What does China and India's Offer Mean for Climate Change Negotiations?

There have been two important announcements before the start of the Copenhagen Summit, starting from 7th December. The two major developing countries – China and India – have announced unilateral targets for carbon intensity of the GDP. Though China's figure – 40-45% reduction of carbon intensity in the GDP by 2020 (taking 2005 as the base) is much the larger one compared to India's target of 20-25% for the same period, it must be factored against a much higher per capita figure for China in terms of carbon emissions. Currently, China emits about 6 tons per capita of Carbon dioxide as against 1.5 tons in India and 4.4 tons as the global average. Of course, if we take into account the current emissions of the rich countries, China can still claim to be very much below countries such as the US which has more than 3 times emissions that of China and about 15 times that of India. The historical emissions or the stock of CO2 emitted and still in the atmosphere of the rich countries are of course far higher.

While the commitment that China has made looks ambitious, they have a number of advantages over India. Their current carbon intensity of the GDP is based on a huge kick that they gave to their power generation sector – they today have about 750, 000 MW installed already and do not have to put in a whole lot more for their future needs. Unfortunately, India has been a laggard in this regard and has reached only about 150,000 MW. As a consequence, China is now in a position to build an economy that does not need a major expansion of their power sector, unlike India which has yet to reach levels supplying basic energy needs of the Indian people. If we take India's per capita energy consumption or emissions, India is in the bottom 40% -- it is one of the poorer countries by this count. So for India, to make similar commitments as China is not feasible and therefore the lower level committed.

However, the Minister in his Lok Sabha speech, seems to have mounted an open attack on per capita emission concept, which has been till now the basis of India's negotiating position. Worse, failure to implement family planning has been used to attack the per capita concept. If Jairam Ramesh wants to give up the per capita approach, this is a completely dishonest way of doing so. If indeed population increase is the problem with a per capita approach, he could very well have stated that we will consider 1990 as the basis of per capita emission, if the rich countries also agree to make 1990 as the base for emissions. Otherwise, it appears to be another concession given to the US and abandoning India's fundamental positions. It is a repetition of already what has become a national embarrassment – the Minister and the negotiating team have different positions on the climate change negotiations.

There is little doubt that any path that reduces energy per unit of output of GDP or a low carbon path – carbon emission per unit of energy, has costs. Reducing energy intensity of the GDP means more efficient consumption of energy – better and more efficient equipment, be it in houses or in factories. Similarly, a low carbon path means using much more expensive routes to produce electricity – example solar or wind power. That is why India is also saying that Copenhagen must not only about commitments to reduce emissions for Annex 1 and reduce growth of emissions for the rest, but also about burden sharing. The developing countries have a double burden – one of adopting a less emission intensive path to development, as well as bearing the burden of climate change. All studies suggest that Africa, India and other developing countries will be much harder hit by global warming than the rich countries.

The developing countries are in dire need of “carbon space”. Unfortunately the developed countries have already taken an overwhelming share of this existing space, roughly 75% , even though their share of the world population is only about 20%. Developing countries cannot undertake the task of development without creating emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. As we know now, we cannot put an unlimited amount of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as they cannot be taken out; there is a limit to the amount of emissions that all nations together can put in the atmosphere.

The key issue in the negotiations is how the remaining space is going to be divided. The rich countries are divided on this issue. Initially, the European Union (EU) was talking about making deep cuts – even up to 40% -- by 2020, provided others were willing to make similar commitments. This meant not only other Annex 1 countries (the rich and industrialised countries identified in Kyoto as the major emitters) but also the emerging economies, particularly China and India. The US however, has been unwilling to make deep cuts, an inclination shared by Australia, Japan and Canada. Incidentally, the US and Australia did not ratify Kyoto and Canada and Japan have increased their emissions instead of cutting them by 5% over 1990 levels as committed in the Kyoto protocols. Last two months saw the EU also fall in line with the US and other “renegades” of Kyoto – namely Australia, Canada and Japan – and scale down their offers for Copenhagen. The US is advocating that each country does its own thing, and makes only domestic commitments. The problem with that is that all the national commitments put together do not amount to more than 11-18% by 2020 and way below the 40% figure required by IPCC.

The Chinese and Indian offers must be seen in this context. These are to force the rich countries to make meaningful offers and not make only token cuts. This will certainly take the globe towards disastrous levels of global warming. It is also an attempt to forestall the narrative that the rich countries are trying to build that the only reason Copenhagen failed is because China and India are not making commitments.

One problem with India, as well as China's commitments to reduce carbon intensity of the GDP is making base year as 2005. This seems to be accepting 2005 as the base year, as the US has been demanding and not 1990 as was fixed in Kyoto. The second problem with India's figures is that it does not seem to be a part of any coherent framework of development in which energy and emission concerns are integrated. It is a more knee jerk reaction – if China, Brazil and Indonesia are making announcements, we have to make one too.

The third problem with the Indian offer is that pegging ourselves to the carbon intensity of GDP as the Chinese have done is not the best way forward for us. India could have taken a different path in making commitments based on per capita emission, given its very low levels in this today. That way, we could have leveraged our low level emissions and asked other countries to make commitments on their per capita emissions. Given India's population increase figures are tending to stabilise, this would have meant changing the paradigm of negotiations.

Right now, we are tailing behind others and not evolving any creative or imaginative approach to global negotiations. There is no problem with making announcements, but the problem is that we have yet to see any study in which the emission intensity of the GDP has been modelled nor have the costs for such paths been presented. This only makes clear to the people that India has taken a completely ad-hoc approach to climate change negotiations, hoping to piggy back on work done by others.

My limited engagement with people at the heart of the climate change negotiations convinces me that the approach to climate change negotiations for the Indian team till now has been that we will not undertake emission cuts and how much money can we make out of the negotiations. Each department was apparently interested in inflating its claims believing that there would be lots of money coming out of climate change negotiations and every department of the Government would have its cut. Even now, when Shyam Saran, our key negotiator says that we will get lots of money through carbon trading, he does not see the implication of this. Yes, some companies will make money, but the Indian people will get nothing. What they will give away is valuable carbon space and allow the rich countries to continue to grab a larger share of this space. Offsets through carbon trade will not reduce emissions – it will only perpetuate the myth that something is being done while in reality the carbon space dwindles even further.

The Minister in his replies to the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha debates has stated that while standing firm on India's not agreeing to emission cuts, we are looking for flexibility in order to move the negotiations forward. The question is whether we are being flexible towards the rich countries reneging on their pledges or being flexible to advance the climate cause further?.

All in all, the climate change negotiations are still poised on the knife edge. India and China's offer have put the rich countries on notice. Whether India will stand firm and be with the developing countries or in the name of flexibility, allow the US and other rich countries off the hook remains to be seen.