baalu if it is possible that India is shutting its eyes to a reality and he says: “If the report was based on scientific facts, it would be blown up in a forum like this (the Earth Summit). If it is correct, then I will be the first to act on it.”

The government lists many disagreements with the study’s findings. Some are technical: many conclusions are extrapolated without scientific evidence, like the suggestion that the haze could cause droughts and disrupt the monsoons. Some are economic: biofuels (like wood and cow dung) produce “survival emissions” rather than “luxury emission”, a reference to car exhausts.

The study’s scientists say was never meant to be exhaustive. “The study was preliminary, limited in area, limited to one season,” acknowledges A.P. Mitra, Chairman of the group of 21 Indian scientists involved in the four-year study. “It is indicative, but it is documented that the brownish haze comes from black carbon, and that is a result of inefficient cumbustion.” In simple terms: polluting factories and vehicles, burning trees, smoke from wood-burning and cow-dung-burning stoves.

Like the government, there are many in India’s scientific circles who refute the report. “This is at best speculation,” says Vasant Gowariker, formerly scientific adviser to the Prime Minister. “I don’t doubt the observations — that it is man made. Assuming that is so, to say it has an effect on climate — I don’t think this is so.” That’s difficult to argue with. The climate is a result of so many ill-understood variables that scientists can at best hypothesize about effects. Gowariker points to the Gulf War in 1991 and dark predictions from scientists then that Kuwait’s burning oil wells could tweak the world’s weather. It didn’t happen of course. The weather is too complex, and the world too vast.

But the Asian brown haze has been seen over a period of four years since 1996. Common sense says it can only thrive on Asia’s industrial growth. In a study concluded only this year, other scientists in Asia’s east have seen a similar carbon-fuelled haze — mainly over China, Japan and the Korean peninsula. The lack of direct causal evidence does not reduce the possibility of the brown haze affecting our lives. After all, science cannot specifically explain how smoking causes cancer. But few doubt that it does — except perhaps hardboiled cigarette-company execs.

“This eagerness on the part of the government to refuse to accept the possibility that this brown haze could drastically change our lives is, quite plainly, stupid,” says one of the study team’s scientists who does not wish to be named. “I mean, do you need a wizard or an Einstein to tell you that Delhi’s smog causes asthma in children? There’s no direct proof of that either.”

Yet, that is exactly what the government refuses to acknowledge. “The government has taken several steps to check emissions, hence it is alarming to say that pollutants will increase over the next 30 years,” says an environment ministry statement. That’s hard to accept considering only a long, bitter court battle got Delhi’s public transport messily converted to compressed natural gas.

What’s seems clear is this: there is a haze, and there is a good chance it will cause us problems. The UNEP, which stepped into the Indian Ocean Experiment during its last phase in 1999, already said on August 9 that it’s beginning a follow-up study to examine links between the brown cloud and warnings of less sun, rain, food — and more ill health. It will again require a multi-disciplinary, multinational effort. That’s why the results of the study won’t come before 2007. Until then, simply use your instincts. If the sky’s clear, just enjoy the day.