What is charitably referred to as “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” in the text of the United Nations UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is in reality an act of industrial warfare against climate and its allied ecosystem whose impact has become glaring.
Its continued relevance for the communities of shared fate and global order is linked to the decision by the richest countries to undergo mandatory de-addiction. But for long these countries have adopted an ostrich-like policy. They are planning to deal with fossil-fuel addiction by the 2100, 85 years from now.
Ahead of the Paris climate meeting by the end of 2015, when the world's biggest polluter, China, submitted its voluntary Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to the Secretariat of UNFCCC, comparisons between similar commitments by USA and EU have occupied centre stage.
China aims to achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030. It plans to lower Co2 emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 per cent from the 2005 level. It aims to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 per cent. It plans to increase the forest stock volume by around 4.5 billion cubic metres on the 2005 level. If China complies with these commitments, it would emit some 16-17 billion tonnes of GHGs instead of 22 billion tonnes in 2030 in a business as usual scenario.
Sadly, such announcements by the top polluters are far from what was required to be done based on scientific evidence to limit global temperature rise by 2°C. There was a need to cut emissions to the tune of 70 per cent below 2010 levels by 2050 to be on the path of limiting 2°C temperature increase. For several years, the formal initiatives to mitigate and adapt to impacts of climate change have largely been unsuccessful because of an embedded insincerity of the institutions involved. They fail to decode the shared fate in the global village which is faced with climate induced emergencies and disasters.
Meanwhile, China has entered into an agreement with the USA wherein it has agreed to match its emissions with that of the USA at an enormous 12 tonnes per capita per year in 2030, thus appropriating the carbon space between them. This in a situation wherein corporations have emerged as the state and, in another case, state as the corporation. The state of affairs in most countries is moving in the same direction because of the regulatory capture by the corporations.
On the other hand, satisfying their energy demands on the face of lopsided economic growth the Asian countries have increased their emissions solely depending on thermal power. Coal-based power provides 40 per cent of global electricity. It emits one-third of global CO2. This is contributing to climate crisis. China has become the largest CO2 emitter in the world followed by India, which is responsible for 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per person per year. Over 65 per cent of India’s power generation comes from coal. But coal mining is destroying forests, water sources and livelihoods of the poorest.
India has the world's fifth-largest electricity generation capacity with 243 GW but is dependent on coal, natural gas, hydro, oil and nuclear besides unconventional sources of energy like solar, wind, bio-gas and agriculture. The installed capacity of renewable energy has touched 32,269.6 MW or 12.95 per cent of the total potential available in India as on March 31, 2014. India's Renewable Energy Status Report 2014 reveals that there is a total renewable energy potential 2,49,188 MW from various sources. The untapped market potential for overall renewable energy is 2,16,918.39 MW.
To use the words of Pope Francis, the submissions by top polluters who also happen to be top profit makers underline that "cry of the earth and the cry of the poor" has not been internalised to pay the "ecological debt" that global north owes to the south. The fact remains that there is a north in the global south - the elite of the southern countries like India who appear to have seceded and joined the elite of the global north, clouding decision-making based on common but differentiated historical responsibility.
Under the current global economic system, the commodifying and monetising of nature is not only interfering with climate and allied ecosystems but is also depriving resource dependent communities of their rights. Besides this, it is also attracting private and public corporations to control natural resources. This has created an episteme that blindly bulldozes technical and market solutions as "real" solutions.
For all the living species, human civilisation and for all existing institutions, demand of artificial persons, the business enterprises is exceeding the planet's bio-capacity to a dangerous level. Some estimates suggest that it has already exceeded by 20 per cent. A new, non-market, climate finance mechanism is needed to support the formalisation and expansion of mitigation and technology transfer as a genuine solution to combat the propensity of promoting free trade in carbon at the cost of climate system.
Will the Paris conference be able to save the climate and ensure intra-generational and inter-generational equity from the banks and markets whose failure threatens our planet? Isn’t the answer blowing in the wind?
— The writer is director, ToxicsWatch Alliance
