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.

... contd.