India needs to be proactive at Copenhagen
For India, Copenhagen would not be an important summit just because of its role as a primary negotiator from the side of developing countries. The country has a lot at stake, with the sheer amount of area that would be affected by climate change.
WHILE THE government was busy deciding recovery measures for the country’s worst drought in decades, a vigorous flood hit the southern part of India at the end of the monsoon season. The monsoon had hit 246 districts in 10 states and the following flood took more than 250 lives. This is what’s at stake for India at Copenhagen in December where 190 countries are expected to reach an agreement.
The Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out in 2012. So, in Copenhagen 2009, the parties of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) will meet for the last time before the climate agreement need to be renewed. India, leading the developing countries against the move by US to force emerging economies to commit on emission reduction, will be an important negotiator.
However as suggested above, there is more at stake for India than just a few numbers and figures to negotiate. Let us see why.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank have catagorically stated that India is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change and there are reasons to believe it too.
To begin with, Satellite imagery has shown that the sea level in the Sundarbans has risen at an average rate of 3.14 cm a year, over the past two decades which is much higher than the global average of 2.0 mm a year. In the past two decades, four islands – Bedford, Lohachara, Kabasgadi and Suparibhanga, have sunk into the sea and 6,000 families have been made homeless.
Well, with 7516 km of densely populated coastline, if this rate of submergence continues, the number of people rendered homeless and forced to migrate can only be left to imagination.
Further, India has miserably failed in handling its water resources. The ill-fated rivers are also endangered with receding glaciers. Due to the lack of a proper irrigation infrastructure, agriculture will be most affected sector.
Now, 70 per cent of the Indian population is in rural areas and is largely dependent on agriculture for livelihood. This population accounts for more than 75 per cent of the country’s poor. This section will be the most vulnerable to any change in monsoon and shrinking rivers.
Thus, although the issue affects and needs urgent attention of all countries, we have a little more at stake. India’s concern of its GHG emissions being far lower than the developed world and that its per capita emissions are only a twentieth of the United States and about a tenth of Western Europe and Japan is undoubtedly justified but, we definitely need to work out some unanimously acceptable solution.
For this we cannot just be a party to the meet but have to play play a pro-active role for an equitable agreement, that is not just a piece of promise but, an implementation in itself. India should show the same keenness and zeal as for the Doha round of WTO talks.
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