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Cutting carbons
Politics over price rise |
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Future tense in W. Bengal
Guarding the sea
No flannels today
Pakistan cannot fight terrorism selectively: US
An initiative China had to take
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Cutting carbons
The
Chinese announcement on Thursday that it would cut carbon emissions by 40-45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 seemingly runs contrary to the agreement between India and China barely a month ago that they would coordinate efforts to combat climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit on December 7. The two countries had rightly resisted acceptance of binding cuts to their carbon emissions, arguing that these would unfairly curb their development. They insisted at a joint meeting last month that the developed world should atone for the damage it had inflicted on the planet by providing financial resources and technology to help developing countries control their carbon footprints as they industrialise. While the Chinese would argue that they have stuck to their avowed stand of not accepting binding cuts, there is an undercurrent of softness in regard to the developed world’s culpability that cannot be missed. The fact that the Chinese move came a day after the US administration announced that it would offer a target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 per cent by 2020 as compared to 2005 levels points to a possible agreement between President Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao when the former visited Beijing recently. It now remains to be seen what emerges out of the Obama-Manmohan Singh talks on the issue in Washington. That could well blunt the edge of Chinese intentions to project India as obstructionist. According to latest data compiled by an European agency, China is now responsible for 24 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, followed by the US with 22 per cent. Per head of population, China is still far behind the US, which remains the biggest polluter per person by a large margin. India is way behind both in total and per capita emissions. It would be a pity if the US, which has announced a measly cut and China whose emissions are at record levels, walk away with the propaganda advantage at India’s cost. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has described the latest Chinese announcement as a wake up call for India. It is time India took concerted steps to show its earnestness in curbing carbon emissions while sticking to its principled position of seeking due compensation for the developing countries for the havoc caused to the environment by western style of development.
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Politics over price rise
The
agony of people over the persistent price rise found an echo in Parliament on Thursday when Opposition members raised the issue of food inflation touching 15.58 per cent. The Centre seems to be running out of options to deal with the situation. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar tried to shift the blame for the relentless price spiral to the states. According to the minister, if the prices of fruits, vegetables, sugar, pulses, cereals and edible oils have shot up, it is not because there is a mismatch between demand and supply but because the states are not acting against hoarders. Instead of scoring political points, the ruling and Opposition members should have tried to work out a strategy to alleviate the public pain. Opposition MPs who raised the issue were not present in the House to listen to the government response. It all ended with the familiar political blame game. The Agriculture Minister had committed a blunder when he said recently that the price rise would continue for at least a year. Such statements make a positive impact on hoarders’ business and defeat efforts to rein in prices. Why the states, including those ruled by Opposition parties, are not acting against hoarders is beyond comprehension. State-level politicians do not seem to see any role for themselves beyond pinning down the Centre. The Centre, of course, cannot run away from its responsibility. It is well known that whenever crops fail, hoarders become active and take advantage of the situation. The hoarders can be put out of business if large quantities of commodities are unloaded in the market to end the shortages. India has enough rice and wheat stocks and foreign reserves for food imports to cool the prices. Yet the Centre’s inaction is baffling. The government should create additional storage capacity to have sufficient buffer stocks for effective market interventions.
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Future tense in W. Bengal
The
war of words between the CPM and the Trinamool Congress over escalating political violence in West Bengal spilled over to the Lok Sabha this week. During the zero hour on Thursday and later during the debate on rising prices, Trinamool MPs raised slogans accusing the CPM for unleashing violence and demanding that a central team be sent to the state to assess the ground situation. The Trinamool Congress chief Ms Mamata Banerjee has been persistent in her demand that the Left Front government, which has lost heavily in recent elections for panchayats, local bodies, the Lok Sabha and in by-elections, must give way for an early Assembly election. She appears to have decided now to use the floor of Parliament to press the point. While it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, the CPM appears to be on firmer ground when it alleges that 200 of its workers and supporters have been killed in the state in recent months and that far from being the perpetrators of violence, it is actually the victim. This is so because unlike Ms Banerjee’s party, it has backed its claim with names, addresses and identity of the deceased. It is also becoming clear at the same time that Ms Banerjee has been trying hard to distance herself from the Maoists, prompting a Maoist spokesman to warn her against ‘lying’ and maligning the outfit at public rallies. The Maoists reportedly took umbrage at Ms Banerjee’s claim that it was the CPM which had invited them to Nandigram and provided them with a safe passage. Unfortunately, the two parties seem incapable of working together in order to restore peace. Busy bad-mouthing each other and the incessant name-calling seem to have reached a point of no return. All political parties in the state are responsible, however, for bringing West Bengal to the brink.
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Non-violence is not a weapon of the weak but of the strongest and bravest. — Mahatma Gandhi
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Guarding the sea
LAST year on November 26, a little before 9 p.m, 10 heavily armed people landed at a bustling fishing village in the heart of South Mumbai. A week earlier, on November 19, reports had indicated that a Pakistani vessel carrying terrorists had sailed from Karachi and was in a position about 50 miles south west of that port. This did not attract much attention in either the Coast Guard (CG) or the Navy. At the maritime boundary, separating India and Pakistan, the terrorists apprehended an Indian fishing trawler, Kuber, killed four of its five crewmen, and, using the fifth as hostage, headed for Mumbai. The journey of about 500 miles, all through India’s Exclusive Economic Zone, was completed without any hindrance and the trawler arrived off that city by the evening of November 26. As darkness fell, a small rubber craft was inflated and lowered in the water and into it went the terrorists, each wearing an inflated life jacket and carrying shoulder bags containing an AK 47, 10 loaded magazines and 10 grenades. In addition, several bombs made of lethal RDX were embarked. If it is appreciated that all this was done even as the two craft rolled and pitched in the darkness, in a not too calm sea, the difficult nature of the mission becomes apparent. The chosen landing spot has about a 100 fishing boats, at anchor or beached, and into this congested area, spread over a water front less than a 100 yards wide, this small craft put its passengers ashore. Landing on any shore, even the most desolate, is a very hazardous maritime operation; yet, it is this part of the mission that was so successfully accomplished, without any challenge. The passage covered two coastal states, Gujarat and Maharashtra, which account for almost 60,000 fishing boats of various sizes. How was this allowed to happen and what has been done to prevent its recurrence is what any reasonable person should ask. After all, despite some shortages in force levels, there are two quite capable maritime security forces, i.e. the Navy and the CG, which should have reacted more positively to the input of November 19 rather than later plead “systemic failure”. Intelligence, meaning analysed inputs, is clearly the first imperative for preventive action against terrorism but this was not there; a National Intelligence Agency has only now been constituted. Security at sea had been a naval responsibility only in the blue waters while, in coastal waters, it came under the purview of the CG, and the area immediately on the coast within the jurisdiction of state marine police forces. In the new security environment, in which coastal security has become important, an entirely war fighting role for the Navy can no longer be sustained; it must assume counter-terrorism duties in peace as well. The entire spectrum of maritime security, both at and from the sea, against state as well as non-state actors, has now been assigned to the Navy and joint control rooms set up in Mumbai and elsewhere but its authority is still not as complete as it should be. Measures to augment resources needed for coastal security have been initiated but these will take some time to materialise fully. So, if the question is if, one year after the event, we are better prepared to safeguard our coastal security, the answer is, disappointingly, in the negative. Unity of command is an essential prerequisite for successful counter-terrorism and the correct step would have been to place all maritime security forces under Naval control. This has not been done. For example, even as joint control rooms have been set up in major ports, sailing of a CG vessel still needs the approval of its CG superiors. This dilutes accountability. The designation of the Director-General Coast Guard as head of a Coastal Command is also merely cosmetic; there is no addition to his duties. Making the Navy responsible for the entire gamut of maritime security, without providing it with the required managerial control, is something of a sham. While acquisition of hardware such as boats, aircraft and coast radar stations cannot happen overnight, the problem is more in their use rather than in their numbers; the terrorists could come in so easily not because we did not have enough forces but because we were not able to exploit them coherently. Bold steps are required to review what has been done and to rectify the deficiencies. Similarly, much more attention must also be paid to port security which means not just physical watch over the ports themselves but equally on the ships which enter them. For example, the US requires all containers entering its ports to be X-rayed; India has no such control. An explosives-laden container, if exploded in docks at a major port like Mumbai can cause mayhem. There continues to be considerable laxity in superintendence of fishing vessels; registration of all, as required, is only a distant possibility. There is also no record of fishing vessels leaving and returning to their villages. Had such records been maintained, it would have been known that the Kuber, which had left Porbander to fish off Sir Creek, was overdue for several days. A search operation would have located the Kuber far from that area and, possibly, thwarted the Mumbai attacks. Security of offshore installations continues to remain an area of concern. Until now, the Indian Navy trained only to counter military threats from nation state adversaries. The emerging environment requires adjustment in this mindset. This is happening, even if slowly, but all its efforts will not succeed if the required command and control arrangements are not put in place. More asymmetric attacks must be expected from the sea, not necessarily repeats of 26/11 but exploiting that medium in some way or another. A fully empowered organisational structure must be put in place urgently, which will be tasked to direct, rather than merely coordinate, all aspects of sea-based activity which have security implications. If this is not done very quickly, it will not be long before another Navy Chief will have to be pleading
“systemic failure”.n The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command
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No flannels today There seems to be something lacking in the diet of the young men of today. While I see several elderly men with a fairly respectable growth of hair on their pates, more and more young fellows between the ages of 25 and 40 suffer from premature baldness. What they have lost on their heads they try and make up on their cheeks. Hence the rage for sideburns. Film stars cannot be held responsible for setting the fashion. Several young men of my acquaintance, who sport sideburns, never go near a Bollywood production. They all, however, have receding hairlines. Perhaps, in addition to a deficient diet, young people have to grapple with complex problems the likes of which never worried us in our time simply because they did not exist. Jobs were easier to find and a hundred rupee note went much further than it does now. So much for the 25-40 age group. Lads in their twenties go one step further. While possessing all their hair, which they usually wear long enough to touch their shoulders, they cover their faces with beards of various shapes and sizes. Perhaps by doing so, they think that they are emphasising their masculinity. It is possible, also, that some of them were born with receding chins, which a beard hides effectively. In either case a beard on a young face is a good indicator for the beholder who, foxed by the long hair, “flare” pants and platform heels, might easily mistake a clean-shaven face as belonging to a girl. The other day I scoured the “tailors and outfitters” shops in Connaught Place for a pair of readymade flannel trousers. “Sorry,” said the man behind the counter. “Flannels went out of fashion several years ago. We can give you a pair in terry-wool.” But the trousers that were produced for trying were so wide at the bottom that I took one look and beat a hasty retreat. In the end I bought myself a length of terry-wool and gave it to a darji for stitching. I didn’t go to one of the C.P shops in case I was told that making clothes from customers’ material was also out of fashion. But it’s an ill-wind that blows nobody any good. With hundreds of trouser-ends sweeping the ground, dry-cleaning establishments must be reaping a rich harvest. No wonder they are springing up like mushrooms all over the
country.
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Pakistan cannot fight terrorism selectively: US
Ashley J. Tellis, currently a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, served as a senior adviser to R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the George W. Bush administration. In that role, Tellis was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. In an interview Tellis says Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington this week helped create a better understanding of India's positions on key policy issues. As for the arduous negotiations between the U.S. and Indian sides over the reprocessing of spent uranium supplied to India under the nuclear deal, Tellis says he is confident an agreement will soon be reached. "This is not something that keeps me up at night," he says. Excerpts: AKS: What is your assessment of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington? AT: Despite all the trepidations that preceded it, I think the final outcome has been very satisfactory and very welcome to both sides. AKS: Was there more to this visit than just the symbolism attached to the first state visit of the Obama administration? AT: I think this administration was trying to suggest that India is not forgotten – that India remains important, even though the constraints that the United States faces have increased because of the economic crisis and the rapid shifts in the balance of power worldwide. I think the president emphasised that the US-Indian relationship is very unique, given the democratic traditions, the presence of Indian Americans, and the longer term national interests. India still remains very much in the constellation of America's closest friends. AKS: What was the highlight of the visit? AT: The personal chemistry between the president and the prime minister. If leaders feel that they can trust one another, it is the lubricant that makes all the other interactions go very smoothly. On India's central concerns, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, the whole issue of managing AfPak, India-Pakistan and terrorism, on all these issues India's concerns were heard – clearly. AKS: But the Obama administration doesn't appear to have softened its position on issues such as nonproliferation, climate change and outsourcing – issues that are perceived by some in New Delhi as irritants in the relationship. AT: It is too much to expect that the administration is going to back down on several substantive issues because these positions are tied very much to its perceptions of what U.S. national interest requires, but I think what you can say with a great degree of confidence is that there is clearly a better understanding of why India has taken the positions that it has. I think there is greater realism about India's capacity to do some of the things that may be expected of it. Thus, there is reason for optimism. Despite the divergence, there is a clear commitment to working with India to achieve at least some key objectives. AKS: Are there any points of convergence? AT: Yes. First, climate change – the administration recognizes that while it would be nice to get binding commitments on controlling emissions from India today, those are not likely in the prospective future. Both sides have agreed nonetheless that they are going to do what is required to mitigate climate change through independent national policies, while working towards a regime where there is full transparency about what everyone is doing and there are ways of verifying that various objectives are being met even if those objectives are defined purely through national means. I think that is a very good step and it represents an important point of convergence. Second, nonproliferation – both sides recognize that the critical issue is going to be Iran in the near term and over the longer term better nuclear security. I think the U.S. would very much like India to be supportive with respect to getting Iran to meet its obligations. The key question is what does the U.S. want India to do? My judgement is that as long as the U.S. pursues the issues related to Iran in the IAEA Board of Governors and the United Nations Security Council, India will have no difficulty in supporting the U.S. on the specific objective of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. AKS: So then what are the Obama administration's expectations of India on Iran? AT: The key objective of the Obama administration is to persuade India to use its influence to keep Iran – first, engaged with the international community; second, committed to meeting its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. AKS: And is India doing enough? AT: This is going to be an ongoing process. It is not something that one can assess right now – whether India has done enough or not. I think the PM was very clear, both in the remarks he made at the Council on Foreign Relations and in his private conversations during the last day [of his visit], about India's position. I think at this stage that is the best one can expect of India because it is not quite clear how the U.S. itself is going to proceed regarding Iran. AKS: Have India's concerns regarding terrorism emanating from Pakistan been taken into consideration in Washington? AT: The principle that the administration will hopefully articulate in the weeks and months ahead, but which it has recognised quite clearly in the aftermath of the conversations with the prime minister and his team, is that Pakistan cannot persist with its strategy of confronting terrorism selectively. That principle is something the Obama administration has completely internalised. If there were doubts about this fact, I think the meetings with the prime minister and the discussions [during the visit] should, at least in Indian minds, erase all those doubts. There will be a continued U.S. engagement with Pakistan; there is no alternative to the U.S. engaging Pakistan, but I think that engagement will be without any illusions. I think that was an important step forward. The point remains that the PM and the president understand clearly that Pakistan's past record on combating terrorism is unsatisfactory, and that while it has done a lot, there is much more that it has to do. AKS: China was one of the issues discussed in the Singh-Obama meeting. AT: India's position on China is much better understood today in the aftermath of this visit than was the case before. That was one of the most satisfactory outcomes of the events of the last day and a half. AKS: Can the U.S. develop a strong relationship with China and India without it coming at the cost of its relationship with the other? AT: The U.S. can, and it
must, develop relations with both India and China. AKS: Do you believe New Delhi's anxiety over the U.S.-China joint statement was justified? AT: India's concern about the U.S.-China Joint Statement was completely understandable. There has been a long-standing position in New Delhi that the issues related to India and Pakistan are issues to be resolved by the two countries. Not only is third-party intervention in these issues not welcome, the notion that China might actually be the third party with some role to play is particularly offensive to New Delhi because India does not see China as a disinterested party in the South Asian security competition. AKS: U.S. and Indian teams worked hard to reach an agreement on reprocessing in the run-up to the PM's visit. Is the inability to wrap up this issue an indicator of the challenges India can expect in dealing with the Obama administration? AT: We have had this happen in all previous summits where right up to the last minute people are working to complete a range of issues because a big meeting like this is an action-forcing event. But the fact that it wasn't completed does not surprise me because it is an involved negotiation and both sides find themselves in terrain that has not been ploughed before. The U.S. does not, as a matter of rule, give programmatic reprocessing consent rights easily. We have done this in only one or two cases previously – and India is the newest exception. I have absolutely no doubt that within the next several weeks we will be able to reach an agreement on reprocessing and this will cease to be an issue thereafter. This is not something that keeps me up at night.
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An initiative China had to take Look
at the graph above. Look at the red line. Look at its dramatic slope upwards, after about 2002. It's one of the scariest things in modern history. It shows the way China's emissions of carbon dioxide, the key greenhouse gas, soared in a way no-one ever expected they would, as the Chinese economy expanded explosively after the Millennium, with incredible, double-digit growth – at one stage more than 11 per cent per annum. As a result, Chinese emissions of CO2 doubled in a decade, from 3 billion tonnes to more than 6 billion tonnes annually, and by 2007 China had overtaken the US as the world's biggest carbon emitter. Although no one knows the current figures yet, it is likely that they are now running at well over 7 billion tonnes per year, with the annual increase alone greater than the entirety of Britain's CO2 output of about 580 million tonnes a year. This abrupt, gigantic surge in the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere threw previous calculations about the future progress of global warming into confusion, and is the main reason why world CO2 emissions are now at the top of the very highest pathway previously imagined by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They are now putting the world on course, an international commission of climate scientists reported last week, for a catastrophic 6C temperature rise by 2100. Anything China can do about its emissions, therefore, is to be given a fervent welcome, and this is the first, enormous significance of yesterday's announcement – the simple fact that China is taking internationally pledged action about them. The Chinese have always insisted that, to bring their people out of poverty, unhindered growth is their natural right – the rich West did it, after all – and resented any idea of CO2 reduction targets. But the country's leadership has come to accept that the threat of climate change is so severe that they too must act. They are not yet pledging an emissions cut, as the developed countries are doing; they want to carry on growing. But the promised reduction in the economy's carbon intensity does mean that the rate of increase in emissions should slacken – i.e. that the slope of the red line above will become less steep, rather than steeper. And as 90 per cent of all future emissions growth will come from China and its fellow developing countries, that is very much worth having. The other enormous significance of yesterday's announcement is that the 45 per cent figure is "a number on the table", something that is essential for a deal between the two key carbon players, China and the US (which account for 40 per cent of world emissions between them) at the forthcoming Copenhagen climate conference. Its announcement was brought forward and made immediately after the US announced its own number – a 17 per cent cut in US emissions from a 2005 baseline – on Wednesday. To have any chance of holding global warming to the danger threshold of a C rise will require, of course, far, far more than the US and China are pledging. It will require far more than the European Union is pledging. But it is a beginning.n — By arrangement with
The Independent
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