This blog will be added to over the next few weeks as it sets out what I believe is a coherent world view. Sadly I have to work and also to party but I felt that with climate change talks 'hotting' up I should at least make a start and post the already coherent bits of what I am thinking.
Independence Day
I am all for globalization and I am all for private enterprise – I run a private company that sells all over the world. But it is necessary that we in India interpret ‘globalisation’ in the spirit in which the rest of its practitioners interpret the word, and not some fooling university definition that is becoming the vogue amongst our chattering classes. That spirit is mercantilist and so India must become mercantilist.
India must also plan to use its own capital for growth, to structure a sustainable economy and to adjust to climate change. We ought not to count on manna from heaven – remember Hinduism permits atheism.
In private business when times are hard we try and change the way we work to squeeze more out of the same men and machines. India has more opportunity than most countries to do the same because 1) we are a developing economy but are hugely diversified and 2) we do a lot of really dumb things that could easily be changed for the better.
A Chiamese world, not Amchi world
We must stop our politician’s from attempting to be honest in various international fora; there is no need for them to practice abroad what they merely preach at home.
Stop laying out good reasons for why India will not do this or that on WTO or climate change. By doing so we take the fall and give a free pass to the two countries that have no intention of signing anything binding.
From the WSJ of Aug 5:
“In the upper reaches of India's ruling Congress party there already is a feeling that in the last big global summit in search of an agreement -- the Doha talks on a new world trade agreement -- India got too far out in front of where the government wanted to be when it became the leading anti-deal voice, allowing China and Brazil to hide in its shadow as the prospects of a deal sank.”
This being the WSJ, the US was not mentioned as a hider…
Play footsie but keep your trews on
Remember, whatever you say pre deal is expunged by the deal. All US contracts explicitly repudiate all prior discussions and insist that the written terms of the contract are all that one can rely on, and are final no matter the context in which they were signed.
Buy some time by sending only Hindi speaking politicians and take time to interpret (or be like the Chinese and Japanese and pretend you do not speak English). Say nothing as far as possible, merely keep asking for clarification.
Otherwise this is what the world will say:
From a 17 July 2009 NY Times editorial:
“[India] needs to do more to revive the world trade talks it helped torpedo last year and — as a major contributor to global warming — to join the developed countries in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”
They do not bother to point out that the US eats 20MT of carbon for each of its mostly obese citizens, while India uses 1.3MT per person and the Chinese 3MT. The totals are even more damning – US 6Bn MT, China about 6Bn MT and India <2Bn MT.
Oh, yes, India must be grateful because:
“The Bush administration and Congress rewrote American and international rules to allow India — a longtime nuclear scofflaw — to buy fuel and technology for its civilian nuclear program.”
(To be fair to the yanks I looked up scofflaw in the Merriam Webster dictionary where it is defined as 'a contemptuous law violator'). As always, what is written in the US papers violates ‘fairness’ and imposes their law on those not of their country. One cannot, except to an American, be a scofflaw of a law one has not signed. One may have contempt for such an extension of US domestic law but that is how the world works - for now.
With delicious wit the Russians are in the lead to provide us with reactors.
2C maximum rise in temperature my ass.
From the FT's Gideon Rachman on 28 July 2009:
“But, on a per capita basis, emissions in China are still well below western levels. Why, ask the Indians and Chinese, should Americans and Europeans assume the right to continue using energy at levels that they seek to deny to poorer countries? It is a fair question.”
Our politician’s and pundits take heart from such statements. Do not. I challenge you to find the above sentiment in the editorial pages of a leading US newspaper. The prior clip from the NYT is the best that you will see. Let not the Europeans lull us into a false sense of humanity. They could not stop the invasion of Iraq, let alone something so much more essential to the ‘wellbeing’ of the US as not cutting carbon.
We cannot puff that global warming is the fault of the West who must pay for us to adjust. That kind of thing may wash with conscience ridden Europeans but you can forget about any kind of deal from the US. That country cannot bring itself to pass a health care law that will take care of its own poor and downtrodden. I would not bet on its citizenry agreeing to pay money to us who are located halfway around the world, and are famous for pinching their high end jobs.
And polluter number 2 (or is it number 1 now?) has made its stand clear.
From the FT of Saturday, 15 August 2009
“Mr Su restated Beijing’s view that as China still needs to grow its economy to help its people escape poverty, it is too early to discuss emissions caps.” Su Wei is director-general of the climate change department at China’s planning body. “The UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research recently said China’s energy-related CO2 output would peak in 2030 at 57 per cent above current levels.” My back of the envelope suggest that is 6.3MT per capita, rather higher than the implicit 3MT per capita that India has signed on to by its foolish acceptance of a 2C rise in global temperature.
“The Chinese Academy of Sciences has said that with major technological support from developed nations, China could see its emissions peak between 2030 and 2040. Other Chinese experts say carbon output will keep rising until 2050 unless radical controls are adopted.”
Let me remind you of the prevailing US view, succinctly put by GHW Bush (though often attributed to Dick Cheney) and not repudiated by O!bama: “The American Way of Life in non negotiable”. That’s 20MT of carbon per year per Yankee; if we all burned that forever we will end up 10C higher pretty quickly.
Remember that the yanks are believers in rapture and rupture, in God and hell and going to heaven (the Rapture), technology (disruptive), frankenfoods and the improbable (abstinence as sex education). I would not put it past large numbers of Californians to expect to become the Borg and so deal with a changed climate.
Add to all of the above the intransigence of the Australians, the inability of the Brits to control new coal investment, myriad other country specific problems, and do not forget all the gas generated by talking shops and the likelihood is that GHG’s will not be reduced much, if at all.
Plan for this, because we are the ones who will suffer, and we will suffer whether we increase our GHG’s or not, whether we burn coal or not, whether we grow or not. Because we produce very little of the world’s GHG’s, nothing that we do to mitigate our use of carbon will have any effect on the change in temperature which will devastate our country.
Paradoxically everything that we need to do to mitigate the effects of rising temperature will allow us to easily meet the 3MT per person goal that the world needs; and it will allow us to give our people a first world standard of life and reduce pollution. Maybe our in a few generations our kids will again be able to swim in the Ganges.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment