'We must go from words to deeds': The world must unite and sign global climate deal says UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon

My article 'We must go from words to deeds': The world must unite and sign global climate deal says UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has been published in Mail Today.

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UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon will request world leaders to sign Paris Agreement on climate change.

April 22 is World Earth Day. On the occasion, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon will request world leaders sign the Paris Agreement on climate change at the UN Headquarters in New York.
After the historic agreement adopted by 195 countries at COP21 Conference in Paris in December, the next step is the signature of the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal.
During a recent press briefing, Ban noted: “It will enable us to increase ambition on a regular basis, which is essential if we are to keep global temperature rise to well below two degree celsius.”
The UN boss emphasised: “It has just begun. In 2016, we must go from words to deeds.”
The Signature Ceremony will be the opportunity for each government to start implementing the Paris Agreement and hopefully save the Planet.
But don’t clap too early. At the behest of the United States, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) may derail India’s ambitious solar power programme.
Responding to a US complaint, a WTO dispute panel recently ruled that several provisions of India’s National Solar Mission were ‘inconsistent’ with international trade norms.

Climate
In 2011, the Congress government plans 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 under this scheme; it was a way to actively participate in the world effort to slowdown climate change; the scheme envisaged that a large percentage of the cells and panels would be manufactured in India by local companies.
Unfortunately, such provisions, known as ‘domestic content requirements’ (DCR), are prohibited by the WTO under international trade agreements.
A Delhi-based daily observed: “India’s solar manufacturing industry is likely to be in the pits and thousands of job opportunities lost, thanks to a recent WTO ruling..."The worrying bit is also that these module-manufacturing units are low-investment industries that have the potential to employ a very large number of semi-skilled labour.”
With 300 million Indians without access to electricity, the Solar Mission was a win-win project with a dual objective: combat poverty via job creation and add to India’s solar capacity.
But the US manufacturers do not see it from this angle. For them, the scheme led to a 90 per cent decrease in its solar exports to India since the inception of the mission.
Though resolutely opposed by several US environmental groups, the US manufacturers filed a WTO complaint.
In August 2015, a WTO panel released a preliminary ruling against the Indian DCR’s requirements, and early 2016, the ‘final’ ruling was announced.

Co-operation
The BBC asked the right question: “Whatever happened to all the talk of international co-operation to tackle climate change that we heard during the climate conference in Paris just a few months ago?”
Arriving at the end of its term, the Obama administration has probably forgotten ‘Shared Effort; Progress for All’, the US-India joint statement, signed during Barack Obama’s visit to India in January 2015: “President Obama and Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi share a deep concern regarding the climate challenge and understand that meeting it will require concerted action by their countries and the international community.”
At the end, business is business, and for the US corporate world, the change of climate can go with the wind, money is its first and last concern.

Self-esteem
Ben Beachy, Senior Policy Advisor, Responsible Trade Program, Sierra Club, said in an Huffington Post report: “Bringing this case is a perverse move for the United States. Nearly half of the US has renewable energy programmes that, like India’s solar programme, include ‘buy-local’ rules that create local, green jobs and bring new solar entrepreneurs to the economy.
"The US government should drop this case to avoid undermining jobs and climate protections not just in India, but also at home.”
It is doubtful if Obama is ready to take on corporate America during an election year.
In the meantime, the Government of India has announced that it will appeal against the WTO verdict.

Bhutan's Gross National Happiness depends on 'finding ways to grow economically in a carbon neutral way'

My article Bhutan's Gross National Happiness depends on 'finding ways to grow economically in a carbon neutral way appeared in today's edition of Mail Today

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As the New Year approaches, happiness is on everyone’s mind.
Though its definition differs, a tiny (in size) nation has made the concept of ‘global happiness’ known worldwide: it is Bhutan.
The idea of a Gross National Happiness (GNH) was coined in 1972 by Bhutan's fourth King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck.
Bhutan’s culture is based on deeper values, instead of a material development it aims at a constant increase in the gross domestic product
Bhutan’s culture is based on deeper values, instead of a material development it aims at a constant increase in the gross domestic product
It was a stroke of genius, from a monarch who saw the Future.
Since then, the Land of Dragon continued to pledge to have an economy preserving Bhutan’s culture based on deeper values, instead of a material development aiming at a constant increase in the gross domestic product.
Bhutan might not be a world decider like the US, China or India, but the Himalayan nation was often cited during the recently-held COP21 ‘climate’ negotiations in Paris.

Walk the talk
In an oped in Kuensel, Bhutan’s national newspaper, Annette Dixon, Vice President of the World Bank for South Asia wrote: “Bhutan declared in 2009 that it would remain carbon neutral and has made the most ambitious pledges on cutting emissions at COP21.”
The WB official however adds: “But staying neutral as emissions from industry and transport rapidly rise will not be easy. It will require aggressively finding ways to grow economically in a carbon neutral or reduced way.”
Bhutan defined the four pillars of ‘Happiness’ as sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.
GNH is officially part of Bhutan's five-year planning process, which guides the economic development of the nation.
Easier planned than done!

Though very few took note of the ‘happiness idea’ when it was first expounded, four decades later, things have changed.
Today, as the world starts looking back at the mess it has created, many believe that “after all, this GNH was perhaps not so naïve.”
In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President commissioned a study of alternative gauges of economic welfare, while in 2010, the UK began measuring the ‘National Well-Being’.
The UN has already released its third World Happiness Report.
At the end of the Paris Conference, the European Union (EU) acknowledged Bhutan’s ‘extraordinary ambition’ in addressing climate change by signing a ‘declaration’, which recognizes “Bhutan’s unique situation as a land-locked and least developed country with a fragile mountainous environment.”
It recognises the special requirements necessary to cater for the nation’s sustainable development needs.
Today Bhutan is often cited as an example to follow.

The philosophy of Kingdom of the Dragon has indeed gone a long way since 1972. Yeshey Dorji, a renowned Bhutanese nature photographer recently wrote on his blog: “Bhutan is just too insignificant - considered from any point of view: we simply cannot make a difference, neither economically, technologically - in any way. But despite that…Bhutan does arouse some interest among world leaders and thinkers and policy makers.”
Yeshey is however not sure of the Future: “GNH is unlikely to work until we completely dismantle the present economic order - how and what we produce, how we consume, how we transport, how we market.”

Money matters
The world today being a Global Village, can a nation remain secluded and just play according to its own rules; in the case of Bhutan, without reference to its giant neighbours and their ‘development’ policies?
At the time of the Paris’ talks, The Wall Street Journal warned that while Bhutan “uses a unique barometer to measure economic progress, the message of the 2015 Gross National Happiness Index is a troubling one: Money isn’t buying enough contentment.”
With Bhutan becoming wealthier, will Happiness be consigned to the backstage for the sake of greater ‘wealth’?
The WSJ argued: “Never mind that Bhutan’s economy is growing at a healthy annual rate of nearly seven per cent. Officials here worry that modern life tends to throw things off-balance.”

Right models
The tourism industry is in part responsible for fuelling the mad race for ‘wealth’; though based on a ‘high value, low impact’ policy, ‘profit’ remains the main engine of growth.
Many in Bhutan are conscious that the nation is facing a hard choice; Kuensel suggests: “While Bhutan’s economy continues to grow and mature, different forms of economic system must be explored, studied and debated.”
While the capitalist economic system works on ‘profit’, it creates jobs and brings necessary tax revenues, does it automatically create happiness?
Observers feel that ‘finding the right kind of business model for Bhutan is worth exploring’, if the nation wants to keeps ‘happiness’ as its USP.

Another issue is the dams.
Take the Punatsangchhu-I Hydroelectric Project (PHPA I), the first stage of an initiative by the Royal Government of Bhutan and India in May 2008 to generate 10,000 MW of hydro electricity by 2020.
Apart from the fact that the hydropower project faces serious environmental glitches, most nature lovers believe that Bhutan’s rivers will be ‘killed’ by the projects.
Further, will the dams’ revenues bring more contentment to Bhutan? Only the future will tell us.
According to a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Protection of Nature, Bhutan has the highest population of the White-bellied Herons in the world.
If birds are happy, it is a positive sign, but Bhutan is nevertheless at a crossroad and unhappiness in the Dragon Kingdom would be a great loss for humanity.

The Fate of Planet Earth

As torrential rains forces the authorities to close Chennai Airport, as Beijing chokes under a thick, brown smog and air pollution reaches 20 times what the World Health Organization considers to be safe and as Delhi become the ‘Most Polluted City in the World’, leaders from 147 nations addressed the opening session of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference held in Paris between November 30 to December 11.
One of the objectives of the COP21 (it is the 21st yearly session of the Conference of Parties), is to review the implementation of the 1992 Rio Convention. In Brazil, world leaders had agreed on a UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aimed at stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and avoiding ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.
The UNFCCC has now 195 parties/members.
During the COP3 in Japan, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted; then the COP11 in Canada agreed to the Montreal Action Plan, while the COP15 in Copenhagen could only acknowledge that the Kyoto Protocol targets had not been achieved; this perhaps triggered the creation of a Green Climate Fund during the COP17 in Durban.
This time, the aim is to find an effective and equitable agreement to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.
Will it succeed?
Probably not: simply because the interests of the different players are too divergent. However one should look at the COP21 in another perspective.
Never in the history of mankind, have so many heads of State and Governments congregated in a single place. For months, the world’s chancelleries put tremendous efforts to enable a consensus during the Meet.
France, as the host of the COP21, says that “it is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement.”
Laurent Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and COP21 Chairperson has been criss-crossing the world for months. After his visit to Delhi on November 20, he rushed to South Africa, Brazil and Canada to look for possible solutions and this, despite the disparate interests.
Each and every capital has done some homework. Take Beijing, it recently released its latest scientific assessment, a 900-page document called ‘Third National Climate Change Assessment Report’; some 550 scientists have participated to sum up the present knowledge and environmental consequences of rising greenhouse gas levels for China.
They found that average temperatures across the Middle Kingdom have been rising faster than the global average, and that te trend is likely to continue.
If you multiply these efforts by more than 100 nations who have taken the issue seriously, the COP21 is already a success.
The human race has realized that its fate is in the balance.
Of course, the West and Asia do not see eye to eye.
Steffen Böhm, a professor in Management and Sustainability at the University of Essex is one of the few Westerners who understand the less-developed nations’ point of view; he wrote: “Stop blaming India and China for the West’s 300 years of destroying the environment”
Böhm believes that the COP21 will be failure: “The basic reason is that the unequal distribution of carbon emissions is not even on its agenda. The historical responsibility of the West is not on the table, nor is a method of national carbon accounting that looks at how the emissions a country consumes rather than produces.”
The Indian Prime Minister, while addressing the opening session, expressed similar views: “Over the next few days, we will decide the fate of this planet. …the consequences of the industrial age powered by fossil fuel are evident, especially on the lives of the poor. The prosperous still have a strong carbon footprint. And, the world's billions at the bottom of the development ladder are seeking space to grow. So, the choices are not easy. But, we have awareness and technology.”
A western journalist wrote in La Libre Belgique: “India claims the right to pollute”. She represents the view of many in the West, but this type of attitude can lead nowhere.
President Obama was more diplomatic; he urged negotiators to deliver a meaningful deal, because the ‘next generation is watching’; he added: “Climate change could define the contours of this century more than any other challenge.”
The urgency of the situation is the only consensus right now.
There are however several positive initiatives.
Narendra Modi along with French President Francois Hollande launched the International Solar Alliance. It will be hosted in the premises of the National Institute of Solar Energy in Gurgaon and India will provide land and contribute about US$ 30 million to build the Secretariat: "This day is the sunrise of new hope –- not just for clean energy, but for villages and homes still in darkness; and for our mornings and evenings filled with a clear view of the glory of the sun," said Modi. Let us hope.
The world event in France will see the participation of the ‘civil society’, the green NGOs, ‘stakeholders’ of every hue and of course the climatosceptics, who do not believe in climate change, but only see it as a conspiracy of the rich nations.
Probably a crucial concept will be forgotten, that is Sustainable Consumption which means that humanity has to start consuming less, if it wants to survive. Humans need to realize that the resources of the planet are limited and need to be shared by all. But who should start acting first, the rich or the poor?