Emissionary position

Sensible politicians now need to keep their heads above the rising tide of intrusive activism. And on that count India’s politicians, it seems, deserve nothing but praise. Last Friday, the prime minister-chaired Climate Council met for the first time. Sobriety pervaded the deliberations in Delhi. There were no fulminations against conspicuous or ostentatious carbon-emitting individual activities.

When yet another global climate change conference is held, under UN auspices, and when the George Bush-proposed meeting of the world’s 10 biggest polluting nations takes place, India will take to the negotiating table the same apparent sensibleness: Yes, global warming is a problem but, no, as a poor country with low per capita emissions we can’t be expected to agree to any emissions reduction protocol.

Consider another protocol India, in contrast, is keen on: free flow of nuclear technology. This week may see the Indo-US part of the protocol wrapped up. Multilateral negotiations will follow. Why is there so little hostility globally to the idea of India becoming an all but de jure nuclear power state? Because the world understands the aspirations of a fully functional democracy that is a trillion dollar economy and within striking distance of becoming a middle-income country. Yes, of course, the absolute number of the poor is still vast. But India is not recognised any longer as primarily a host to mass poverty. It’s India’s ability to tackle that poverty that impresses the world.

So India gets a nuclear break as an acknowledged economic power in the making. Yet it tells climate change negotiators that it is too poor to afford emission cuts. The two positions cannot be simultaneously and indefinitely maintained in global forums. There’s a dangerous irony here for Indian policymakers. India and its friends in Washington argued during the earlier phrase of nuclear talks that access to nuclear technology would help this country combat carbon emission problems that come from producing coal-fired electricity.

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