Opinion The Cancun two-step
Good that India has given up the dubious delights of maximalism
The stand some political parties and interlocutors have taken on Indias position at Cancun shows insensitivity to Indias strengths,global interests and perspectives and a penchant for grandstanding on a serious issue. First,does India give up anything in being flexible on emissions? The major feature of energy experience in the last three decades is that the country has managed a high growth rate with decelerating growth in electricity capacity and generation and that is through higher capacity utilisation in generation facilities (rising plant load factors in power plants),energy efficiency and captive power. The last feature is to be avoided since it is expensive. Capacity use has reached a plateau and will probably not rise any more. But energy efficiency will increase.
Per unit of GDP in comparable purchasing parity terms,India consumes around 60 per cent of the energy that countries like the US and China do. We are comparable with other efficient countries like Japan and the UK. This is a trend which started in the second half of the 80s with the industrial reforms initiated by the late Rajiv Gandhi. In fact,he laid down energy efficiency targets as essential for resource conservation,global competitiveness,as also fiscal prudence. In the preparation for the Eighth Plan,for example,energy efficiency targets were laid down for large industries. The argument was that this was the flip side of the industrial reform underway. Expansion of scale and improved capacity utilisation in large continuous process industries like steel,cement,aluminium,fertilisers and so on lead to substantial energy savings. The targets laid down as part of the resource saving calculations of the plans led to the outcomes we see now. The present stage of technological progress and advance makes a continuation of this trend almost inevitable. India is not taking any chances in making intentionally vague one-liners of the kind that Jairam Ramesh has been making as a well-thought-out bargain counter at Cancun and elsewhere.
The argument that emissions should be calculated and enforced only in per capita terms was alright in the late 70s,but to peddle it now is to treat yourself as some kind of a Luddite joke in global negotiations. It is alright and expected from some retired diplomats sticking to what they learnt in their first training but completely incompatible with the responses expected from a country taken seriously in global negotiations. None of the other BRICs countries does this. The more serious argument is of the kind that was made in preparation for the Rio summit. In The Hague Declaration under the leadership of Mahbub ul Haque and Jan Pronk,the argument was made and signed by some of us that the world has to change lifestyles,for,even under favourable technology scenarios,the world as we know it ceases to exist if we cross US per capita living standards by as much as a quarter in China and India. This then gets to the point that Gandhiji had made that there is enough for everyones need but not for greed.
But this is not the per capita argument and that we will not adjust. In fact,the models that the environment ministry has put on websites make the adjustment points very elegantly,and some of the better younger elements have worked on that and so people like me have stopped making the point we were making with cruder tools at Johannesburg,for example,in the India 2020 modelling for the United Nations University.
It is interesting that those groups which were very close to the Bush administrations stand of completely sidestepping the Kyoto agreements are now taking the maximal equity arguments. Apart from first principles,there are important issues in access to greener technologies,carbon trading and Indias priorities to renewable nuclear and hydro-electric power. At the present stage,we are seeing the setting of the borders of the debate and the issue is whether a country will be relevant or not. Indian leadership was conspicuous by its absence in critical meetings earlier,busy at home pontificating on the per capita slogans. Since Copenhagen,India is in the drivers seat.
There is a lesson in recent American politics for India. The last election to the House of Representatives,Senate and many governorships in the US was one of the bitterest. The large-scale use of money by the Tea Party and conservative groups was commented on even by the media,a beneficiary of advertising. In spite of all the acrimony and,very uncharacteristic for the Americans,almost personal attacks on the president,in one of the most acrimonious election issues the tax question the president came to an agreement with his political adversaries almost on the day when the possibility of the forthcoming budget session being Barracked was announced in India. Leadership also consists in realising the limits of power flexing.
The writer,a former Union minister,is chairman,Institute of Rural Management,Anand express@expressindia.com
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