Beyond CopenHagen
"Whereas it used to rain for 3-4 months during the rainy seson, now it hardly rains for 10-15 days.
We have witnessed drought in 10 Years in the last 15 Years. The situations has become very severe
for the last 5 years and the agriculture has become quite burdensome. All the ponds and wells in the
village have dried. Many families in the village including mine are facing shortage of food-grains,
water and fodder. More than 60 per cent families from my village have migrated to nearby towns
in search of livelihood and are forced to live life in dehumanizing conditions."Statement by Baliram, a marginal farmer from Rampura Block of Jalaun District in Uttar Pradesh.
""Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not every man's greed." Mahatma Gandhi
It is hard to say whether Gandhi would have a lasting solution to global warming, but he certainly
apprehended the crisis that has brought us together here today. He was averse to the mechanistic,
technology-driven development path the world had chosen. He compared the mad rush towards
industrialization and consumptionled growth to a moth whirling around an open flame.
"When the moth approaches its doom it whirls round faster and faster till it is burnt up. It is possible that
India will not be able to escape this moth-like circling. It is my duty to try, till my last breath, to save India
and through it the world".We stand at the edge of the precipice. To me, Gandhi is a more relevant at
this very moment. It is the time to re-examine and re-evaluate Gandhi's perception of holistic development
in the centennial year of his seminal work, Hind Swaraj. In the course of discussions on climate change,
we have been inundated with numbers and technical terms. Negotiators haggle over percentages, "emission intensities", and "differentiated responsibility" and shake their heads over the volatility
of the carbon market. Countries compete with each other to cut advantageous deals.
In all this deal-making and number-crunching we cannot afford to lose sight of the big picture.THE GLOBAL ATTEMPTS
Dialogue on environment degradation and climate change has traveled through many milestones- from
Stockholm 1972 to Kyoto Protocol 1997 and related CoPs (Conference of Parties) Kyoto Protocol is
unique among all, as it envisages activity based commitment for Parties to protocol to save our earth.
The Protocol, under Article 3, mandates the countries (Annex-1) to cut their emission of Green
House Gasses (GHGs), by 5% below 1990 levels in the commitment period, 2008 to 2012. This is
expected to restrict the global temperature rise to 2°C by 2050. If CO emissions are halved by 2050 2
compared to 1990, global warming can be stabilized below two degrees but it is not sufficient. The global
society will have to keep the temperature below 1.5°C, otherwise bunch of small Icelands 'Palamu'
in pacific will be first country to be submergd in the Sea. At this stage we would like to discuss the
liability of the developed nations which are responsible for global warming. They are responsible for 80% of
CO emission, After 1950 2 America itself is responsible for 50.7 Billion Ton emission of carbon. For 45% of
emission of Carbon G8 countries are responsible. In England every person is responsible for emission of 9.5
tons of Carbon. Oxfam has assessed that a sum of Rs.300 Billion Pounds shall be needed to meet the
challenge of climate change and after 2030 this amount is likely to be about 25 to 105 Billion Pound every
year. It is thus the responsibility of the developed nations to provide the said amount to the developing and
economically poor nations. They are under an obligation to pay damages to the countries that are
experiencing ill-effects of the global warming.
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