Climate Change -Is there any Business in it?
We have been facing an interesting recent controversial international issue which can be described in a nutshell as the climate change. The hue and cry and lot of media noise created over this issue overshadowed the simple fact that not everybody has been rightly informed of the Copenhagen Summit. The issue in India got triggered off by an allegedly leaked letter written by the Indian Environment Minister to the Prime Minister, advocating a change in the stand of the Government of India with regard to global negotiations on environment. This naturally took the matter into clouds of controversy. Many have thought that it was an impromptu leak. Reactions were on the expected lines. Environment negotiators did not like the volte-face in the Indian stand
since it appears that they were not taken into confidence while crafting a paradigm shift. When such controversies were looming large, China voluntarily cut the target of its carbon emissions by 20–25 per cent to be achieved over a period of time. Many thought that the famous Obama charm has apparently rubbed off on well on the Chinese mandarins. A few days later, India also voluntarily reduced its carbon emission target, but added a rider that she is still with the developing world as far as the global warming negotiations are concerned. People were aghast at India’s divergent stand as against the well-accepted motto of G-77 countries that the developed world, which were responsible for increasing the global carbon footprint, should be asked to pay for reduction of carbon emissions. The Kyoto Protocol signed to cast liability on the developed nations to meet the cost of carbon emissions was always a sour point for the developed countries led by the US since they believe that the cost of conforming to the legally binding Protocol was huge. Many attribute the sudden diplomatic overturn of the US to BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) was aimed at circumventing the tenets of the Kyoto Protocol and to escape from its liability.
China’s sudden change in the stand has its solid rationale. She is bracketed with the US as one of the most polluting countries. But India’s carbon footprint is low and comparable with the developing world. Therefore, many could not decipher why exactly India changed her stand. We need go into analyzing the reasons of India’s perceived change in the stand and better avoid entering a bitter and intriguingly complex political debate. But let me place before you some of the spinoffs. First, let me start with the negatives. The G-77 groupings led by India so far has been slowly distancing from the leader, i.e. India since they feel that BASIC countries have ruptured their bargaining power vis-à-vis the developed world – mostly the US. Some of them are openly referring to the BASIC countries as opportunists or even upstarts in the emerging power architecture. Secondly, the miniscule dole-out by the developed world for developing countries, which may peak US$100 billion by 2030 for taking up steps against global warming may ignore BASIC countries. This may not be a great loss for China and India since these countries by that time will have a solid foreign exchange reserves, going by the present rate of accretion.
Now, let me turn to the positives. It is loud and clear that the majority of the nations no longer view India as a poor developing country. It is a fast-growing emerging economy, soon to be counted among the developed world. That paradigm shift in the image of India will help her in many ways in clinching financial deals from multilateral organizations, attracting investment from overseas, leveraging her trade prospects, bargaining power of her corporations for their mergers and acquisitions and brokering better financial deals – be it through External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) or institutional sources. This makes India a power-enabled, power enabler, power dealer company scaling upchain in world power and eminence.
But what lies ahead of us being in the league of smart nations? Let us call a spade a spade. India’s sudden change in the stand is not so much due to ideological commitment but have more to do with the changing power politics and her emerging strength in the global scenario. Diplomacy is not a game for the saints and humanitarians. We need Chanakyas to survive and scale up in politics. Viewed against this changed perception, we can justify Obama attending uninvited a meeting of the BASIC countries to press his point of view, China resorting to cut in carbon emissions without any international pressure and India’s voluntary gesture to cut the emissions and to measure and monitor the carbon footprint. Why did he visit China before the Copenhagen Summit and made sounds for that country much to the displeasure of India? One need not be a seasoned statesman or diplomat to discern that the US Administration has a great stake in achieving an accord in Copenhagen, which was written off by many pundits as a nonstarter. With a loose voluntary accord in place, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which was UN mandated, the developed world could eschew the operation of the latter, which would have gone against them both in terms of resources and image (US was all along against Kyoto Protocol). Secondly, the US Administration, which is perceived to have faltered in the Afghan issue, have scored a point or two in Copenhagen, reinforcing the perception that unilateralism is still the order of the day. That will shore up the domestic rating of the Obama Administration, which people thought started sagging.
I believe that when world politics is dominated by complex and self-driven paradigms, no country can stay away from that. India should leverage her strength and extract a price for its support and change in the stand at a critical time. That is what would be recommended by a Machiavelli or Chanakya as opposed to Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln. The increasing number of non-tariff barriers imposed by the developed world for imports from India, in merchandize and services should go. Restrictive clauses that pre-empt India in accessing softer loans and accommodation from multilateral organizations should go and such a list goes on.
Who can deny that the climate change is a big business. There are complex calculations and formulas to decide on carbon emission and in measuring carbon footprints. US$30 billion to be dispersed among the developing world in the next few years have to be worked out on an equitable basis as also in a cost-effective manner. Could we believe that is the payoff for India in the recently concluded Copenhagen Conclave?
As a person remembering the power verves and power plays from the bad or good old cold war days, I am a little pained to observe the progressive decline in the clout of groupings of the developing world. We used to take pride in the fact that India championed the cause of the Third World at some point of time. Non-aligned movement, the original grouping of the Third World had its initial inspiration drawn from a few bold thought leaders such as Nehru, Nasser and Tito. Dissipation and dissolution of these movements would have made them turn in their graves if they had witnessed the current vandalism in world politics. However, one has to be realistic and India has her right to make necessary readjustments to the new factors and forces in world politics. This realignment to reality is possibly at the heart of what is happening with us in India.
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