World is Green

In the current climate change discussions, China and India raise red flags everywhere. The general points are that they are the fastest growing developing countries and hence, their emissions need to be decreased or the growth of emissions needs to be decreased. In fact, Australia and the US claim to not signing the Kyoto Protocol due to the lack of emission reduction targets on China and India.

China and India on the other hand claim their per capita emissions, their poverty and the need for economic development as the drivers for not accepting to targets for CO2 reduction.

One common reason suggested for the worry is that China will eclipse the United States as the leading greenhouse gas emitter soon . The developed countries are looking into the future. However, if you look at the past, it is clear who bears the responsibility. A good way to understand this is the cumulative emissions of countries from 1900 to 2002.

The linked graph shows the cumulative CO2 emissions from 1900 to 2002.

Writing on the logic of doing it, the author suggests:

It does make sense to look at the sum of all CO2 emissions because the lifetime of the greenhouse gases like CO2 in the atmosphere is between 50 and 200 years. The current global warming is an effect of all greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere during the last 100 years, global warming is not just caused by the greenhouse gases emitted this year or last year! This is also one of the reasons why immediate action is required to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, because the effects of the greenhouse gases will last for about 100 years.

A better way to understand the issue is to concentrate on the Top 10 producers of all time.

The US is responsible for 41% of all the emissions for the last hundred years produced by the top 10 countries. China only 11%. India 3%. This puts things in perspective.

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Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, a Distinguished Fellow at TERI, writes a sensible op-ed in Business Standard on India and Climate Change.

Climate change is not a big issue in India at this point in time. The sheer size of the poverty issue overrides any other program. Combine that with the economic development policies, foreign policy (e.g. Kashmir issue), internal terrorism (e.g. the Maoists) and it is clear that climate change is not on the top of the agenda. This is rightly so.

In this op-ed, Dasgupta outlines the issue of climate change, the IPCC report, effect on India and possible policy actions.

He points out that “the wealthy, industrialised countries are responsible for causing climate change, the main victims will be the world’s poor. Developing countries are more vulnerable because they lack the financial and technological resources needed to cope with and adapt successfully to climate change”.

In this scenario, the first task of the government is adaptation and this can only be based on rapid, sustained development and poverty eradication.

Adaptation will require a wide range of responses, including a shift to drought resistant plant varieties, economical use of water resources, water conservation measures, watershed management, protection of coastlines and disaster management. Low-income countries will be unable to implement these measures on an adequate scale.

The second goal is to moderate the use of greenhouse gases through measures which will be economically beneficial and the funds are not diverted from poverty reduction and economic development needs. This is important because funds for development are scarce in India.

There are many areas where such possibilities exist. Cost-effective energy saving and energy efficiency programmes serve our development goals and also result in lowering emissions. Policies designed primarily to reduce local environmental pollution (such as the substitution of diesel by cleaner fuel in some of our major cities) can also lead to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The promotion of nuclear, wind and solar power not only serves our energy security interests but also results in lower greenhouse gas emissions. In all these cases, measures designed primarily to promote our developmental objectives also yield important co-benefits for climate change mitigation.

Additional programs can be achieved through the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation.

According to Dasgupta, the third leg of the strategy should concentrate on managing the rising expectations of industrialized nations to force India to cut down on its emissions.

If the demands of these developed countries are conceded, funds will be diverted from our national priority goals of development, poverty eradication and progress on local environmental issues like air and water quality. The rate of growth of the economy will be slowed down, with the result that India will remain highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

To counter the argument of high greenhouse gases emitted by India due to its population he suggests a analogy based on food consumption.

This is like arguing that India should restrict its food consumption because its total calorie consumption is very large, even though the per capita intake is inadequate! India’s per capita carbon emissions are only one-eighth that of the EU and one-twentieth that of the US. The total figure is high only because India is a very large and populous country, with a population exceeding the combined total of the US, the European community, Russia and Japan.

As with everything in India, population exacerbates the climate change issue.

The Financial Times discusses the need for China and India to face the climate change challenge.

The world’s two fastest-growing large economies are growing increasingly conscious of the global warming in which their rapid development is playing a part.

The UN report signals a decisive shift in the debate, drawing attention not just to overall levels of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere over time – largely from industrialised countries, led by the US – but also to the rising flow of greenhouse gases from big developing nations.

The article compares the “cumulative emissions” of China and India vis-a-vis the US and the OECD countries.

Although China and India acknowledge their emissions are rising, they argue that, per capita, they remain a tiny fraction of those from developed countries. Moreover, China’s cumulative emissions are only one-third of those of the US and one-sixth of those of all the developed countries grouped in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the World Bank. The cumulative emissions of India, which has a higher energy efficiency rate than China, are about one-tenth those of the US.

What if Australia had the population of China?

Gao Guangsheng, the director of China’s Climate Change Coordination Office, pointedly singled out Australia, population 20m, at a recent conference in Nairobi, saying that if it had as many people as China’s 1.3bn, its carbon emissions would total 8.6bn tonnes a year. China’s emissions are now about 1.3bn tonnes a year.

The Indian Finance Minister talks about India’s right to develop.

We are prepared to assume our share of the responsibilities and obligations, provided the world recognises we have a right to grow and that means that we will consume large quantities of energy and, second, that we need to be given access to clean technology, including civilian nuclear energy,” he says. “If these two points are recognised, I have no doubt that India and other developing countries will come forward to assume their share of the responsibilities. But we are not the largest polluter: our carbon emissions are still very small.”

At the end of the day whatever be the situation, India and China both face increasing environmental issues due to Climate Change.

Both China and India suffer from acute air and water pollution. In 83 Indian cities for which air quality monitoring data are available, more than 84 per cent of the population was in 2004 forced to inhale poor, bad or dangerous air. Only 3 per cent had access to air that was rated good. China is home to 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, with dirty air causing the premature deaths of 400,000 people a year. About 340m people, about one-quarter of the population, do not have access to clean water.

Still, both China and India are clearly concerned about climate change for their own sakes, let alone the impact on the rest of the world. In China, scientists warn that the impact of rising temperatures on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau could alter the amount of water flowing into the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which originate in the region. The same sort of impact may be felt in key Indian river systems.

India’s agricultural productivity, already flagging, is thought likely to suffer because of high temperatures, drought, flood and soil degradation. The Chinese media have cited similar scenarios, including a fall in grain output by 10 per cent a year from 2030. Such threats run counter to the maintenance of food security, which both governments prize.

If the issue is not acknowledged then China and India will increasingly face water, food, resources, pollution and other problems. Adaptation and change is better for both.

Chinese Premeir Wen Jiabao pledged for environmental and equitable growth in the future for the Chinese Economy.

As the Australian reports:

Launching the annual session of the National People’s Congress, Mr Wen said future economic growth would hinge on “environmentally friendly industries”.

Projects would be assessed for “energy consumption and environmental impact”. Those that failed to meet such standards would be stopped. Mr Wen said China would close “backward” iron foundries with a production capacity of less than 30 million tonnes and “backward” steel mills that could produce 35million tonnes.

Mr Wen said “key energy-saving projects” would be introduced in industries including steel, other metals, coal, chemicals, building materials and construction.

Mr Wen also signalled the Government would control the scale of urban development and instead direct resources towards water conservation projects, energy production bases and trunk rail lines and highways.

The Guardian tackles the emphasis on Education and the rural poor:

`We must put people first, promote faster progress in social programs, work energetically to solve the most practical problems that are of greatest concern to the people … and ensure that all of the people share in the fruits of reform and development,” Wen said in a speech to China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress.

Tuition and other fees for all rural students will be eliminated, easing financial burdens on 150 million rural households, the premier said. The education program and an expansion of a subsidized rural health insurance system would complete in two years projects originally scheduled to be fazed in over five years.

“Education is the bedrock of China’s development, and fairness in education is an important form of social fairness,” Wen said in a 2 hour and 15 minute speech at the cavernous Great Hall of the People in central Beijing

In the countryside, where most Chinese live, spending on agriculture, schools, medical clinics and other programs will rise 15 percent to $51 billion, Wen announced.

With growing concern over China’s role in climate change and the increasing un-sustainable nature of its growth, the Chinese Premier’s speech comes at the right moment.

It remains to be seen what specific programs and policies will be announced and how it will be implemented.

I am very intrigued with the Anvil Hill case.

To understand the issue, check out the Living on Earth story or the Tree Hugger post on this.

A landmark legal judgment in Australia has thrown the country’s huge coal industry and many other major projects into uncertainty, thanks to growing concerns about climate change. A court in New South Wales, the most populous state in Australia, has ruled that business and industry must consider the global warming impact of large developments.

The Australian Financial Review reported that (not available online), green fees of carbon costs suggested by the Stern Review of $85 per tonne would make the proposed mine costly and would not be financially viable to sell coal.

I think it is important to understand the downstream effects of products and coal being one major producer of CO2, it is important to understand that.

I always would like to look at both costs and benefits of everything. What is the benefit of coal? Ofcourse; energy which powers the world. What is the cost? The increasing greenhouse gases which created climate change and its negative impact.

What are the alternative options? Coal from other countries. Nuclear power, but not for sometime. Other alternative energies? May be.

But what are the costs of not using this coal in the meantime?

Atanu Dey once told me the importance of energy. He explained to me the rise of the modern world due to the cheap availability of oil.

It’s almost like, “If you give me enough energy, I can change the world”.

Now, Imagine a world without electricity. According to the US Dept. of Energy, Worldwide, some 2 billion people are currently without electricity.

Look at the following image from the ‘German Advisory Council on Global Change’.

Now think about this.

We can stop this coal mine from starting but what about the 2 billion people with-ought electricity in India, China, Africa and other parts of the world? How many lives are being lost because we do not have electricity? Imagine the standard of living without energy?

I understand the problem of climate change but we also need to understand the bigger issues of poverty.

Andy Mukherjee, a good opinion writer for Bloomberg, writes about the increasing interest in China and India for Bio-fuels. The consequence of this will be the impact on food due to the scarcity of water.

If water were a globally traded commodity, with unmet demand in China and India reflected in its price, the world might shed its newfound craze for biofuels. Growing corn to make ethanol to run sport-utility vehicles is downright silly; nowhere more so than in China and India.

As many as 400 Chinese cities are facing water shortages; farmers in the most-populous nation are forgoing millions of tons of grain production every year. Per-capita availability of water is expected to shrink to alarming levels by 2030.

Amid this water scarcity, China has gone on to become the world’s third-largest bio-ethanol producer after Brazil and the U.S., pouring thousands of gallons of water to grow a ton of corn, and then using more water to turn the corn into ethanol.

The tradeoff between water and biofuels may also be crucial for India. One-sixth of India’s food output is being supported by pumping groundwater, which is depleting rapidly. In the state of Tamil Nadu, more than a third of aquifers are “overexploited,” meaning the rate at which water is being extracted is more than the pace of recharge. According to the World Bank’s estimates, by 2050 demand for water in India will exceed all available supplies.

“If water would have its correct price, then we wouldn’t even be thinking about biofuels,” Nestle SA Chief Executive Officer Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “If I had to identify one resource I’m worried about, that’s water.”

Water is emerging as the main issue all around the world. At Worldisgreen.com, we have been writing about this issue for sometime now.

Greenpeace suggested that the growing need for bio-fuels are fuelling the growth for deforestation in Indonesia.’

In Food or Fuel, Lester Brown comments that “By the end of 2007, the emerging competition between the 800 million automobile owners who want to maintain their mobility and the world’s 2 billion poorest people who want simply to survive will be on center stage.”

And Larry West from About.com says, The most valuable commodity in the world today, and likely to remain so for much of this century, is not oil, not natural gas, not even some type of renewable energy. It’s water—clean, safe, fresh water.

The current Water debate in Australia is clearly shows the need for leadership in this area.

And Water is Wealth. A UNEP Finance Initiate called water “an emerging risk of strategic importance to businesses and their financial backers around the world.”

Economics teaches the opportunity cost of goods and services. This is the basic principle to understand in this march towards alternative fuels.

Atanu Dey explains the importance of opportunity costs:

In fact, I would go so far as to claim that economics at its most fundamental is the careful systematic study of opportunity costs. Opportunity costs implies choices and tradeoffs, and is itself the consequence of a fundamental physical characteristic of the universe that we live in. That fundamental fact is that this universe has limits. Each one of us has a limited amount of time and other derivative resources at our disposal.

Understanding this core principle is important in deciding upon alternatives, making choices and taking policy and strategic decisions.

We know poverty is linked to economic development, but is it also linked to the environment?

Environment News Service reports on a new UN report titled “Making Progress on Environmental Sustainability: Lessons and recommendation from a review of over 150 MDG country experiences,” suggests that environmental protection helps economic development.

Egypt, Peru, Vietnam, and Mongolia are among the countries putting the environment at the core of their plans to cut poverty by 2015, according to a report issued Friday by two United Nations agencies. Environmental sustainability and economic development work best when they are linked, the report demonstrates by documenting progress in 158 countries.

“A healthy, sustainable environment is a vital national asset and when it is eroded, the poorest people suffer the most,” said UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis.

The report’s authors, led by Linda Ghanime, UNDP environmental operations and policy advisor, stress that the best progress is made when countries first adopt the principle of environmental sustainability, and then adapt their development plans to their own specific ecosystems.

During my time with Deeshaa Ventures I had the opportunity to understand the basic of economic development from people like Atanu. Economic development provides well-being to the general populace. However, India and many other countries have not been successful in achieving this objective.

At that time I did not understand the link between the environment and economic development. I am still learning about it but the more I understand I realise how important it is for emerging countries like India to concentrate more on the environment rather than less for their own benefit.

Principles like resource productivity, waste equals food, energy efficiency are more important to India and China then developed countries. I will be writing about this topic.

In Australia there is a constant comparison to India and China while talking about Greenhouse gases. The main argument goes like this:

1. India and China are growing rapidly and so they need to cut their emissions
2. Australia produces only 1% of emissions
3. India and China are not part of Kyoto so we will not be too

Even though this may seem like a fair enough argument, there are flaws.

The number one flaw is the wrong use of comparison metric.

Lucy Siegel in the Observer recently tackles this:

…this development has triggered moaning and a rush of metaphorical sick notes, ‘I can’t/won’t curb my CO2 emissions because India’s are growing.’

This argument would carry more weight if only our own emissions weren’t quite so, well, weighty. Ten years ago the ecological footprint of the average Indian was 0.4 hectares, equating to emissions of 0.81 tonnes of CO2 per person per year. Admittedly this has risen to 1.34 tonnes, but still doesn’t really compare with the average 11.01 tonnes per UK citizen or a spectacular 28 tonnes from those Kyoto opt-out Australians.

Comparing the per capita emissions is the most important part. Another comparison that needs to be done is the per capita income. The per capital at PPP is a better one here.

The following is a comparison from the CIA Fact book (2004):

• United States - Rank 7 ($41,600)
• Australia - Rank 19 ($31,600)
• United Kingdom - Rank 25 ($30,100)
• China - Rank 118 ($6,800)
• Indian - Rank 159 ($3,400)

A visual representation can be found from the world bank. However, this is based on per capita on a market exchange rate which marks India and China even lower.

As we can clearly see, Australia and US are far ahead in terms of Per Capita income. Expecting India and China to follow them in curbing emissions is simply immoral.

Another way to understand this is the Environment Kuznet’s Curve.

From the Wikipedia:

Another situation where Kuznets type curves appear is the environment. It is claimed that many environmental health indicators, such as water and air pollution, show the inverted U-shape: in the beginning of economic development, little weight is given to environmental concerns, raising pollution along with industrialization. After a threshold, when basic physical needs are met, interest in a clean environment rises, reversing the trend. Now society has the funds, as well as willingness to spend to reduce pollution. This relation holds most clearly true for a few pollutants, such as Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide, but there is little evidence that the relationship holds true for other pollutants, especially those with non-local effects, or for the environment in general.

Intuitively this makes sense, however, there is little evidence that it does happen. A high Per Capita income atleast provides the means towards creating a better environment but the will is still needed.

In the end, developing nations like India and China need to work towards “green development” if not for the world’s sake, for their own betterment but if Australia and other developed countries cannot use it as a excuse for their own wasteful economy.