Two Warm

Both India and China will suffer significantly from the consequences of global warming. But will both have an incentive to contribute to the global effort in checking it?

As the climate change debate gets louder, India and China are firmly on centre-stage. In fact, they have almost come to be regarded in hyphenated terms. This fierce scrutiny is more than apparent in the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2007, released on Tuesday.

China has long figured on the radar. A decade ago, environmentalists like Lester R. Brown, had flagged changing consumption patterns in China as potentially a major environmental threat. The arguments have since got far more persuasive and proven. But what’s new in the debate is the presence of India in the big league of polluters — which includes Japan, Russia and the US.

There are striking similarities between the two Asian giants that lend themselves to hyphenation. While China is the world’s fastest growing economy, accounting for one-fifth of the world’s population, India is also now firmly on the growth trajectory, with its 1.1 billion people. Although in per capita terms, emissions by both countries are much lower than the others in the big league, by 2015 per capita emissions from China and India are projected at 5.2 and 1.1 tonnes (America’s stand at 19.3 tonnes), there can be no denying the rising levels. Between 1990 and 2004, India’s emissions increased by 97 per cent, one of the highest in the world.

The other common feature both countries share — along with the US, incidentally — is a dependence on coal for power generation. Coal happens to be the world’s cheapest, most widely dispersed and most carbon-dioxide intensive fossil fuel: for each unit of energy generated, coal generates about 40 per cent more carbon-dioxide than oil, and almost 100 per cent more than natural gas. In 2006, China was building an estimated two new coal-fired power stations every week, while India over the next 10 years is planning to increase its coal-fired electricity generation capacity by over 75 per cent. Power generation, of course, is seen as the main source of carbon-dioxide emissions, and accounts for four of every 10 tonnes of carbon-dioxide despatched into the atmosphere.

There is the hope expressed in HDR 2007, that since both India and China will suffer significantly from the consequences of global warming, both will have an incentive to contribute to the global effort in checking it.

Here, too, the parallels drawn in the Report are striking. While at current rates, two-thirds of China’s glacier, including Tien Shan, will disappear by 2060, and be totally melted by 2100, the Gangotri in the Indian Himalaya is shrinking by 23 metres a year. Such glacier melt has both short-term and long-term consequences. Immediately, they could cause the bursting of glacial lakes, avalanches and floods. In the long term, there will be severe water shortage. Northern China is already one of the world’s most water-stressed regions. In parts of the Huai, Hai and Huang basins, water is being extracted at a faster pace than it is being renewed and this area supports 128 million, accounts for about 40 per cent of the country’s agricultural land area, and generates one-third of China’s GDP. Desertification, too, is a distinct possibility. Events such as the 13 major dust storms recorded in 2005 will become more common. In India, because of the melting of the glaciers, the Ganga — which supports 500 million lives and accounts for one-third of India’s land area — will experience a two-thirds decline in its July-September flow.

So what are the measures that both countries are taking to address global warming? Nothing very significant, it would appear, going by HDR 2007. While the switch to CNG that Delhi effected in its public transport system is referred to as an important step in ‘low-cost mitigation’, China has in its 11th Five Year Plan set goals like reducing ‘energy intensity’ by 20 per cent by 2010 and retiring inefficient power stations.

Yet, there are significant differences between India and China. China is 81 in the HDR ranking, India comes way below at 128. While the Chinese have a life expectancy of 72 years, an adult literacy level of 90.9 per cent, and per capita GDP of $6,757, for India the figures are much lower: 63.7, 61 per cent, and $3,452. What’s also plain is the difference in the emission level of the two countries: China’s is expected to be five times that of India’s by 2015. The average Indian uses 439 kg of oil-equivalent energy, less than one-half of the average for China. While half of India’s population still doesn’t have access to electricity, China has been able to achieve a far wider power distribution for its people.

Given the fact that both countries are at different points on the development/ emissions curve, the facile hyphenation between them may not be quite appropriate. This, however, cannot be an argument for India not taking the issue of climate change seriously, or for not changing policy and taking demonstrable and urgent steps to reduce its own carbon footprint. It should do this in its own best interests.