GLOBAL WARMING - Indiaenvironmentportal
GLOBAL WARMINGIN AN UNEQUAL WORLDa case of environmental colonialismANIL AGARWALSUNITA NARAINCENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT
GLOBAL WARMINGIN AN UNEQUAL WORLDa case of environmental colonialismANIL AGARWALS U N I TA N A R A I NCENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTNEW DELHI
p-ii Global Warming BookWe are also very grateful to all chose who spent time giving us comments,particularly Dr S K Sinha of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute,Dr V Asthana of the Tata Energy Research Institute. Several people in thegovernment who helped us cannot be named for obvious reasons.Cartoons: Rustam VaniaCover: Rustam Vania 1991 Centre for Science and EnvironmentFirst Reprint: February, 1996Second reprint: October, 2003Published by Centre for Science and Environment,41, Institutional Area, Tughlakabad, New Delhi - 110062Tel: 91-11- 2995 5124, 2995 6110, 2995 6394, 2995 6399Fax: 91-11- 2995 5879E mail: cse@cseindia.org Website: www.cseindia.org
GLOBAL WARMINGIN AN UNEQUAL WORLDThe idea that developing countries like India andChina must share the blame for heating up theearth and destabilising its climate, as espousedin a recent study published in the United Statesby the World Resources Institute in collaboration with the United Nations, is an excellentexample of enviromental colonialism.The report of the World Resources Institute(WRI), a Washington- based private researchgroup, is based less on science and moreon politically motivated and mathematicaljugglery (1). Its main intention seems to be toblame developing countries for global warmingand perpetuate the current global inequalityin the use of the earth’s environment and itsresources.A detailed look at the data presented by WRIitself leads to the conclusion that India and Chinacannot be held responsible even for a single kg ofcarbondioxide or methane that is accumulating inthe earth’s atmosphere. Carbondioxide andmethane are two of the most important gases contributing to global warming. The accumulation inthe earth’s atmosphere of these gases is mainly theresult of the gargantuan consumption of the developed countries, particularly the United States.The WRI report is entirely designed to blamedeveloping countries for sharing the responsibility for global warming. Global warming is aphenomenon that could lead to major climaticdisturbances, drying up of rain over large areas,and melting of the ice caps leading to countrieslike Maldives disappearing completely andIndia and Bangladesh losing a large part of theircoastline.The WRI report is already being quoted widely and its figures will definitely be used to influence the deliberations on the proposed, legallybinding, global climate convention. This kind ofdata will be used by the US government tostrengthen its position, which it took during theozone negotiations, that it will not pay for ecological reparations. The US government agreedto the paltry amounts negotiated at the London1990 meeting for a global ozone fund only afterconsiderable pressure from European countries,particularly the Scandinavian countries.Many developing countries fear that the proposed climate convention will put serious brakeson their development by limiting their ability toproduce energy, particularly from coal (which isresponsible for producing carbondioxide), andundertake rice agriculture and animal care programmes (activities which produce methane).Behind the global rules and the global discipline that is being thrust upon the hapless ThirdWorld, there is precious little global sharing oreven an effort by the West to understand the perspectives of the other two-thirds. How can wevisualise any kind of global management, in aworld so highly divided between the rich and thepoor, the powerful and the powerless, whichdoes not have a basic element of economic justice and equity. One American is equal to, godknows, how many Indians or Africans in terms ofglobal resource consumption.The entire debate on the prospects ofimpending doom is in many ways an excellentopportunity for the world to truly realise theconcept of one world. A world which is interdependent and which cannot withstand the current levels of consumption and exploitation,especially the levels now prevalent in the West.We had hoped that Western environmentalistswould seize this opportunity to force their countries to dedevelop’ as they have used up theworld’s ecological capital and continue tooveruse it even today. Sadly, instead, the focustoday is on poor developing countries and theirminiscule resource use is frowned upon as hysteria is built up about their potential increase inconsumption. For instance, in the negotiations toreduce ozone destructive gases, the commonrefrain has been that the future potential of CFCproduction in India and China — which togetherproduce only two per cent of the responsiblechemicals today — constitutes a threat to globalsurvival. As their consumption is bound toincrease, the dream of every Chinese to own arefrigerator, is being described as a global curse.The Washington-based Worldwatch Institutepoints out in a recent paper : “. there remainsthe extraordinarily difficult question of whethercarbon emissions should be limited in developing countries, and if so at what level. It is a simplefact of atmospheric science that the planet willnever be able to support a population of 10 billion people emitting carbon at, say, the rate ofWestern Europe today. This would imply carbonemission’s of four times the current level, or ashigh as 23 billion tonnes per year”2.Gus Speth, WRI’s president in an article inEnvironment magazine puts it more bluntly“Deforestation and other land use changes now1
The manner in whichthe global warmingdebate is beingcarried out is onlysharpening anddeepening theNorth-south divide.Given this new foundinterest in theso-called OurCommon Future andfuture generations, itis time for the ThirdWorld to ask theWest, “whose futuregenerations are weseeking to protect, theWestern World’s orthe Third World’s” ?2account for about one-third of the carbondioxideproduced by human activity and some of themethane. If just China and India were to increasetheir greenhouse gas emissions to the globalaverage per capita rate, today’s global totalwould rise 28 per cent; if these two countriesmatched France’s per capita rate, the total wouldbe 68 per cent higher”. Speth, therefore, concludes: “As a practical matter, developing countries expect industrial countries to take the firstand strongest actions on global warming. Thesedeveloping nations want to see the seriousnessof the threat validated, and they conclude correctly that industrial nations are largely responsible for the problem and have the mostresources to do something about it. But carryingthis argument too far could lead to a tragic stalemate”.3It is constantly mentioned that the efforts ofthe West to check pollution and global warmingcould be torpedoed by a rise in coal burning inthe developing world. Why should we do anything if you are also going to want cars, electricity or refrigerators is the underlining statement.Recently, the head of the environmental group ofthe International Energy Agency based inBrussels — an agency which looks after the energy interests of rich countries — told the pressthat the coal use in developing countries couldhave very dramatic environmental implications.“The levels of coal use predicted for India andChina could have a very dramatic environmentalimpact indeed. If developing countries keep tothe sort of forecasts of coal consumption nowbeing bandied about, they would negate anyeffort by Western countries to control emissionsof greenhouse gases,” the IEA official recentlytold Reuters.4We consider such statements, now commonplace in the West, both irresponsible and highlypartisan. They constitute the worst form of preaching the world has ever seen — literally amountingto blaming the victim. If anything, the available figures show that the West must immediately put itsown house in order.And this is when Western nations themselvesare talking, at most, about stabilising their current consumption of energy use or reducing themmarginally. The US has in fact rejected even discussions about stabilising its consumption as USPresident George Bush now considers the globalwarming debate a mere myth. But even stabilising energy consumption means maintaining themanifold inequity in resource consumptionbetween the developed and developing worlds.Does this mean that developing countries will be“allowed” to reach these levels or is our quota ofthe global atmosphere finished ?India and China today account for more thanone third of the world’s population. The questionto be asked is whether we are consuming one-thirdof the world’s resources or contributing one-third ofthe muck and dirt in the atmosphere or the oceans.If not then surely these countries should be laudedfor keeping the world in balance because of theirparsimonious consumption despite the Westernrape and pillage of the world’s resources.The California based International Project forSustainable Energy Paths (IPSEP) in its report onEnergy Policy in the Greenhouse has warnedagainst any trend towards “environmental colonialism in which the climate issues is inadvertently or deliberately used to reinforce traditional agendas that are in conflict with the NorthSouth combine”.5 The report, which theBritish newsmagazine, New Scientist, called thefirst detailed formula for reducing releases ofcarbondioxide by the year 2005, has argued forsubstantial and urgent reductions of emissionsof industrialised countries, who depending onthe mathematical calculations, have alreadyeither used up their entire quota of emissions tothe atmosphere until 2100 or will be doing so by1997.6The manner in which the global warmingdebate is being carried out is only sharpeningand deepening the North-south divide. Giventhis new found interest in the so-called OurCommon Future and future generations, it is timefor the Third World to ask the West, “whosefuture generations are we seeking to protect, theWestern World’s or the Third World’s” ?WRI report reinforces this divide. Byshifting the onus onto the developing world, itwhitewashes the role and the responsibility ofthe West in destroying our “common future”.James Gus Speth, WRI’s president says diplomatically about his report, “the new informationmeans that industrial and developing countriesmust work together to begin reducing emissions ofgreenhouse gases and we need a new era ofenvironmental cooperation”. Third World environmentalists must not get taken for a ride by thishighly partisan one worldism’.WRI’s calculations: faulty and prejudicedThe figures used by WRI to calculate the quantity of carbondioxide and methane produced byeach country are extremely questionable. Heavyemphasis has been placed on carbondioxide production due to deforestation and methane production from rice fields and livestock as compared tocarbondioxide production from the use of fossilfuels like oil and coal. Since developing countriesare more responsible for the former, the heavyemphasis on deforestation and methane generation tends to overplay their contribution whileunderplaying that of the developed countries.Brazil, for instance, is a clear case wheredeforestation estimates have been overstated(see box). Even though Brazil’s deforestation didpeak in 1987, several Brazilian sources point outthat they have reduced substantially since then.Its carbondioxide emissions since 1987, and on
average during the 1980s, are much lower thanthose taken by WRI to calculate carbondioxideemissions. Similarly, in India, deforestation ratesdo not seem to be the same as that of the 1970s,that is, 1.5 million hectares a year — the figuretaken as the yearly average by WRI for the 1980s.According to the Forest Survey of India,deforestation rates have gone down in the 1980s.The latest assessment based on satellite imageryover a four period year between 1981-83 and1985-87 shows that the rate of forest loss hasgone down to 47,500 ha each year — a mere 3 percent of the earlier estimate.7 These figures maywell be an understatement as most Indian environmentalists would allege. But even if it is onetenth of the true figure, it will be nowhere nearthe figures used by WRI. Increased public awareness, relatively stricter implementation of forest legislation and other measures have definitely driven down the rate of deforestation in thecountry compared to the 1970s. And eventhough there is a lot still to be done in this area,it is unlikely that India has the dubious distinction of destroying 1.5 mha of forests each yeareven in the 80’s.For other developing countries also, theaccuracy of the forest loss estimates used byWRI to calculate carbondioxide levels are veryshaky. For instance, estimates for Myanmar(erstwhile Burma) are based on one paper estimating forest loss over 1975-81 presented in aworkshop in Finland. The estimate is 5.45 timesmore than the FAO assessment of 1980 forMyanmar. In the case of Indonesia, a World Bankreview paper on Indonesia’s forest, land andwater issues has been used to estimate the rateof deforestation which is 50 times more than theFAO estimate.Interestingly, the US deforestation rate,which is zero according to WRI, is based on per-sonal communications between WRI and the USdepartment of agriculture. Similarly, there are,according to WRI, absolutely no landuse changesleading to deforestation in any of the industrialised countries like USSR and and Australia. Theeffects of acid rain, which has destroyed vasttracts of European and North American forests,remains unaccounted. And this is when WRI’sown past reports have estimated extensive damage to these forests.8 According to one estimate,more than a fifth of the forested area in Europehad been damaged by acid rain by 1986. This,together with North America, equalled to roughly 10 per cent of all the non-tropical forest area.Obviously, this would have an impact on climatechange as some Western scientists have calculated. One estimate is that 10 per cent of temperate forests, damaged by acid rain, would together release as much as 35 billion tonnes of carbonequivalent into the atmosphere — equal to theeffect of using fossil fuels for seven years at current rates.6 The fact remains that forest loss datain the world is still extremely poor and it is difficult to use it for any set of calculations of carbonemissions to the same level of precision as fossilfuel use data.The methane issue raises further questions ofjustice and morality. Can we really equate the carbondioxide contributions of gas guzzling automobiles in Europe and North America or, for that matter, anywhere in the Third World with the methaneemissions of draught cattle and rice fields of subsistence farmers in West Bengal or Thailand ?Do these people not have a right to live ? But noeffort has been made in WRI’s report to separateout the survival emissions’ of the poor, from the luxury emissions’ of the rich. Just what kind ofpolitics or morality is this which masquerades inthe name of one worldism’ and high mindedinternationalism’?3
BRAZIL’S DEFORESTATION : WHAT IS THE TRUTH ?The World Resources Institute (WRI)contends that developing countriescontribute almost half the greenhousegas emissions leading to global warming. Almost half the share of thedeveloping world comes, according toWRI, from one country, Brazil, allegedly because of the extensive deforestation of the Amazon forest overthe past one decade. Brazil’s totalcontribution ranks third next to onlyUSA and USSR, contributing as muchas 15 per cent of the net carbondioxideemissions of the world. Brazilians,on the other hand, have stronglyobjected to this unfair emphasis ondeforestation as a cause of climatechange, particularly as the databaseon deforestation rates, unlike the ratesof fossil fuel use, is very poor. And it isalso possible to calculate more accurately carbondioxide emissions fromfossil fuel consumption than fromdeforestation.Leaving aside the lack of good dataabout deforestation and its impact onclimate change, a detailed look at thefigures presented by WRI shows clearly that assessments of Brazil’s deforestation vary enormously and may notbe as high as claimed or highlighted byit.The total area of the Amazon legallyunder Brazil is roughly 340 millionhectare (mha) out of a totalAmazonian area of 500 mha, which itshares with its neighbouring countries. There are different assessmentsfor the rate of forest loss in this area.Various Estimates for Forest Loss in Brazil’s Amazon (as found in the WRI Report)YearSourcesEstimatedextent ofAnnualDeforestation(mha)Percentage of totalAmazonian Forestin Brazil losteach year(%)Estimated Extent of % of legalArea deforestedAmazonin last decadedeforestedin last decade(mha)(%)1981-1985 FAO1.40.41441987Alberto Setzer, NationalSpace Research Institute (INPE),Brazil (using remote sensing)8.02.480241988Alberto Setzer, INPE, Brazil(using remote sensing)4.81.448141989Alberto Setzer, INPE, Brazil(using remote sensing)2-2.40.6-0.72271988Philip Fearnside, INPE(Brazil) (Linear projectionbased on 1978 survey)3.51.035101988Robert Pereira da Cunha, INPE,Brazil (survey in 1988 basedon 10 years data using LandsatThematic Mapper)1.70.51751988Recalculation using INPE data,personal communication withProf. Jose Goldemberg,President, University of Sao, Paulo2.30.623.457CSE’s calculationsCSE’s analysis presented in this report does notquestion the data that WRI has used to calculateeach country’s production of carbondioxide andmethane, even though as argued above they definitely can be questioned. Yet CSE’s analysisshows India and China cannot be blamed for anyof the methane or carbondioxide that is appearing in the atmosphere.As a senior UNEP official has put it, natureserves two major economic functions — one, asa source of raw materials and, two, as a sink forabsorbing wastes.9Ideally, the approach should have been toprepare each nation’s budget of greenhouse gas4emissions by taking into account each nationsources of emissions and its terrestrial sinks,that is, its forests, other vegetation and soils,This exercise would have given an idea of thetrue emissions of each nation. These emissionswould have to be further matched with eachnation’s just and fair share of the oceanic andtropospheric sinks — a common heritage ofhumankind. Only then the net emissions of anation that are accumulating in the atmospherecould be calculated. But nothing of this sort hasbeen attempted by WRI.The earth’s environment has a considerableability to absorb wastes. The ocean is an important sink for absorbing carbondioxide producedthrough human activity. According to the esti-
Most have been done by the government-owned National Space ResearchInstitute of Brazil which has used satellite imagery to estimate deforestationin different years (see table). The estimates vary from 1.4 mha to 8 mha offorest loss in a single year. This range isvery large and this has been explainedin WRI’s own review. According to asatellite based survey by Alberto Setzerof the National Space Research Agency,deforestation in 1987 was around 8mha. The very next year, however,when he resurveyed the area he foundthat deforestation had reduced drastically - by more than half. And, in 1989,the following year it had come downeven further. Thus, 1987 was clearly anaberration and in no way the average.WRI itself writes, “1987 may have beenan anomalously high year for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon”. Thereasons being that it was the last yearthat tax credits were available to landholders for clearance of the Amazon.This, obviously, lead to extensive clearance of the forests as people rushed totake advantage of this and other legislative proposals which encouragedclearance and extension of cultivation.In 1988 and 1989, tax credits were,however, suspended and later cancelled. And pushed on by internationalpressure, the Brazilian governmentstarted a ca
p-ii Global Warming Book. 1 The idea that developing countries like India and China must share the blame for heating up the earth and destabilising its climate, as espoused in a recent study published in the United States by the World Resources Institute in collabora-
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Humans can't reduce global warming, even if it is happening. Humans could reduce global warming, but people aren't willing to change their behavior so we're not going to. Humans could reduce global warming, but it's unclear at this point whether we will do what's needed. Humans can reduce global warming, and we are going to do so successfully. 12.
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courts in their efforts to ensure equal justice and due process for all those who come before them. In December 2015, the Department convened a diverse group of stakeholders—judges, court administrators, lawmakers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, advocates, and impacted individuals—to discuss the assessment and enforcement of fines and fees in state and local courts. While the convening .
