India not to agree to emission caps post-Kyoto

      gra/New Delhi/Ludhiana: Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan must be turning in his grave. The man who built the world famous Taj Mahal as a testament of his love for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Bano), would not have imagined that nearly 350 years after he built it, the Taj is at the center of grave environmental concerns. The once pristine white marble surface of the onion-domed monument is slowly turning a distasteful yellow -- years of emissions from polluting units, automobile fumes and a large oil refinery barely 40 minutes away having taken their toll. Agra, a congested, industrial town 125 miles south of New Delhi where the Taj is based, is today probably one of India's most polluted cities. But despite claims of government departments and some belated, but genuine efforts at the survival of the Taj, there exists an exploding middle class which fuels an ever rising demand for products that constantly spew out pollutants. But it's not the Taj alone that has borne the pollution scourge. Growing pollution in India has had serious and adverse public health consequences.

     In New Delhi, it is estimated that a large number of people suffer from bronchital and asthmatic problems because of the high pollution intake. But while India has not been able to firm up its regulations to address local pollution and public health challenges, it now faces the additional responsibility of addressing global warming and climate change. Analysts say the country is likely to face pressure to join rich nations in their efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions post the Kyoto Protocol even though India remains unlikely to agree to any emission caps. Some pollution experts say that while gases that cause local pollution levels to soar and affect public health might not necessarily have a global warming effect, we could actually kill two birds with one stone -- by leapfrogging to renewable energy sources as soon as possible. Anumita Roychowdhury, a pollution expert from the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment, says: "Even as we are grappling with local pollution problems which have very serious public health consequences, so many people are dying just by breathing dirty air and it has affected our monuments like the Taj as well. This stands as a testimony to policy failure."

Montreal UN climate change summit

     The Kyoto climate change pact requires developed nations to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012. The United States and Australia refused to ratify the pact and developing nations, such as China and India are exempt from emissions caps all four countries say threaten economic growth. China's appetite for oil and coal is even greater than India's. Both are likely to come under pressure to do more to curb emissions growth when they join officials from 150 countries in Montreal for a U.N. climate change summit. The Montreal meeting from November 28 will help shape the Kyoto Protocol after its first phase ends in 2012, but disagreement is rife and hopes of progress slim. Environmentalists say today, protecting the ecology is not just an environmentalists dream but also an economic imperative. Chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, R. K. Pachauri says: "India has to pay attention to protecting its environment. We don't have a choice. And its entirely possible for us to take action for domestic reasons which have global benefits and that's what a country like India should focus on. Clearly, at this point of time to do things that are expensive and which will impede our economic growth just to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases would be something the Indian public would not accept." And more often than not, they don't. Over the years, protests, some of them violent, have marked government efforts to reign in offending polluting units. From New Delhi to small but important industrial cities like Ludhiana, traders have stopped traffic, gone on hunger strikes and even destroyed public property against efforts to shift polluting industries out of residential areas. "We follow each and every directive issued by the state pollution control board and even then they have issued a notice to us. We don't have any means to move out. We are really in trouble as we have nowhere to go," Devi Prasad, owner of a small-scale unit in Ludhiana, said.

      In an effort to clean its air, the government has introduced stringent emission standards for vehicles and introduced greener fuels such as compressed natural gas in some cities. On a larger initiative, India became one of six countries -- along with the United States, China, Australia, India and South Korea -- to form the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate in July this year. While India's cities might be hugely polluted because of the furious pace of industrialization, the country's per capita emissions were still relatively low at 0.25 tonnes of carbon in 2001, which is less than a quarter of the world average and many times less than the United States. At the same time, India's contribution to world carbon emissions is expected to grow at an average three percent a year until 2025, compared with 1.5 percent in the United States, because of ambitious expansion plans in the energy sector. According to industry estimates, India's oil consumption is expected to grow to 2.8 million barrels per day by 2010 from 2.65 million barrels per day in 2004. Analysts agree any commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have a bearing on energy consumption and therefore countries like India and China only have options of making their energy- centric industries and vehicles as energy efficient as possible but more importantly start utilizing renewable energy sources as soon as possible.