The Catch 22 conundrum into which this debate has collapsed is not surprising. It reflects the reality that while globalisation has converged national economies it has not dissolved competing nationalisms or parochial politics. The chances of an international consensus on “what must be done” and “who should do what” to arrest global warming are therefore slim.

The question arises: will this debate at the international level dilute domestic efforts to contain carbon emissions? Will the fact that growth (or rather the limitations on growth) is the peg on which India is hanging its objections at the international level sidetrack it from taking appropriate domestic measures to weaken the link between economic growth and atmospheric pollution? Is it conceivable that in the noise of multilateralism India will lose sight of the fact that growth and carbon mitigation are positively correlated; that while growth has no doubt contributed to pollution — emissions in China and India have in absolute terms grown 5 times faster than the US since 1990 and this trend is not decelerating — it is the condition precedent for building the financial resources, the technologies, the infrastructure and indeed the political will to redeem its consequences.

I raise these questions because I find that most debates on climate change in India get bogged down in denunciations of the West rather than in studied introspection of the implications of a scientific reality. The West is of course responsible for the current situation, but the consequence of global warming is global. We cannot escape from these consequences and so irrespective of whether there is an international agreement or not, we have to have a programme of domestic remediation.

... contd.