An India that can say yes: A climate-responsible development agenda for copenhagen and beyond
Climate change is one of the gravest crises facing humanity. It is already affecting millions of people, especially the poor in the developing Global South. Yet, the international community has failed to mobilise an adequate response to it, which demands a comprehensive, strong, legally binding agreement, with rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, massive adaptation efforts, development of low-carbon technologies, and radical lifestyle change. ‘
The industrialized countries of the North have refused to fulfil their obligation to reduce emissions and are reluctant to undertake legally binding post-2012 commitments. The South says it cannot reduce emission without compromising on economic growth and human development. It there a way out of the climate negotiations impasse which can prevent irreversible climate change and yet promote equitable development and poverty eradication?
This book shows that climate-responsible development is both possible and necessary. It analyses the climate negotiations process, North-South and rich-poor fault-lines, flaws in market-based approaches, and various burden-shearing proposals focused on development equity. It argues that the rich in the South should be brought into the mitigation net and ‘emerging economies’ like China and India must join the global climate mitigation effort even while maintaining the principle of North-South differentiation in responsibility.
The book subject India’s climate policy and negotiating stance to a critique, analyses the National Action Plan on Climate Change and its eight Missions, and proposes alternative equitable approaches. Instead of hiding behind the poor, and refusing anything other than a per capita emissions norm for burden-sharing, India can and should take far-reaching mitigation and adaptation measures while focusing on raising the living standard of its poor and defending North-South equity globally. It proposes a practical agenda of a action related to grassroots concerns and people’s mobilizations on livelihood issues which are adversely impacted by climate change.
Praful Bidwai is an independent columnist and environmental activist based in New Delhi. A former Senior Editor of The Times of India, he has co-authored South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament, which won an International Peace Bureau prize. Bidwai is a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam (http://www.tni.org/)
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