A very pertinent article pointing out how the priorities of developed and developing countries differ and why they should work together to save mother earth
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Death_By_Water/articleshow/2041744.cms
LEADER ARTICLE: Death By Water
14 May, 2007 l 0009 hrs IST
lARUN MAIRA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_Death_By_Water/articleshow/2041744.cms
14 May, 2007 l 0009 hrs IST
lARUN MAIRA
| |||||
The hottest issue on the planet this summer is climate change by global warming. Several reports have put the issue on the front burner - Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Nick Stern's assessment of the economic impacts of climate change, and the IPCC's exhaustive analysis of its causes and potential solutions. Leaders must act with haste because they may already be too late. Indian Parliament took up the issue on May 8.
The heightened pressure for action is creating political fissures. The industrial nations acknowledge they have created the problem. While they enhanced their economic might, they overused and misused resources, building a huge stack of green-houses in the earth's atmosphere.
To which, these nations say, the developing nations dare not add any more and therefore must now find new technologies and new ways to develop their economies. "The truth about climate change policy", writes Lawrence Summers, "is that deve- loping countries are where most of the action must be". Their economies are growing and using more energy and natural resources (albeit more frugally than the rich nations when they grew) and in the process many millions are rising out of poverty. In fact, faster economic growth rather than direct assistance to the poor is the mantra that economists like Summers preach. So what is the way out now?
The reality is that climate change is everybody's problem, whosoever caused it. Both rich countries and developing ones will have to change policies and adopt new technologies. While asking their citizens for support to stop further damage to the environment, western leaders ask them, 'What is the world you want to bequeath your grandchildren'? Such an appeal is too far out for India's masses.
They are anxious about their conditions here and now - their jobs, their incomes, and inflation in prices (especially of food). They are also concerned about nutrition, health, and education of the children they already have - not their grandchildren to come. For Indians, in cities and villages, the urgent environmental issue is not the dwindling of polar ice and Himalayan glaciers. It is the water that is no longer flowing in their taps (if they have them), their dwindling rivers and ponds, and the falling water table. For them, water for drinking, cooking, sanitation, and growing food, and not greenhouse gases, is the urgent environmental issue.
The environment (and climate) is a global system. Like God (for the believers), it touches people everywhere. As with God, we must make our connections to the environment and climate in our own ways. Therefore, if we want the issue of climate change to unite and not divide us, we must be free to approach it in ways that matter to each of us, so long as the solutions we find do not prevent others from obtaining theirs.
Delhi's government is struggling to find water for its citizens. It is appealing to neighbouring states that are also strained to find water for their own towns and farmers. Many other Indian states are quarrelling with each other for dwindling water sources which they share. Even in Florida, southern Australia, and western USA - all rich regions of the world - access to water has become a divisive issue between communities and states.
India must take a lead in finding solutions to the global environmental crisis. Indian leaders will need the support of the country's people to make the policy changes required. Issues must be framed appropriately to make the right emotional connections when support is required for tough decisions. For many in India and elsewhere in the developing world, the environmental crisis is immediately and mostly about water. It is not so much about energy and emissions - which form the core of the climate change agenda in western minds.
Therefore, while 'climate change' may be the right way to represent the environmental crisis to people in developed countries, water must take centre stage to win more support from India's masses. Climate change may sound a bit up in the air to people struggling to have water here and now. In fact, the problem of global governance, according to political scientist Robert Dahl, is that decisions about issues like global trade and global warming are being taken by clubs of global elites who are not sufficiently connected with the masses in their own countries.
No doubt, India and China will have to address issues of energy and emissions. Solutions to these problems along with solutions to the water crisis will require innovations and investments. Capital to fund these innovations must flow to developing countries from the developed countries that have accumulated the capital as they grew their economies by processes which, they admit, have damaged the environment.
The rich should consider it their moral responsibility to provide financial support to developing countries on issues concerning global warming - and not adopt a typical financier's approach. Finally, because India, the world's largest democracy, must take the lead in finding practical solutions, its leaders (and the global elite) must consider that sustainable livelihoods and water (along with energy) matter as much or more to its people than abstractions of climate change and economics.
The writer is a management consultant.
The heightened pressure for action is creating political fissures. The industrial nations acknowledge they have created the problem. While they enhanced their economic might, they overused and misused resources, building a huge stack of green-houses in the earth's atmosphere.
To which, these nations say, the developing nations dare not add any more and therefore must now find new technologies and new ways to develop their economies. "The truth about climate change policy", writes Lawrence Summers, "is that deve- loping countries are where most of the action must be". Their economies are growing and using more energy and natural resources (albeit more frugally than the rich nations when they grew) and in the process many millions are rising out of poverty. In fact, faster economic growth rather than direct assistance to the poor is the mantra that economists like Summers preach. So what is the way out now?
The reality is that climate change is everybody's problem, whosoever caused it. Both rich countries and developing ones will have to change policies and adopt new technologies. While asking their citizens for support to stop further damage to the environment, western leaders ask them, 'What is the world you want to bequeath your grandchildren'? Such an appeal is too far out for India's masses.
They are anxious about their conditions here and now - their jobs, their incomes, and inflation in prices (especially of food). They are also concerned about nutrition, health, and education of the children they already have - not their grandchildren to come. For Indians, in cities and villages, the urgent environmental issue is not the dwindling of polar ice and Himalayan glaciers. It is the water that is no longer flowing in their taps (if they have them), their dwindling rivers and ponds, and the falling water table. For them, water for drinking, cooking, sanitation, and growing food, and not greenhouse gases, is the urgent environmental issue.
The environment (and climate) is a global system. Like God (for the believers), it touches people everywhere. As with God, we must make our connections to the environment and climate in our own ways. Therefore, if we want the issue of climate change to unite and not divide us, we must be free to approach it in ways that matter to each of us, so long as the solutions we find do not prevent others from obtaining theirs.
Delhi's government is struggling to find water for its citizens. It is appealing to neighbouring states that are also strained to find water for their own towns and farmers. Many other Indian states are quarrelling with each other for dwindling water sources which they share. Even in Florida, southern Australia, and western USA - all rich regions of the world - access to water has become a divisive issue between communities and states.
India must take a lead in finding solutions to the global environmental crisis. Indian leaders will need the support of the country's people to make the policy changes required. Issues must be framed appropriately to make the right emotional connections when support is required for tough decisions. For many in India and elsewhere in the developing world, the environmental crisis is immediately and mostly about water. It is not so much about energy and emissions - which form the core of the climate change agenda in western minds.
Therefore, while 'climate change' may be the right way to represent the environmental crisis to people in developed countries, water must take centre stage to win more support from India's masses. Climate change may sound a bit up in the air to people struggling to have water here and now. In fact, the problem of global governance, according to political scientist Robert Dahl, is that decisions about issues like global trade and global warming are being taken by clubs of global elites who are not sufficiently connected with the masses in their own countries.
No doubt, India and China will have to address issues of energy and emissions. Solutions to these problems along with solutions to the water crisis will require innovations and investments. Capital to fund these innovations must flow to developing countries from the developed countries that have accumulated the capital as they grew their economies by processes which, they admit, have damaged the environment.
The rich should consider it their moral responsibility to provide financial support to developing countries on issues concerning global warming - and not adopt a typical financier's approach. Finally, because India, the world's largest democracy, must take the lead in finding practical solutions, its leaders (and the global elite) must consider that sustainable livelihoods and water (along with energy) matter as much or more to its people than abstractions of climate change and economics.
The writer is a management consultant.
No comments:
Post a Comment