India must make mandatory cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, and make a commitment to this effect at the next summit of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Bali this December, a senior United Nations expert on climate change said here Monday.
The existing Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming comes to an end in 2012, and major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting countries around the world are being asked to commit themselves to cutting emissions.
India, China and other developing countries have said they should not be asked to make mandatory cuts, as global warming today is almost totally due to the developed world, and the per capita GHG emissions in developing countries are still way below those of developed countries, especially the US.
"But all major GHG emitting countries have to understand there will be real quantitative targets at Bali," said Kevin Watkins, lead author of the 2007 human development report (HDR) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This year's HDR - the 17th in the series - has climate change and human development as its theme.
"India must make mandatory cuts in its GHG emissions after 2012," Watkins told IANS on the sidelines of a workshop on the subject organised by the UNDP here for journalists from 12 Asian countries.
Many developing countries, including India in the past, have said they have a right to emit greenhouses gases because it was the only way they could reach the level of industrialisation and standard of living enjoyed in developed countries.
But the "right to emit does not lead anywhere", Watkins said. "Everyone needs deep cuts." He pointed out that climate change caused by GHGs affected everyone, especially the poor people in developing countries, and therefore it was important for developing countries to combat global warming rather than apportion blame.
On his part, Watkins was highly critical of developed countries - especially the US and the European Union (EU). "I am happy that the era of denial of climate change is over and G7 (group of seven industrialised countries) has acknowledged its historical responsibility and expressed the urgency of the problem," he said.
"Now, suddenly, EU and the US cannot tell India it has to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions," Watkins said. "That will be iniquitous. What they can tell countries like India and China is - you have an interest in energy efficiency; for the sake of the globe and because we have been responsible, we will cover the extra cost to help you achieve energy efficiency.
"Multilateral properly financed technology transfer has to be the entry price that developed countries have to pay." Watkins pointed out that many technologies for energy efficiency that would help combat global warming existed already but added that more money had to be put into more research and development in this area.
Watkins was very clear that "The era of business as usual has to stop". He added that the Bali conference gave all countries a "critical opportunity" to do so. He pointed out that scientists at the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had said an average temperature rise of over two degrees Celsius would be catastrophic.
"To keep the rise within two degrees, the world has to halve its GHG emissions by 2050. But at the current rate, the world is going to double its GHG emissions by 2030 instead," Watkins pointed out.
He said that rich countries had contributed over three-fourths of the GHGs so far. "So they have to be responsible for about 80 percent of the cuts by 2050. But developing countries do have to be responsible for the other 20 percent. They cannot go on with business as usual."
Humanity had to combat climate change due to global warming for two fundamental reasons, according to Watkins. "First, we have to say what is our commitment to the poor today, what are we doing about it. Because the poor are the ones worst affected by climate change.
"Second, how are we expressing our ethical and moral responsibility to future generations? Remember that greenhouse gases emitted in 2007 will still stay in the atmosphere in 2107."
In response to a question, Watkins said that future benefits of combating global warming were so huge that their value should not be discounted at all when taking decisions today. "I am for a zero discount policy."
How do countries actually cut greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide? This year's HDR suggests that governments raise the price of carbon to reflect the fact the earth's atmosphere becomes more valuable as the concentration of GHGs increase, Watkins said. In practice, he said, this could be done through a combination of carbon taxation and carbon trading programmes, though he was quite critical of current efforts in this direction.
"The EU emissions trading scheme is a farce," Watkins said. "They set the limit above the actual emissions. The only thing that has happened is a windfall gain for power generators."
Watkins suggested market-based instruments for GHG reduction in a much stricter regime, plus far more stringent regulations by governments around the world. He warned that governments were still trying to get out of making real commitments to fight climate change. "We need to cut greenhouse gases overall, not greenhouse gas intensity as governments are promising to do now."
Indo-Asian News Service
Major threats to the world such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the many that remain unresolved, and all of them put humanity at risk, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned.
The warning comes in UNEP's Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) report released Friday.
GEO-4 salutes the world's progress in tackling some relatively straightforward problems, with the environment now much closer to mainstream politics everywhere. But despite these advances, there remain the harder-to-manage issues, the "persistent" problems.
Here, GEO-4 says: "There are no major issues for which the foreseeable trends are favourable."
On the urgent issue of climate change, the report says the threat is now so urgent that large cuts in greenhouse gases by mid-century are needed. Negotiations are due to start in December on a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate agreement that obligates countries to control anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
Although the protocol exempts all developing countries from emission reduction commitments, there is growing pressure on some rapidly industrialising countries -- now substantial emitters themselves -- to agree to emission reductions.
GEO-4 says the world faces an overall crisis that includes climate change, extinction rates, hunger, problems driven by growing human numbers, the rising consumption of the rich and the desperation of the poor. The effects of this crisis are shown in decline of fish stocks, loss of fertile land through degradation or dwindling amount of fresh water available, for example.
The report says climate change is a "global priority", and the response to it demands political will and leadership. Yet UNEP finds "a remarkable lack of urgency", and a "woefully inadequate" global response.
Several highly polluting countries have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. GEO-4 says: "Some industrial sectors that were unfavourable to the Protocol managed successfully to undermine the political will to ratify it."
"Fundamental changes in social and economic structures, including lifestyle changes, are crucial if rapid progress is to be achieved," the report points out.
On the issue of water supply, GEO-4 warns that irrigation already takes about 70 percent of available water, yet the world will have to double food production by 2050. "The escalating burden of water demand will become intolerable in water-scarce countries."
Water quality is declining too, polluted by microbial pathogens and excessive nutrients. Globally, contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human disease and death.
In developing countries some three million people die annually from water-borne diseases, most of them under-five-year-olds.
GEO-4 says current biodiversity changes are the fastest in human history. Species are becoming extinct a hundred times faster than the rate shown in the fossil record. Of the major vertebrate groups that have been assessed comprehensively, over 30 percent of amphibians, 23 percent of mammals and 12 percent of birds are threatened.
Yet meeting humanity's growing demand for food will mean either intensified agriculture -- using more chemicals, energy and water, and more efficient breeds and crops -- or cultivating more land. Either way, biodiversity suffers.
The report says environmental exposure causes almost a quarter of all diseases. More than two million people worldwide are estimated to die prematurely every year from indoor and outdoor air pollution. It points out that some of the progress achieved in reducing pollution in developed countries has been at the expense of the developing world, where industrial production and its impacts are now being exported.
According to GEO-4, unsustainable land use is causing degradation, a threat as serious as climate change and biodiversity loss. It affects up to a third of the world's people, through pollution, soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, salinity, and disruption of biological cycles.
GEO-4 was prepared by about 390 experts and reviewed by more than 1,000 others across the world.
Decisions that individuals and society make now will largely determine the future of humanity and of the planet, the report says. "Our common future depends on our actions today, not tomorrow or some time in the future."
Indo-Asian News Service