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Hopenhagen
Tokenhagen
Brokenhagen
Nopenhagen
Sach
Kanwal Singh
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In their comments, both Baba Seechewal as well as Mrs Parwana
did try a political interpretation of the Copenhagen Accord and
its future prospects but what was more important was that their
presence made Punjabis a part of the global discourse on a
crucial subject. |
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 As world leaders
gathered in Copenhagen and media screamed Hopenhagen, it was soon
clear that things will merely end up as Tokenhagen if not
Brokenhagen. That eventually they almost ended up as Nopenhagen is a
measure of the way hugely industrialised nation states are not ready
to take the one unilateral leadership step and lead from the front.
From Punjab,
Baba Balbir Singh Seechwal, an environmentalist of much fame, was
also in Copenhagen, keeping up the strong voice of the Sikh Nation
for which a love of the nature and nurturing of the God's plant is
part of the religious code. Also, from Punjab, was Mrs Harjinder
Kaur Parwana, formerly a senior scientific officer of Punjab
Pollution Control Board and now an expert working with many NGOs in
the field of transport management.
Both these
personalities were recently together at a television debate with
Punjabi Tribune's Assistant Editor Daljit Ami bringing in the most
crucial argument as to how the entire exercise at
Copenhagen
had the agenda of development at the core and not that of human. "It
is time we put the human being, his life style at the core of the
environment debate. And by the way, the environment is not even the
sole jagir of the human beings; it includes and involves the world's
flora and fauna and even more," Ami said.
Coming as a
comment on the two weeks of wrangling and grandstanding at the
United Nations climate change conference that ended with a no-deal
“Copenhagen Accord”, the comment said more pithily what the
paper-thin cover-up did: That the summit was a near complete
failure.
In their
comments, both Baba Seechewal as well as Mrs Parwana did try a
political interpretation of the Copenhagen Accord and its future
prospects but what was more important was that their presence made
Punjabis a part of the global discourse on a crucial subject.
However, it is time that we locate the environment debate in the
context of the larger, and unresolved tensions between the North and
the South.
 The recently
concluded Copenhagen talks under the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came at the end of an intense
two-year negotiation process, dotted with additional high-level
meetings, and blessed by the presence of more than 130 heads of
state. Despite this, the final “Copenhagen Accord” only barely
papered over what was an almost complete collapse of negotiations.
The outcome calls into question whether the community of nations
can, in fact, craft an effective response to climate change.
But what the
panelists repeatedly stressed was the way New Delhi has shunned the
moral argument and is speaking the language of the rich, the
resourceful and the elite, forgetting that its own Arjun Sengupta
Committee has reported in 2007 that 836 million Indians spend no
more than Rs 20 a day and that the poverty line measured in calories
should be redefined as the starvation line. With what face is a
country with such shameful data deserting the block of some of the
world's poor countries and is preferring to join the elite?
Just read what
India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told Parliament: “I
didn’t go to Copenhagen with the mandate of saving the world or
humanity. My mandate was to defend India’s right to develop at a
faster rate. For Western countries, it is an environmental issue but
for us, it is a development issue.”
Clearly, this is
how India is changing. If Jairam Ramesh is saying that his agenda
was not saving mankind or climate but development, then he was
speaking for a minuscule minority in India, the minority that hogs
prime time television, front pages of newspapers and the glitzy
glamour world talking of nine per cent growth rates.
New Delhi has
decided that its interests are more aligned with those of the United
States and other major emitters of greenhouse gases. The unholy
alliance of four, which China cobbled together, known as BASIC —
Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- has left little hope for
the world's poor. The rich are out to rob them of the air, water and
everything that never came with a price tag earlier. Among the
weapons crafted to execute this robbery are terms like “major
emerging countries or economies”, a term which doesn’t figure
anywhere in UN negotiations that have been painstakingly proceeding
since
Bali two
years ago.
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Just
read what India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told
Parliament: “I didn’t go to Copenhagen with the mandate of saving
the world or humanity. My mandate was to defend India’s right to
develop at a faster rate. For Western countries, it is an
environmental issue but for us, it is a development issue.” Clearly,
Ramesh was speaking for a minuscule minority in India that hogs
prime time tv, front pages of newspapers and the glitzy glamour
world talking of nine per cent growth rates. |
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These four
countries are certainly going to be powers to reckon with in the
future, in part due to their large populations and natural
resources. However, does this mean that they are no longer
developing countries? Even China has a per capita income of only
$3,000 and as many as 150 million Chinese live below the poverty
line. The contradictions between the elites (till recently,
exclusively white) of South Africa and Brazil and their majorities
are too well-known to bear repetition; by some reckoning, Brazil has
the worst class differentials of any society.
Where does that
leave India? While there are ongoing debates about how many live
below the poverty line — ranging from 50 per cent to 27 per cent —
some common sense can help cut through the wrangling. Mumbai is
surely one of the richest cities in India: if 55 per cent of its 16
million population lives in slums, they are obviously below the
poverty line in not being able to afford decent housing, one of
three essentials (roti, kapda aur makaan). By the same token, isn’t
the rest of India far worse off than Mumbai’s citizens?
Ramesh and
others of his ilk ought to know that it is entirely in India’s
interests to align ourselves with G77 — the group of 130 developing
countries, with or without China. That is our common future, not the
interests of the 250 million Indians whom New York Times columnist
Tom Freidman dubs ‘Americons’, consumers on a US scale within this
country, which would include all of us. The right to grow doesn’t
only restrict itself to the GDP increase, in which India is
admittedly a star performer, but the distribution of that growth. On
that score, as the country with some of the world’s most abysmal
human development indices — it figures 134th out of 182 countries in
this year’s United Nations list, down from 126 in 2008 — it
certainly deserves to be reckoned as a very poor country. Indeed, in
terms of the absolute numbers of poor, it has the most in the world.
Jairam Ramesh
felt smug while saying that
India
doesn't want international aid. This is a clear shift from
New Delhi's
earlier stated position that as the Kyoto protocol underlines, all
countries have a “common but differentiated responsibility” to
tackle climate change. For the record, even in
Copenhagen,
India
won’t agree to any compulsory commitments without industrial
countries first providing funds and technology for this and other
developing nations, which are the victims of global warming.
India has hardly
been flexible, it has rather been elastic. Will it be impertinent to
remind the minister that 600 million Indians have to make do without
commercial energy altogether and half of these have no access to
electricity? What has prevented the government from providing these
most essential forms of energy — a clean stove to cook with, a light
to read with, all these 60 years?
Developing
countries construct the problem as one of equitable sharing of
development space. Industrialized countries frame it as a
techno-managerial problem to be solved with the aid of markets. The
festering of this tension has, over time, led to deep mistrust
between the “North” and the “South”.
 At Copenhagen,
the procedures came as the last resort weapons in the hands of the
weak. Otherwise it was quite possible that Danish hosts could have
foisted on developing countries a text at the last moment. If by the
time the heads of state arrived for the last few days, there was, in
essence, no consensus text available for them to sign, it showed
that the rest of the world was wary of what might be slipped in.
Now, when the
final hard decisions were reportedly made at a meeting between the
United States president and the leaders of the BASIC countries and
the text was presented to the Conference of Parties, countries like
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have shown that they intend
to fight hard and long.
“The probkem is
that our leaders who went to
Copenhagen
were looking towards the Mehlan wale (those who live in palaces).
They should look towards those who live in huts and slums,” Baba
Seechewal said, putting pithily what is wrong with a growing
India. But Mrs
Harjinder Kaur Parwana held out some hope: “You see, there were two
currents flowing at Copenhagen. The leaders inside the summit were
doing what they wanted to and pulling in all directions, but
outside, the social forums, the NGOs, the people’s representatives
were fighting it out. It is this battle outside that holds out
hope.”
Let’s warm up
for many such battles to keep our climate cool.
30
December 2009
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