A Climate Change: Jairam Ramesh Stokes Debate
A Muddled Path
Yet, many fear Jairam Ramesh is tilting towards the US on many issues, most importantly climate change. He recently commissioned Arvind Subramanian, an economist with the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, to define the concept of ‘equity’ in climate change
negotiations. Ministry officials justified the decision saying that Subramanian is one of the best minds to define the principle of equity. Not many agree with that view though.
“I have worked in this field for several years, in both the US and India. I have never heard of any work of Subramanian of any consequence on climate change,” says a member of the Planning Commission’s expert group on low-carbon economy. A Times of India report quoted an unnamed Indian negotiator as saying that Subramanian is known to have a different view on ‘equity’ that will take away the country’s central negotiating plank.
Jairam Ramesh’s credibility suffered in the public eye when he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister advocating a conciliatory line at the Copenhagen talks.
T. Jayaraman of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, a trenchant critic of Ramesh’s new position, has now mellowed his criticism. He draws relief not from what Ramesh did at Copenhagen but from the complex nature of international climate change politics and the broad debate in India. “Jairam was controlled by a set of guidelines set in Parliament,” he says. “In his apparent eagerness to chart out a new pathway, he was brought down to earth by the sheer obduracy of the developed world.”
Before setting off for Copenhagen, Ramesh made an open commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20-25 percent from 2005 levels in a decade. However, the entire projection was based on a three-page Planning Commission note that admits that it had used a simplistic method of calculation and not complex modelling. “How can you commit the country to an international commitment on the basis of such a note?” asks one member of the expert group on low-carbon economy.
The expert group is expected to chart out India’s strategy towards a low carbon economy and its recommendations, due by September 2010, would feed into the 12th Plan. At the second meeting of the group on February 23, all the industry heavyweights — Pawan Goenka, J.J. Irani, Amit Mitra — were present only by proxy. “Perhaps they know something that I don’t. Perhaps they know this group is useless,” the member said.
Some believe that the government decides first and debates later. While the discussion paper on NEPA was put up for public comments in September, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama signed a Green Partnership agreement in November that envisaged USEPA’s technical help for NEPA.
Kalpavriksh’s Kohli asks if the government had already decided on the USEPA to be its model and advisor, why should it seek the public’s comments? India has several agreements with the USEPA, including an MoU on co-operation in environment protection. On its Web site, the USEPA’s office of international affairs states: “Our mission is to protect human health and the environment while advancing US national interests through international environmental collaboration.”
The ministry has also set up a Global Advisory Network Group on Environmental Sciences of non-resident Indian scientists. Of the dozen members in the network, 10 are from US institutions and one is from Canada. Such skewed representation is bound to draw flak in a country which still retains the legacy of the non-alignment movement and where large sections of the public have a deep suspicion of the US.
Charles George, who heads the Leftist Matsya Thozhilali Aikyavedi, a fisherfolk grouping in Kerala, says that Ramesh’s public consultations are a garb, though even he admits that some of the steps the minister has taken are progressive. For instance, George supports the minister on Bt brinjal. He also acknowledges that if the ministry restores the primacy of coastal zone regulation of 1991, it will greatly benefit the fisherfolk. A ministry official told Forbes India that it was indeed reverting to the 1991 notification.
However, George points to the proposed Marine fisheries Regulation and Management Bill as a retrograde one. “The ministry is planning to allow foreign vessels in Indian waters beyond 12 nautical miles. That will result in the depletion of one of the last remaining fertile fishing fields in the world.”
Jairam Ramesh has certainly raised heckles across the sector in the country. However, it is not clear on whose side he is on. At a public meeting recently in Chennai, he was questioned about the hundreds of project clearances given by his ministry. “I have to take a middle path. I cannot be with the growth fundamentalists or the eco fundamentalists,” he replied.
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