Indian rope trick

A sudden change of heart/mind? Or a political gimmick? Late wisdom? Or some more rhetoric? Or simply a blow hot blow cold exercise?

Take your pick but India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s now-leaked communication with Prime Minister Singh has spread like wildfire. Guarded as the global reaction is, the new stance is being welcomed as what could be the first tentative step towards a possible new climate pact.

From a strict no-no to emission reductions target to accepting one with no financial or technological support represents a wide chasm in the policy.

The minister has called for being “pragmatic and constructive, not argumentative and polemical ... India should listen more and speak less in negotiations."

India has been reiterating time and again that mitigation/adaptation aid money, plus facilitation of technology transfer, were prerequisites for participation in an international climate change agreement. But now, suddenly seems to have realized that mitigation is “in its own interests”.

And, now, it seems Ramesh has gone back on his statements and maintained there is no change in India's stand!

Even as India makes up its mind, new UNEP analysis that serves as an update to the last IPCC report on climate change from two years ago, after reviewing more than 400 studies done in the past two years, concludes that because of faster-than-predicted carbon emissions growth we are now committed to at least 1.4°C of warming by 2100 and as much as 4.3°C.

The report says that burgeoning economies in China, India, and other developing countries, coupled with a lack of emissions cutbacks in the industrialized world, have caused greenhouse gas emissions to grow more rapidly than the most extreme scenario presented by the IPCC.

Melting glaciers, dwindling water, increasing droughts and floods apart, research clearly indicates the rise of parasite borne diseases. Spasms of cholera have been correlated with rising sea surface temperature as also diarrhea! Malaria outbreaks can now be predicted with weather patterns. Do the viral outbreaks we have seen this year in India with so many mutants have any connection to climate change?

Houseflies at Himalayas base camp, and malaria in Kenya’s high altitudes suggest parasites and bugs are moving to new places thanks to the temperature rises there. That should make anyone sit up.

India could well make a difference at Copenhagen.