"As the largest emitter and one of the fastest growing emitters of the greenhouse gases that propel global warming, we can improve cooperation in clean energy, so that we do not leave a planet in peril." These words, written by US President Bill Clinton in his article, ‘Restraint, Respect, Dialogue: What I hope to Achieve in South Asia’ published in an Indian national daily on the day of his arrival to the sub-continent, are ironic. They come from the leader of the one country that contributes the most to the climate change problem, yet is prepared to do the least to solve it.

They are also ominous – they reflect the US President’s determination to get India on board international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases by hook or crook, and thus provide the US with cheap options to meet their greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol (see Background). The joint consultative group on clean energy and environment, to be formed today between India and the US, will not be as harmless as a simple collaboration on clean energy technologies. For every clean energy agreement that we sign, Indians could end up paying with their future rights to development. For instance, if a power plant costs 100 crores, the US will bear the incremental 2-10 crores that it takes to get a more efficient power plant with lower greenhouse gas emissions. In this way, they will ‘reduce’ India’s emissions, and show this as a reduction by the US under the Kyoto Protocol.

But in the process, Indians would have to buy 90-98 crores of American technology. So the US sells huge amounts of technology in the process, and fulfils its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol without so much as lifting a finger at home. What they are saying effectively is take a little bit of money from us, buy our more efficient technology, but we will take the credits for the greenhouse gas reduction. That suits them very well – not only does it get them off the hook in the climate change negotiations, but it also generates extra business for their companies, which will sell India the technology.

But then what happens to global warming? That remains a problem as the world remains locked into a fossil fuel energy system. Developing countries are the worst affected, whether it is from sea-level rise, monsoons, cyclones and droughts. And after they have sold all their cheap options for reducing emissions to industrialised countries and only have expensive options left – as much as 20 times higher -- they will then be asked to take on commitments to reduce greenhouse gases at high costs. Countries like the US will have ‘cherry-picked’ all the low costs of reducing emissions. As developing country emissions will have grown by then, industrialised countries will put increasing pressure on them to solve the climate change problem. The burden of climate change mitigation will land on poor countries, while the actual culprits would have gotten off cheaply.

But developing countries maintain that industrialised countries have contributed the most to the problem, and should take action to reduce GHG emissions first. Per capita GHG emissions of developing countries are still low. For instance, the GHG emissions of one American citizen in 1996 were equal to those of 19 Indians, 107 Bangladeshis, 134 Bhutanese, 269 Nepalis, 30 Pakistanis and 49 Sri Lankans – as mirrored by their GDP. Industrialised countries also have a historical responsibility for the climate change problem, having set out on the path to development before poor countries. Only a per capita entitlement to the atmosphere will give these countries their fair chance at development.

The entire Western world has refused to take on board developing country concerns about the equitable sharing of the atmosphere. Not just Northern governments, but even Western civil society refuses to discuss these principles. It is important that India and other countries within the G77 withstand political pressure to sell their reduction options cheap today, without recognition of per capita entitlements. The importance that countries like the US give to the issue of global warming is clear from Clinton’s article. It is part of their global geopolitics, because they recognise stopping global warming as a threat to their economy, unlike developing countries, which continue to see it merely as an environmental issue. Yet there is strong evidence now that global warming will cause more rain in the already flood-prone North Eastern regions of India, and more drought in the already drought-prone regions of central India.

• So long as we continue to depend on fossil fuels in a big way, dealing with global warming amounts to rich and poor countries equitably sharing the atmosphere, one of the two most important global commons (the other being the oceans). All countries will have an equal opportunity at development only if the sharing is done in a fair manner.

• Developing countries cannot forsake the right of their current and future generations to grow economically by accepting undue constraints on the use of energy. If developing countries have to accept certain constraints to save the world from global warming, then it is obvious that all nations and peoples on Earth and share those constraints equitably.

• Industrialised countries have been the largest producers of the GHGs that are the cause of climate change, but the adverse effects will occur mostly in poor countries. For instance, South Asia is totally dependent on a highly sensitive and poorly studied climatic phenomenon, the monsoon. These adverse changes could lead to socio-economic impacts and contribute to serious political destabilisation.

• In December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol set the first targets for industrialised countries to reduce their emissions. According to the protocol, industrialised countries have to reduce their emission by 5.2 per cent compared to 1990 levels, by 2008-2012.
• The Kyoto Protocol does not set any targets for developing countries. However, inequities are being built into the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol (a mechanism for project based emissions trading between industrialised and developing countries) through a well-thought out political strategy put into place by the US to get meaningful participation of developing countries. These interventions are premised on the promotion of market mechanisms without associated property rights or entitlements. This is clearly inequitous and mortgages the future interests of the South.

• G77 countries should reject CDM until equal per capita entitlements are accepted. This is critical because the CDM, in its current form, takes away all the cheaper options to reduce emissions. And as global warming will continue to be a problem because industrialised countries have not taken adequate domestic action, developing countries will be left only with high cost options -- as much as 20 times higher.