February 8, 2010

Wall Street Journal Asia/Europe

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703427704575051130546785628.html

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed support for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri, at a local energy conference in New Delhi Friday. The move has surprised many observers, but it may prove to be politically astute.

The IPCC’s credibility is in tatters. From climategate to glaciergate, Amazongate, natural-disaster gate, and now Chinagate, the revelations of bad science keep coming. Given all that, plus the much-publicized flap between Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Mr. Pachauri over the science behind “melting” Himalayan glaciers weeks before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, superficially one might have expected the Indian government to jettison Mr. Pachauri as soon as possible.

But Delhi isn’t just offering him and the organization rhetorical backing. At Friday’s annual flagship event of the Energy and Resources Institute—which Mr. Pachauri has headed for almost 30 years—the prime minister offered to provide technical assistance through a newly established glacier research center. The government has also formed a network of scientific institutions to develop domestic science and research capacities on climate issues.

The explanation for this support is simple: It is in the Indian government’s interest to perpetuate a weak IPCC and a toothless Mr. Pachauri at its helm. Given the recent scandals, the IPCC is hardly in a position to lobby India for carbon concessions. No one from the IPCC can again cavalierly dismiss their critics as promoting “voodoo” science or “vested interests,” as was Mr. Pachauri’s wont. By offering scientific support to the IPCC, the Indian government is actually confirming its lack of confidence in the U.N. body’s scientific credentials.

Mr. Pachauri is now in his second term as the head of IPCC. He is not a climate scientist—or indeed a scientist at all. He is an able science administrator who built his institute from scratch. Influential governments in the rich world probably accepted Mr. Pachauri not just for his redoubtable skill in institution-building, but also in the hope that by placing an Indian like him at the head of IPCC, he might be able to influence Indian policy.

That’s important because after all, if countries like China and India do not subscribe to any commitment to reducing emissions, developed countries’ best efforts will not have any significant impact. Having bought the idea of man-made global warming, rich countries had to try and ensure that developing countries fell in line.

But in democratic India no leader can afford to ignore the developmental aspirations of the people. Even if some Indian elites want to sell the future of the country by agreeing to some form of restrictions on energy usage—and thus on economic growth—in the fiercely competitive world of Indian politics they stand no chance.

The IPCC was created as a way to make the world, particularly the poor, fall in line and support expensive climate-change initiatives by overwhelming them with the apparent authority of the world’s leading technical body on the subject, backed by a supposed scientific consensus. This attempt was doomed to fail, because scientific inquiry does not respect consensus, and orthodoxy is anathema to scientific progress.

There is some poetic justice in this whole drama. Countries like India that were always apprehensive of institutions like the IPCC now prefer to keep it twisting in the wind. The rich countries that gave birth to the idea of the IPCC cannot afford to disown it without exposing their own underlying design. They could try to replace its head, in the hope that the new face might be able to rebuild the credibility of the institution. But having tasted blood, there is no reason why India and China should let the current advantage pass so easily.

The IPCC has been checkmated, as have so many other U.N. institutions before it. This is the inevitable consequence of the desire for global government under the misguided belief that ordinary people do not know what is in their own interest. With the deepening of democratic ideals, people power can no longer be overturned so easily. The failure of the IPCC shows that sovereignty still lies with the people, not with the aspirants for global government.

Mr. Mitra is director of the Liberty Institute, an independent think tank in New Delhi.

‘The 2001 IPCC report also overstated the connection between climate change and malarial infections. Understandably, the top selling books by climate sceptics published in the last few years all feast on the weak scientific evidence for this assertion. These books usually quote the specialist in insect-borne diseases, Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who has strenuously and effectively attacked the idea that increasing temperatures will necessarily produce a rapid rise in the incidence of insect-borne diseases. Professor Reiter points out that malaria transmission is a complex matter and that rising temperatures are only weakly linked to an increasing incidence of malaria. (The illustration at the head of this article provides us with some sense of just how complex malaria is). Why, he and others have asked, if temperature is so important, did the disease disappear from countries like Britain just as the climate was warming at the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ during the 18th and 19th centuries?’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/13/climate-change

With the opening of the climate confere­nce in Copenhag­en, India has an oppo­rtunity to cha­nge the climate of negotiations.

Surprisingly, Jairam Ramesh, the minister for environment and forest, decided to play for a draw with his statement in Parliament last week proposing voluntary reduction in India’s carbon intensity. Despite his strong assertion that India will not accept any legally binding international commitment to reduce emission, he proposed to reduce the intensity of the economy by a modest 20 to 25 per cent.

Just when the world of climate science was getting shaken by allegations of massaging of data to support claims of global warming, the minister acknowledged that Indians are among the most vulnerable to global warming, and then promised to announce domestic emission norms by 2011. Yet, he failed to drive home the point.

Between 1992 and 2005, India’s energy intensity, that is energy needed to produce a unit of GDP, improved by about 52 per cent, from 1,281 kg of oil equivalent per $1,000 of GDP in 1992 to 618 kilogram of oil equivalent (kgoe) per $1,000 by 2005. During this period, carbon intensity declined by 45 per cent, from a high of 3.15 tonne of CO2 per $1,000 to 1.73.

These figures are impressive, and comparable to the major economies of the world, which varied in 2005 from 0.44 tonne per $1,000 for the US, 0.252 tonne for Europe area and 2.44 tonne for China.

India’s GDP in 2008 was estimated by the World Bank to be $1,217 billion (current dollar). At 2005 energy intensity level of 618.46 kgoe/$1,000, this required total energy of 752,969 million kg of oil equivalent (mkgoe).

But in 1971 energy intensity was a high 2,259 kgoe per $1,000. To achieve the GDP level of 2008 would have required 263 per cent more energy than it actually did. Likewise, at 1981 energy intensity of 1,154, would have required 87 per cent more energy. And at 1991 energy intensity of 1,409, would have required 127 per cent more energy to attain the GDP level of 2008.

The improvement in energy intensity is mirrored in carbon intensity. At 2005 carbon intensity level of 1.73 MT per $1,000, the GDP of 2008 emitted 2,094,083,144 MT of carbon. But at carbon intensity levels of 3.08 (1971), 1.96 (1981) and 2.72 (1991) the GDP of 2008, would have emitted 79 per cent, 14 per cent and 58 per cent more carbon, respectively, than it actually did.

This suggests that between 1992 and 2008, effective saving in total energy used was 127 per cent and effective decline in total carbon emission was 58 per cent, for the 2008 GDP level. The decrease in carbon intensity between 1992 and 2005 was a whopping 82 per cent from the 2005 base, and energy efficiency improved by 56 per cent, according to an analysis of the World Development Indicators.

The minister’s defensive strategy became apparent, when invoking national interest he offered to do domestically, emission reduction and emission standard, while vehemently rejecting similar measures under any international legal mandate.

The dramatic improvements in energy use since 1992 were not a coincidence. Equally, there was little conscious effort aimed at such environmental goals. The real secret of this amazing transformation is the economic liberalisation initiated during this period, which unleashed greater competition, ushered in a relatively free trade regime and facilitated investment and technology adaptation.

Globally, however, decarbonisation of the economy has been going on for the past 400 years as societies moved from fuel wood to coal, oil and electricity, driven by economic needs, leaving a safer environment in its wake.

Given this track record, rather than seeking to balance economics and environment, we need to push ahead with economic reforms with much greater vigour. We need to recognise that cleaner and safer environment is like value added products, which become accessible only with higher economic growth and prosperity.

We need to recognise that the poor are vulnerable to natural hazards, were so in the past, are in present and will be in the future, because of their poverty, quite irrespective of any change in the planet’s climate. If we are really concerned about the plight of the poor, then it is the intellectual climate that we need to change.

Even at a nominal economic growth rate of 8 per cent annually, India’s GDP will rise 150 per cent from 2008 level to over $3,000 billion by 2020. At our current carbon intensity level of 1.73 MT of CO2 per $1,000, the total carbon emission could increase by 2.5 times. But if our carbon intensity falls to European or Japanese levels, 0.252, prevalent today, the total carbon emission would fall by a sixth. This is possible at current levels of technological development.

And this could happen irrespective of whether man-made carbon is the cause of climate change or not. It would happen because of the economic need to improve energy efficiency. This is the real “business as usual” model.

The minister will emerge as a true ‘deal maker’ in Copenhagen if he succeeds in changing the intellectual climate at the negotiations. Economic freedom generates gre­ater wealth and makes energy ac­cessible, and that in turn, enables people to better insulate themselves from the vagaries of nature.

A slightly longer version, with charts and graphs, is available on our website.

The writer is director of Delhi-based Liberty Institute, an independent think tank.