Key highlights of the Summit and the way forward

25, September 2009
 

Key points of the two-day Observer Research Foundation-Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung joint conference on Sustainable Development & Climate Change

• India needs to maintain high economic growth rate to reduce poverty.

• Inclusive growth with higher level of human development will require higher electricity consumption. India recognizes that development requires an efficient energy sector.

• This will lead to higher energy (electricity and transportation) demand and CO2 emissions. Both can be reduced substantially by demand, and related GHG management.

• The industrialized countries must take the lead in mitigation, including making their lifestyles energy efficient.

• Global investment in R&D is essential. Alternative energy resources are maturing. There exist a number of global win-win options that reinforce development and address climate change.

• They include, improving efficiency of coal and gas power plants, and reforms in transportation systems and research in carbon sequestration and carbon capture these options are daunting challenges but are doable.

• India’s energy security is highly compromised as it will need to import more than 90% of crude oil and over 95% of nuclear fuel. Growth in hydro capacity is limited.

• The current growth paradigm places India at risk for energy and climate security – highlighting the need for a paradigm shift. Business – as – usual is not a sustainable option.

• Globally, India is the forth largest emitter. However, the very low per-capita emissions of an average Indian (about 1.02 metric tons of CO2 per year compared to the world average of 4.25 tons) is often used as a justification by Indian stakeholders to doubt both the necessity and the moral implications of talking about ‘low carbon lifestyles’. Thus, emerging global players like India can not afford to sit back and adopt a ‘doing nothing’ approach.

• High growth and infrastructure development is needed to eradicate poverty, which enhances the adaptive capability of the poor. Domestic policies of certain countries can impact communities in poorer countries and hurt options and capacities. The human dimension of adverse effects of climate is an under-researched area, requiring new measures, methodologies and data to understand the adverse effect on local communities and estimate incremental costs. Mechanisms like insurance are important for risk management.

• However the next agreement must not only be fair it must also appear to be so. There is a perception that the Kyoto Protocol appears more like a political instrument to reform the international power structure than an agreement to control climate change.

• Any government which wins the first hand on the gaming of climate change would obtain the upper hand in the reform of international political relations and global structure as well.

• We must avoid repeating the mistakes made in the Kyoto Protocol and design a more durable post-2012 international agreement. An emission reduction effort mainly on a nation’s own does not work well. A successor international agreement should take into account about some kind of enforcement mechanism to achieve the emission reduction goal of a nation, as well as a system of verification.

• An effective mechanism on sharing of technology, investment and information on environmental protection should also be set up. Most of the developing countries need advanced technology as well as latest updated information to get them out of a blind, low-level, and ineffective vicious circle.

• Nuclear power is a possible solution to global warming – it is an essential element of a low-carbon energy supply. Even though, it does bear high risks for humans and the environment, including risk of nuclear proliferation, and large accidents.

• There are strong signs of nuclear energy development over the next 40 years at least in Asia – China, India, Japan, and South Korea.

• The development of nuclear energy in the world, an essential of sustainable development, could be strongly accelerated if nuclear energy were accepted in the future post-Kyoto agreement as a clean technology eligible for credits under the Clean Development Mechanism.

• Nuclear power should be included in the Clean Development Mechanism

• International trade affects climate change, as it potentially increases economic activities that may in turn lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, taking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions might adversely affect competitiveness and hence reduce countries’ willingness to participate in such measures.

• Despite the fact that the international climate change regime does not provide for any specific measure that would directly affect international trade, there is still scope for tensions between the two regimes, for instance, because some climate-related trade measures instituted by countries may be incompatible with the rules of the WTO.

• These concerns have lead to proposals for unilateral trade measures flanking domestic climate policies in both the US and the EU.

• Forests and peat land habitats have to play a significant role in maintaining the Earth’s climate and can assist in mitigating and adapting to climate change. Preventing deforestation, promoting afforestation/reforestation and stopping peat land destruction are some of the cheapest and most effective ways of reducing global emissions.

• CDM’s impact on emissions reductions has been limited. The core problem with the CDM—the additionality problem—poses difficulties in disentangling investment decisions that lead to genuine emissions reductions from investments that are inherent in the normal developmental pathway of the developing world.

• Need for a new strategy that is fundamentally different from the CDM. This could be in the form of Climate Accession Deals or CADs to address the additionality problem.

• CAD framework – is a viable approach for engaging developing countries in global efforts to tame global warming, and one that aligns with their own core interests. Thus, in India’s context, its core interests are economic development and energy security.

• Sustainable development requires an extended responsibility, its globalization, in space and time. Biofuels can help as a means of mitigating climate change, but they tend to destroy biodiversity and livelihoods, for example, in Brazil and S.E Asia. Biofuels do not also contribute to meet “the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given.

Going Forward

• Within 3-4 months ORF and RLS will be bringing out a publication with the very impressive papers presented over the past two days.

• In the next 4 weeks ORF and RLS will publish a policy brief and issue brief on the nuances of sustainable development and climate change.

• ORF will be making a presentation to the committee of parliamentarians with recommendation on what India should bring to the table at Copenhagen as a leading responsible power.

• ORF and RLS will widely disseminate the outcomes of these deliberations through the media, follow-up roundtables and papers on the subject. With the reach of RLS and with the partnerships of both organizations policy makers in EU, USA, Brazil, China and other countries will receive these policy alternatives.

• We will also urge each speaker and participant to help us in these efforts and work in shaping the contours of a fair agreement at Copenhagen and beyond.

 

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