India's environment minister is being seen as a villain back home but praised abroad for helping make a near-deal possible at Cancun. Making committments legally binding was a change in India's stance for which he won wrath back home, but it could have brought some agreement between the US and China in suggesting that international monitoring be allowed (but not the penalty!).
Often the fact lies in the details. Another case in point is the Indian solar mission - very laudable and ambitious. But who will it benefit, is the hidden detail that some experts point to. Will it benefit the milions still denied basic needs of energy? Perhaps not.
Writing at the world economic forum, Harish Hande says: It attacks the very fabric of a sustainable model for reaching the poor with high-quality, need-based systems, deserved doorstep service and affordable financing. The very incentives needed have been ignored and trampled upon - by infusing unsustainable subsidies, under-designing prescribed products, and forcing low pricing and poor financing suggestions.
He goes on to say that the mission is an 'extremely well-intentioned programme that has been in the planning stages for a couple of years has become anti-poor, anti-innovation and anti-small enterprises. It is a document that has trashed democratic systems, insults the decision-making of the poor and disregards all the work done by rural energy enterprises over the last two decades'.
'The mission specifies the type of product, the price and a confused financing structure. By defining the product configurations, it is killing innovation and choice for the poor. The design of most of the prescribed 11 products are heavily under-designed - a consequence that will be borne by the poor'.
What do you think? Do write in.
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