Global warming fissures

A series of reports on global warming issued recently by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may have brought this critical issue into sharp international focus but it has failed to lead to any united action by nations to combat it. Unfortunately, while the developing countries are not averse to switching over to the clean route without jeopardising their own development needs, some key environment polluters, notably the US and China, continue to be non-cooperative. What is worse, the representatives of the 166 nations attending the ongoing UN conference in Bonn on slowing down global warming are split over even the basic issue of how far to publicise the studies that clearly blame human activities for the impending catastrophe. It is, therefore, clear that the UN panel's message that unabated burning of fossil fuels and spewing of harmful green-house gases would cause droughts, floods, storms and sea rise, has not sunk in. There is also little realisation that the victims of global warming will be all countries, not some. Of course, the scenario for Asia is particularly scary as the rise in sea level could erase several small islands""even island nations""from the map, besides destroying some of the key bio-reserves like the one in the Sunderbans. Even major financial centres like Mumbai may also be affected badly with large areas in the danger of turning uninhabitable.

But the UN panel's efforts have not been wholly wasted. It has at least helped unambiguously define the challenge ahead. It is now apparent that the detrimental emissions have to be cut by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050 to limit global warming to a 2 degree Celsius rise over the pre-industrial era. In contrast, the Kyoto protocol on climate change aimed at cutting emissions only by 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012""a rate which is woefully inadequate to stabilise""leave alone reverse""the global warming process. But, ominously enough, none is willing to take on the required level of emission reduction obligations. While the US is just refusing to be part of the Kyoto movement, the other developed countries are asserting that the developing countries, especially China and India, should also take on the targeted obligations. This seems to be an unfair caveat for several reasons. For one, clubbing India and China is wholly unjustified. In fact, it may be more prudent to club the US and China as these two countries together are the biggest violators. Recent studies have indicated that the US alone contributes about 24 per cent of the total harmful gas emissions. In another report, the International Energy Agency last month said China, which in 2001 emitted only 42 per cent as much greenhouse gas as the US, was likely to become the world's largest emitter this year. Worse still, China's annual growth in this is over thrice the annual increase of all industrialised nations put together. India, on the other hand, has on its own chosen to tread on an environment-friendly path by making green clearance mandatory for most development projects. Besides, it is also encouraging non-conventional sources of energy and alternative sources of cleaner auto fuels such as bio-fuels and CNG. These aspects need to be kept in view while apportioning fresh and meaningful environment clean-up responsibilities to different countries.