Resisting pressure

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attends the meeting of the G-8 (the group of the world's most prosperous nations) in Scotland today, he will not be doing so as just the head of an emerging economic power.

He, along with his counterparts from China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, have been invited to this elite club as heads of what are said to be the major environment-polluting countries, to participate in a discussion on climate change.

This is the more significant of the two key items on the G-8 agenda, the other being the relatively non-controversial issue of helping Africa achieve poverty reduction.

Going by the available indications, pressure is likely to be mounted at the summit on the rapidly growing economies to share some of the burden of corrective action with regard to global warming.

These countries are at present exempted from emission-reduction obligations under the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which came into force in February this year.

Dr Singh and his counterparts from the developing world will, therefore, have to be firm in resisting pressure. If possible, they should get the G-8 to agree to bear the bulk of the cost of induction of "clean technology" in poor countries.

Fortunately, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the current chairperson of the G-8, views climate change as the single most important issue facing the global community.

This may well be so, considering that global temperatures have risen over the past century by some 0.6 degrees Celsius and are projected to increase faster in the coming century.

Notably, the 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1990. Experts may not be unanimous about the precise consequences of global warming, but there is no denying the fact that the world is witnessing more hostile weather today than in the past.

The increased frequency of devastating floods, droughts and storms bears this out.

What is worrisome is that while most European countries have realised that their economic prosperity has been built on the use of environmentally disastrous fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, and that they have to promote non-polluting alternatives, US president George W Bush, head of the world's largest-single polluter, refuses to be so candid.

Mr Bush did manage to spark a ray of hope by conceding ground for the first time, on the eve of the G-8 meet, that climate change was an important issue and that something needed to be done about it.

But, at the same time, he refused to join the Kyoto treaty, which stipulates emission reduction targets for the developed countries.

Under the circumstances, the outcome of the G-8 summit will depend not so much on the stand taken by India, China and other invitees, as on what Mr Blair can extract from Mr Bush, perhaps in return for his unfailing support to the US on the Iraq issue.

And, if the meet fails to make much headway, which is a distinct possibility, Mr Blair, more than anybody else, will have the cause to rue.