The dynamism of Western academia
never ceases to amaze me. Once
an idea enters the people's mind-set,
scholars of all hues begin analysing
it from the standpoint of different
disciplines. This is quite unlike what
happens in a country like India. Gunnar
Myrdal in his '60s trilogy, Asian Drama,
had pointed out that corruption is an
issue that figures in almost every dinner
conversation and media article; yet he
could hardly find any academic research
on the subject. Thirty years later, the
situation remains unchanged.
But let me come to the issue of environment. Going through a recent edition of a journal called Global Environmental Change, I came across a fascinating paper by Susan Subak of the Centre
for Social and Economic Research at the
University of East Anglia, UK. There is a
widespread feeling in the West that if
industrialised countries were to take
steps to reduce emissions of greenhouse
gases (GHG), but without ensuring that
developing countries did the same, then
their efforts would be unproductive.
This is because emissions-generating
economic activities would then shift to
developing countries not bound by an
international agreement to control their
emissions. Western economists use an
evocative word to describe this phenomenon: 'leakage'.
One. study carried out in Europe has
argued that if the European Community
(EC) were to reduce carbon dioxide
(CO2) emissions unilaterally, it would
push down world energy prices, which
in turn will increase energy consumption in developing countries. According
to another study based on a global equilibrium model, if the EC reduced emissions by 20 per cent, global emissions
will only decline by 0.7 per cent instead
of the estimated three per cent. In other
words, 75 per cent of the EC's reduction
would be lost through leakage.
Since industrialised countries have
now bowed to world opinion at the
Berlin meeting (1995) to start negotiating a new protocol which sets targets for
limiting CO2 emissions, several economists have produced studies to show that the potential of leakage of CO2
emissions from participants to non-
participants may be large in the future.
A participating country could meet
its national abatement targets, but it
could import commodities from non-
participating countries, which have
been produced with high emissions.
This argument is extended in
Subak's paper by taking a look at
methane emissions. Subak points out
that while most countries are now setting goals to limit CO2 emissions, many
have also started to address measures for
controlling the emission of methane, the
next most important GHG after CO2. Her
paper analyses the amount of methane
that was released in non-participating
countries to produce exports destined
for participating countries, that have
pledged or are likely to pledge to stabilise or reduce methane emissions. She
has calculated the amount of methane
that was embodied in agricultural goods
like rice, meat and milk products that
were exported to six industrialised
nations - USA, UK, Germany, Japan,
France and Canada - in 1990.
Subak finds that the total amount of
methane in imports from developing
countries destined for these six nations
equals 1.2 million tonnes, or about seven
per cent of emissions from livestock in
these importing countries. This quantity
is more than the total anthropogenic
methane emissions produced by 103
countries out of the 140 surveyed by her.
Subak's concern is that with increasing pressure on nations to reduce agricultural subsidies and import tariffs,
developing country livestock and crop
production could become more competitive; therefore, the opportunity for
trade in methane -embodied products is
likely to increase. She suggests two measures. One would be to change the
methodology for estimating national
GHG emmisions by taking emissions
embodied in traded goods into account,
so that countries do not leak their emissions to non -participating countries
while claiming that they are meeting
their national targets. But "the more
practical and equitable approach is to
extend greenhouse gas emission targets
to all countries participating in the climate convention," she concludes.
Subak's views do not surprise me in
the least. In 1991, when Sunita Narain
and I had written Global Warming in an
Unequal World as a rejoinder to West's
argument that countries like India must
also curtail their GHG emissions, we too
had raised this issue of who should be
credited the GHG emissions embodied in
internationally traded commodities -
the producing countries of the developing world or the consuming countries in
the industrialised world. The idea of
roping in developing countries without
first setting out a clear system of entitlements! to global common property
resources like the atmosphere, is nothing new for Western academics.
SLibak, of course, deserves credit for
the good work she has done for Western
policy-'makers. My key worry, however,
is: has any academic or policy-making
bureaucrat in India prepared any study
to respond to these arguments and, if so,
why * have they not become part of the
public debate? Subak is thinking of the
future. So should Indians. If India learns
to manage its middle and lower Indo-Gangetic Plains properly, it has the
potential to feed not just itself but a
large part of the world as well. That is
why this issue is of such importance for
India's, and for other developing
nations', future. But more than Subak's
dynamism, it is our somnolence that has
the potential to sabotage our future.
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