A costly clean-up

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

The ongoing Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris in search of an agreement on climate change is different from a meeting for trade agreement. It is rather like inmates of a building planning a strategy when a fire is about to engulf their house. If unchecked, the continuing warming of the oceans will lead, among other things, to near effacement within this century of coastal cities like Mumbai, Kochi, Chennai and Vizag due to relentless rising of the sea level. It will take the cycle of drought and storm to such intensity that it can render next to impossible the task of sustaining agriculture in its existing form. Besides, the damage to environment caused by greenhouse gases due to human activity is increasing at a differential rate. If sea water rose by a few inches in the previous century, it will rise by several feet before the present one closes. Therefore, over the years, and with increasing acceleration, it will cause human migration across the country on an unprecedented scale, with all its agony and bitterness.

India has a special role as it is the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases though it emits only 5% while four big developed nations' share is more than 50%. India cannot reduce it any time soon as it remains halfway through the transition from an agrarian society to urban. More than half the people live in villages where energy-driven gadgets are limited. Over 300 million people live without electricity.

However, despite its limitations, the Indian government has, much before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's arrival in Paris, submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). The document is interesting in its forthrightness—it says coal will continue to dominate power generation in future—but, at the same time, it pledges giant strides towards regulating emission. India has promised to step up its solar capacity to around 100 GW (100,000 Mega Watt) and double its wind capacity to 60 GW by 2022. Side by side, it has promised to increase the nuclear capacity to 63 GW by 2030. Its professed goal is to generate 175 GW of renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro, bio-mass) by 2022. If India can honour its pledge, 40 per cent of its power generation will be sourced from renewables by 2030. Contrary to popular belief that the cost of solar energy is prohibitive, and its storage tricky, evolving technology is actually changing its parameters. From Rs 19 a unit of solar energy in India ten years ago, it has come down to less than five rupees today. And Tesla, a storage company in Silicon Valley, California, with which Modi had elaborate discussion during his recent visit to the US west coast, is revolutionising energy storage by extending battery life.

The Indian INDC promises to reduce the country's emission intensity (emission per unit of GDP) by 33-35 per cent in 2030 measured at 2005 level. The emission will still remain higher. But there is no doubt that the government has put brake on its growth. Besides, conscious about the need for more thermal power, India has proposed a 'carbon sink' which implies that as it releases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (as in coal-based thermal plants) it will grow proportionate forest area to cleanse the pollution.

The focus of the Paris talks is on defining targets, but there is not 

an iota of contrition in evidence in the nations whose centuries-long road to riches is marked untold savagery to the planet.

The focus of the Paris talks is on defining targets, but there is not an iota of contrition in evidence in the nations whose centuries-long road to riches is marked untold savagery to the planet. Polar ice caps are melting away, coral reefs are bleached, hundreds of marine species have disappeared because of rising ocean temperature, and so on. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar made an impassioned plea to the West in New York to "walk the talk" and make the Paris summit a success. The summit seeks a global assurance that the Earth's temperature will not rise more than 2 degree Celsius by 2100 from what it was when it was first recorded in 1880. But most climatologists fear that the planet's temperature at the turn of this century will go up at least 2.7 degrees C, which is way beyond the sustainable limit. It makes Javadekar's warning all the more poignant.

India's cost of implementing its IMDC commitments will be a staggering $2.5 trillion at 2014-15 prices; it is a little over the country's GDP today. In fact the government has begun putting money into the slot, its budget allocation for facing climate change situations for 2013-14 being Rs 76,000 crore ($13 billion). But the bill is too tall and it is a long way to go. There has been little clear thinking globally on how could the cost be met. After the last Kyoto Protocol (signed in 1997), carbon trading became fashionable. But it did not work as carbon footprint is difficult to compute. If you buy a hybrid car in India which is made in China, the car may be clean to drive in Mumbai but it is China that had to bear the burden of its carbon debris.

The finance part of the story was downplayed at Kyoto. But the top 20 or 25 rich nations are to pay $100 billion to save the planet and they have contributed just $178 million so far. French President Francois Hollande  who said that “if the developed nations do not finance, the climate summit may fail.” Modi has also been insisting on transfer of technology. He knows that talent, Technology and money can combine to work wonders. But innovation in climatology can’t bring instant profits. It requires states’ largesse. The question is; Who will foot the bill.

Modi wages war against NGOs thrived over foreign funds

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

FOREST Vs COAL

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's fulmination at the "five-star NGOs" before a recent meeting of judges and law bureaucrats could well be due to the overdose of bile at the very thought of Teesta Setalvad, India's 'NGO queen' who has been harrying him in and out of courts for well over a decade now. But the issue is not personal. It is ideological in its essence. Nor is there any doubt that the bleeding-heart donors at home and abroad who have kept the Indian civil society on the job have shown very little perception of the country's dire need to move out of its centuries old poverty trap. And that requires millions of surplus agricultural workers to be relocated to new urban spaces, with jobs that pay, to build new roads, expand the railway network, and to dig up wherever energy resources may lie. It is obvious that the need of the nation surpasses that of the communities temporarily distressed by new constructions, but the NGO frame of mind is to pre-empt the short-term pain; if it eliminates the long-term gain as a result, so be it.

Having been elected as prime minister exactly a year ago, Modi was quick to assess the essentially political nature of the civil society's resistance to his developmental work. Since there is a provision in the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), the nodal law enacted during Indira Gandhi's Emergency, that the Intelligence Bureau should do spot verification of NGOs' accounts, sourcing of funds, and their end-use—a provision that was not followed during the UPA years—Modi put it to use in right earnest. The result was most embarrassing for the previous rulers as it transpired that of the 22,707 NGOs that were in business in 2011-12, as many as 10,343 did not care to file their annual return (mandatory under FCRA) for any year between 2009 and 2012. And yet, as the IB report highlighted, most of these recipients of foreign donation were indulging in protest acts over their traditional targets: nuclear power projects, mining, large dams and even construction work. The report ominously mentioned a "negative impact" of 2-3 per cent on GDP growth as a result, and darkly hinted at possible involvement of foreign powers competing to achieve their own goals in India. 

However, Modi didn't need to tweak FCRA rules framed by the Congress governments. The only difference being that it winked at their violation. As expected, the Home Ministry began a crackdown on a scale that had happened only in 1976, the year that the law was given effect, in the midst of a perceived opposition by foreign powers to the Indira Gandhi government. However, the historical contexts between then and now are different. Forty years ago, neither did India abound with 'troublesome' non-profits organizations (with the exception of George Fernandez and his railway workers' union, perhaps) nor did donations from abroad flow like a river into Third World countries. But now the magnitude of donation is rising fast. It was Rs 11,544 crore in just one year, 2011-12.

Even more worrisome is the fact that many NGOs have been sharply politicised. The FCRA rules are liberal; they have provision for organisations having political objectives. They may even resort to political actions like 'rasta roko' and 'chakka jam', but the intentions and activities must be clearly stated before licence under FCRA is issued. But most NGOs' compliance level has been low. It also seems they are being prodded by their donors to take to the streets against projects of national importance, for example the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. The project had begun in 2002, but its first unit went on stream in 2013. The delay is largely due to the activities of a few NGOs who had inflamed passion of the local fishermen, making them believe a nuclear power plant in the area could result in abrupt depletion of the fishing stock. However, the motive of the NGOs themselves remains a mystery, with a speculation that the US could be the culprit as it was unhappy about Russia, supplier of the plant, gaining entry into the potentially large Indian energy market. Even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, known for his avoidance of public venting of opinion, particularly on contentious issues, described the Kudankulam agitation as the handiwork of "foreign funded NGOs".

The new NGO battlefield is Mahan, a coal block on the edge of a forest in Madhya Pradesh. The coal mine was to be jointly developed by Hindalco and Essar, but UPA's former environment minister Jairam Ramesh put a spanner in the works, saying the forest could not be destroyed. When Ramesh was overruled by the then Group of Ministers chairman Pranab Mukherjee, Greenpeace, the largest NGO in the world, headquartered in Amsterdam, fielded its volunteers in a guerrilla-style operation. This face-off is continuing even after NDA coming to power. As Greenpeace India executive Priya Pillai was ready to board an aircraft on her way to London, where she was scheduled to make a presentation on Mahan to a group of British MPs, she was pulled back under executive order. Since then Greenpeace’s accounts have been frozen, along with those of 34 other NGOs. The licences of over ten thousand others have been kept in abeyance and those of 165 are under scrutiny. Under scanner is the licence of Ford Foundation, which has funded many cutting-edge research projects, in India and around the world.  

Modi is perfectly justified in telling the NGOs (and their donors) that they must act within the law. But it is also a clash between two world views. The one that nationalist governments like that of Modi cherish obviously has very little space for environment. But Greenpeace was founded “to ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity”. Ford Foundation was founded in the 1940’s by the original owners of the Ford Motors with the objective to make the world free from wars. If the Earth cannot nurture life, or aggressive nationalism fuels a war, can economic growth sustain?  Thus it is necessary to have a voice of dissent, but the civil society too must not take running NGO as a profession. Besides, they must give up a forest or two to get in exchange electricity that can light homes and hospitals and schools.

(The author is National Editor, Lokmat group)