I know what you did last summer

Last year at this time, I was attempting to finish 5 odd readings of Marx in a day for the final exams of my undergraduate degree.

My roommate asked me , “Leela , aren’t negotiations on? how are you not going to watch them ?”
“coz, I have to study”

Post dinner , the question was posed again, this time by a friend from the youth constituency who happened to be online , “leela, I can’t believe you aren’t watching the fate of the Copenhagen Accord , are you sure you wanna miss the drama?”
Again, i said, “yes, coz, I have to study ”

And then I couldn’t resist it. Its like you’re involved in it. Not because you like listening to countries fight it out , but because you understand what it means for you.
You understand that one comma and one sentence can save the lives for many.
You understand that sometimes one person or one country yields so much power to decide your future,
and you understand that even if you can convince those in your hostel, you have made a difference.
But most importantly, I was doing this for the the tiny little Marx in me.

After the curiosity had killed the cat, I was taken over by an insatiable urge to live stream the climate talks.
The fate of the Copenhagen “agreement” was being decided , with all countries who were facing direct impacts of climate change profusely condemning the agreement on not only the lack of relevant ambition and political promise but on the very process by which the agreement was made. Strong statements by countries an inch above sea level like Tuvalu to angered representatives of smaller nations who were left out in the decision making process.

A group of my hostel mates joined me, fascinated with the way countries were taking the floor. It was like watching a movie. But when it ended ,and all of us were reflecting on what we saw, only strong interventions and speeches were cherished. Thats when I realised words backed by true passion ,move me , like they move everyone else.

In June 2010, another key landmark for Indian position on climate change was made. The principles on which our climate position was based changed. From the rigid per capita equity approach , to a different take on it by the name of “equitable carbon space” came into force.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests organised a workshop cum conference with association with TISS- Tata Insitute of Social Sciences ( a place where most of my classmates applied for masters in development studies) on Global Carbon Budgets and Equity in Climate Change whose report you can find here
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/tiss-conference-cc-2010.pdf which talked about how we can share the burden of limiting cumulative CO2 emissions over 2000-50 to 1,000 Gt CO2 which would attempt to keep warming lower than 2 degrees Celsius.

It builds on the idea of a carbon space, meaning the volume of carbon dioxide (CO2), measured in billions of metric tonnes, that humans could safely emit within a given time period, in this case over the half century 2000-2050. It fixes that budgeted space to be distributed among nations and regions between 2000 and 2050 at 393 billion metric tonnes (Gt) of carbon (p 44), that is, 1,440 Gt of CO2. The figure is based on a study published in the journal Nature, which sought to model probabilities of what quantum of emissions between 2000 and 2050 would limit warming through this century to an average 2o C above pre-industrial temperatures, a level that is accepted, though not universally, by many climate scientists and others as a dangerous level of warming.

Nothing is perfect.
There is a quick and detailed critique on this approach. First, its assumptions are too generous, and hence, undermine its own stated objective of seeking to prevent reaching dangerous levels of warming. Second, it defines equity in exclusively nation state terms, hence rendering that key issue limited and incomplete.
Three, its frame inherently does not capture the core issue behind global warming, which is the logic of industrial capitalism.

This summer, again we are together, and have been given a space to resolve largely contentious issues by giving a perspective of where we’re at. In the presentations for the workshops India has displayed the same equity based carbon space approach as if officially drafted last summer. With regard to workshop on actions taken by India to reduce emissions, Girish Pant presented a slideshow. He was asked a few questions about agricultural emissions and their accounting in India’s target. The best summary I found was on Jake Schmidt’s Blog

India has made a commitment to reduce its emissions per unit of GDP 20-25% below 2005 levels by 2020 (excluding agriculture emissions). In the presentation, they highlighted several measures that they are taking to meet this goal. For example, India recently adopted a tax on coal to create a fund for renewable energy. They have a National Mission to improve energy efficiency, including through adopting appliance efficiency standards and efforts to increase the use of fluorescent lighting (two-thirds of lighting in India is already fluorescent light bulbs, as they outlined). They are developing a program to scale solar electricity generation to 22,000 MW by 2022 – 600 MW of which has been contracted in 2010 and more will be contracted this year. They also have efforts to increase renewable energy generation to 72,000 MW by 2022 – currently 9% of installed electricity capacity is from renewable sources and this will take it up to 20%. And they have a program to increase forest cover by 20 million hectares at an additional cost of $1 million per year. There are other measures that they didn’t list which NRDC noted in a recent fact sheet.

This time at Bangkok ,we have come together to carry forward the Cancun Agreements. The same people, and the same fiery voices of Tuvalu, Venezuela , Egypt and the Switzerland negotiators haunting me again and again.

And the same debate on the agenda.

But after the noise is lost and everything drains out, there is nothing left but a fight.
A fight that you need to get involved in.
Coz this is more about you, than the people who are negotiating on your behalf!