A Stern warning

STATISTICS ARE often clear as mud, though they cover the ground. So India can quite rightly claim that its per capita energy usage of 3,859 kWh (kilowatt hour) is a mere fraction of the UK’s 48,648 kWh and the US’ whopping 99622.55 kWh. Citing this along with the argument that the developed world is responsible for the current state of the environment, India tends to shirk responsibility for cutting its emissions, effectively telling the richer countries that they are all in it together. However, taken together, we one billion-plus Indians are soon going to be the world’s third largest polluters – after the US and China – because as the economy grows, both industry and households will consume ever more energy.

The implications this has for the environment are dire. Global climate change is a fight that all countries, rich and poor, have to take up, and now. As the Nicholas Stern report, released in London on Monday, warns, the rising pollution levels will thwart global growth by 20 per cent by 2050, and the brunt will be felt by the poor countries. The cost of correction – since we have passed the stage of prevention – is a mere 1 per cent of global GDP. The tradeoff is simple – prevent a 20 per cent loss of potential growth through a one per cent expenditure. However, questions like who will spend the money, and where it will come from, are highly political and divisive.

The Stern report suggests three corrective measures: carbon pricing (through tax, trading and/or regulation) so that users pay the real as against the economic cost of energy; enhanced R&D to develop cleaner fuels and reduce carbon levels; greater education. Reasonably enough, it puts greater onus for reduction in energy consumption and emissions on developed countries – between 60 and 80 per cent. But that by no means absolves the developing world from responsibility. If anything, countries like India and China will have to expend greater effort to create a consensus regarding the need to tackle climate change, as it is often assumed, incorrectly, that growth and ecological responsibility cannot go together. At the end of the day, it will depend on political will and leadership, which itself will depend on how much we, as individuals, are willing to sacrifice.