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During one of our dinners at the Durban conference in late 2011, I heard someone speak out loud and say that the climate movement desperately needs a victory. A victory that many of the strong yet embittered civil society groups could take inspiration from and continue building this movement around the world; with even more vigor. The recent rejection of the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline is one such victory that we could draw innumerable lessons from.
The background
The Keystone XL is a 3,500 KM long pipeline proposed by the Canadian company Trans Canada to transport tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas. The company proposed the pipeline in 2008 and what looked like a done deal turned out to be far from it. The pipeline is hazardous for multiple reasons; it endangers one of North America’s largest ground water sources called the Ogallala aquifer, it results in the burning of the dirtiest and most unsustainable form of fossil fuels the tar sands, thereby accelerating climate change, it undermines the negative impact on local environment and indigenous communities in Canada and it exemplifies a rotten nexus between big oil corporations and politicians in Govt. institutions.
The protest
James Hansen, one of the world’s foremost climate scientists raised an alarm bell against the pipeline in 2011 when he stated ominously that burning the tar sands oil would be “game over” for the climate. Environmentalist Bill McKibben and others took the cue and sent out a clarion call in June 2011 for civil disobedience against the pipeline and the tar sands. Indigenous communities have been protesting the dirty fuel for a long time and when people living along the proposed route of the pipeline heard of the dangers, they too joined the fight. A sit-in was planned in front of the White House in August 2011 and a new coalition called the Tar Sands Action came into being.
The momentum
After the formation of this coalition, efforts went into scaling up the White House sit-in with hundreds of people around the world being mobilized to join. What followed was an unprecedented event where 1,253 ordinary Americans got themselves handcuffed and arrested in one of the largest acts of civil disobedience for an environmental issue in America. The arrest of one individual after another for two full weeks in August created ripples across new and mainstream media around the country. People began educating themselves about the issue and took a stance on how they should react to Keystone. The momentum kept growing and culminated in a massive gathering of over 10,000 people who embraced the White House and demanded that President Obama reject the project. Four days later, Obama delayed the pipeline decision to 2013 on the grounds of reviewing an alternate route. Many claimed that the delay would effectively kill the pipeline.
The victory
The Tar Sands Action drew first blood but it was not long before the pipeline reared its ugly head again. Within a month of Obama’s announcement, lobbyists and Republicans managed to piggyback the pipeline decision on another bill on payroll tax cuts. This move meant that Obama had to take a decision by the end of February 2012 on the pipeline. Meanwhile, the oil industry left no stone unturned in increasing their big media push and flawed propaganda by selling tar sands as “ethical oil” and the pipeline as the only hope for jobs in America. With the climate movement continuing to mobilize and gain momentum despite strong pro-oil lobbying, Obama finally decided to reject the pipeline stating that a review that was earlier commissioned could not be completed at such short notice and that Trans Canada was welcome to file a new application and start from scratch.
This rejection is indeed a great victory for climate activists, against what one might have thought were unsurmountable odds. The big oil in North America is powerful and dirty! Their deep pockets control politicians and their decisions; and these shackles have to be broken if we are to make any progress in addressing climate change.
Lessons
The Keystone struggle is an important story of a victorious movement in contemporary times; a story from which many lessons can be learnt. I have highlighted a few that any group or movement around the world irrespective of the issue they fight or the target they choose could learn.
1. Grassroots is the right route
What gave the fight legitimacy was the involvement of grassroots and frontline communities of ordinary U.S. citizens who were facing or could face the disastrous consequences of tar sands oil made their voices heard. Indigenous communities and ranchers from Nebraska took up the fight not just at their homes but at the political centers of the country. They educated themselves about the issue and presented their views in a strong and impassioned manner.
2. Elections are a big deal
What proved to be one of the important game changers was the fact that hundreds and thousands of voters called up the campaign offices of Obama and threatened to pull out support if he let the pipeline come into being. Support either in the form of donations or as campaign workers. This simple tactic piled on the pressure for Obama; where supporting the project would have meant losing significant portion of his voter base. At each of his stops in his campaign trail, Obama faced supporters who urged him to reject the pipeline. Sometimes campaigning is more about politics and less about policy! Even the best arguments for a particular policy will face opposition when big money and politics are involved.
3. Everybody has a role to play
When the campaign gained momentum, the resulting coalition worked beautifully with organizations ; complementing each other’s work and building a very powerful narrative. Here is an excerpt from an article by my colleague Jamie Henn, the communications director at 350.org, “While Tar Sands Action formed a progressive, action oriented edge for the campaign, groups like NRDC perfected policy arguments and lobbied on the Hill, online campaigns like CREDO sent tens of thousands of emails and phone calls to the White House, BOLD Nebraska led a strategy to block the pipeline on the ground in their state, Friends of the Earth focused on a conflict of interest scandal over the pipeline at the State Department, the Indigenous Environmental Network united native communities across North America, the Transit Workers Union and other labor groups came out against the project, the Energy Action Coalition organized young people, and many, many others stepped in with their unique contributions. We likened the approach to a “swarm,” a team effort that was light on formal processes and meetings and dedicated above all to speed, efficiency, and an ambitious plan of attack.”
Everybody had a clear role and the coalition worked like a well-oiled machine in mobilizing thousands and ratcheting up the pressure. Differences can often rise between individuals and groups but the keystone struggle is a powerful case in point of a cause taking precedence over petty power dynamics. Any movement around the world requires such a coalition if we are to stand up against an opposition which is often highly coordinated and backed by dollars.
4. Leaders can initiate the spark
Any successful movement needs strong and outspoken leaders who can articulate the campaign and create strong coalitions. Once such coalitions are formed, the campaign goes into auto pilot while the leader’s role remains to keep the group motivated and focused on the end goal.
5. Make the issue smaller and bigger at the same time
The pipeline posed a significant threat to the Ogallala aquifer and to people’s health. These arguments were important but not sufficient. The bigger narrative came in when people rallied around Hansen’s statement that the pipeline could be “game over” for the climate. The decision on Keystone was made into a litmus test for Obama and his office and the final choice would be emblematic of his attitude towards the climate and his people’s future.
The issue was also not limited to the pipeline but also focused on the larger issue of burning the tar sands. The campaign ensured the pipeline would also be a vehicle to educate the public on the dangers of tar sands and its consequences for our future.
Those who began fighting this pipeline did not hope for much at the beginning. But perseverance even in the face of adversity is vital if we are to win the hearts of our supporters. The keystone fight did not win only on theoretical and academic arguments but it won the hearts of those who volunteered to rally, march and get arrested. They had a struggle they could relate to and a cause truly worth fighting for.
6. Use of social and mainstream media
The use of conventional media was powerful but the movement did not live or die by media coverage alone. Social media fueled the cause and reached out to a wide network of citizens around the globe. Communication through social media creates the core group of volunteers who can later branch out and mobilize hundreds more in their regions. The website of the Tar Sands Action coalition is a perfect example of the effective usage of social media. Through a simple design, the site shared genuine and powerful stories of people that resonated with thousands of other folks. The usage of video, images, quotes and other creative resources made the campaign emotionally powerful.
When the issue gets big enough through creative actions like that of the civil disobedience spurred on by social media networking in front of the White House, mainstream media cannot avoid the movement and joins the play. The #NOKXL twitter hash tag almost became an internet meme.
7. There is no straight path to victory
The campaign needs to evolve itself according to the circumstances. There is no silver bullet and no single narrative stand point that will ensure victory. The Keystone movement worked with various arguments ranging from the issue of the climate to another game changer in the form of jobs. The jobs argument came in late during the campaign but was quite effective in winning over certain national and local groups that had hitherto supported the pipeline.
8. Money is not everything but it’s important nonetheless
The various resources required to run a campaign need money and groups have to invest in raising funds through individuals or organizations who share similar values. The momentum that the Keystone fight gathered had moved a lot of individuals and big groups to donate to the campaign and help it mobilize thousands of people signing up. The simple act of sharing and celebrating the stories and little successes of people around the country helped the movement grow in heart and reach out to more donors.
9. Power map works
Preparing a power map will give us a good sense of all the players involved in the project and what influences they hold in the decision making. When Obama announced that the final decision would be made by him, it narrowed the target to the President and made the pipeline a litmus test for him. Power mapping enables the campaign to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and target them accordingly.
10. The fight never truly ends and celebrate every success
If we rid the world of fossil fuel, ensure that Governments work for the people and leave a clean and healthy environment for our next generations, I suppose we could then say that our fight is over. But that day is not here and our fight continues. The Keystone struggle is a good example of paving the way for future campaigns and building the movement. It laid bare the dirty nexus between big oil and national Governments, exposed the corruption of large corporations and most importantly gave people more hope to continue fighting. It is also important to share and celebrate our successes with the world and shoulder each other when the times are rough.
These lessons are vital for campaigners around the world who are taking up big fights against powerful polluters. The Keystone XL pipeline is victory worth celebrating. The fight continues and I can already see the global movement getting bigger, stronger and more impactful with each passing day. Kudos to all you climate activists for taking up the cause of a better tomorrow!
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As I write this, American troops are setting up a strong base in Israel to begin an exercise of flexing their mighty military muscle alongside their ever ready Middle East ally, Israel. The war games called the “Austere Challenge 12” is aimed to train troops in interacting with antimissile and antiaircraft defenses. Thousands of US and Israeli Army servicemen, dozens of ships and deck-based aircraft are due to take part. Russia has now joined the party with its forces now stationed in Syria. Before this, from December 24th ’11 – Jan 4th ‘12, Iran had its own military exercise where it tested some of its anti ship cruise missiles. These displays of military might was preceded by tougher sanctions on Iran by the United States that aims to freeze a part of its oil exports and impose sweeping sanctions on its central bank to push its economy onto a downward spiral. The sanctions are a continuation of the global pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program since a few countries fear its potential development of nuclear weapons.
The impending danger
Somehow these developments bring a sense of deja-vu from early 2003, before the United States launched its attack on Iraq on the pretext of Saddam Hussain harboring weapons of mass destruction. Neither were the weapons found nor was any semblance of stability and democracy restored in the land. In fact just the opposite is taking place with the region on the brink of a civil war. The United States and the United Nations have a long history of imposing sanctions on Iran, affecting its import and export of technology, financial tools, natural resources etc. Since 2006, the UN has endorsed 4 sanctions aimed shutting its nuclear program. These sanctions have resulted in an Iranian economy that has suffered over the years and created severe unrest in the people. The imposed sanctions are already taking a severe toll on ordinary Iranians with inflation levels reaching new highs, import costs rising dramatically and basic commodities like milk becoming un-affordable to the public.
Going by these actions of the United States and its allies, Iran is clearly being cornered and provoked to retaliate. As Iran’s Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahim recently warned, “If they [Americans] impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even a drop of oil cannot flow from the strait of Hormuz”. Many western powers have called his statement bluff but the Iranian Government, though set to send its economy into a tizzy by such a move it willing to take such a risk in response to the oil embargoes.
The Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is a strait that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Iran is a major exporter of crude oil and the strait carries over 17 million barrels of oil a day i.e. over 17% of the global oil consumption per day. If Iran closes the strait temporarily, increased production from OPEC nations and Global strategic oil reserves will be called in to bridge the supply gap but not before oil speculation results in a skyrocketing of prices from its current $ 110 a barrel to the nightmarish figures of over $150 (which sparked the global recession in 2008). A top Chinese diplomat, Chen Xiaodong warned that a war over Iran’s nuclear issue would bring disaster to the world economy and urged nations to exercise restraint and prevent any form of hostility.
Iran’s nuclear capacity and the hypocrisy of the west
Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense for the United States in his recent appearance on another irresponsible CBS show had this to say, “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know they are trying to develop a nuclear capability and that’s what concerns us”. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed just yesterday that Iran is indeed enhancing its nuclear capability and enriching its Uranium up to 20%. In other words, it means that Iran now has the capacity to build a nuclear warhead with much ease. Iran had already made this announcement public a few months ago and one cannot but be amused and surprised at the timing of this report and its renewed posturing in the mainstream media. It clearly complements Panetta’s statement and fortifies the United States fear of Iran’s nuclear capacity thereby providing a strong reason to come down hard on the country.
The posturing in the media of Iran as an irresponsible nation that can use its nuclear weapons is completely misplaced when instead the irresponsibility and irrational behavior is coming from the United States and other western powers. Potential presidential candidates like Rick Sanctorum are already speaking of an all out attack on Iran’s nuclear facility. If political leaders and the general public have not yet learned from Iraq, then we are doomed to repeat our mistakes and pay for them dearly.
United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China are the five nations under the nuclear non proliferation treaty (NPT) that hold nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan and North Korea possess weapons but are outside the NPT and Iran is under a list of suspected nations to hold nuclear weapon building capacities. Shouldn’t India, Pakistan and North Korea be a greater threat to the world? U.S, U.K, Russia, France and China have historically caused more damage to the peace in the world than most other countries. Somehow the legitimacy of war is upheld when a select group of nations partake in it while its condemned when a few weaker countries are involved.
It’s all about energy
One will have to wait and see how this episode will pan out and I would hope that irrational moves like an all out war are not accepted by any nation. But behind this current crisis lies a bigger challenge of energy and its implications to our modern world and its future. Industrial civilization over the last two centuries has been built on cheap fossil fuel energy in the form of coal and oil. Our economies are inextricably linked to these fossil fuels and any dramatic change in their availability can bring entire economies of nations and the world crumbling down. This was amply demonstrated during the 2008 recession when oil prices reached an unprecedented $147 a barrel and sparked the sudden drop! Such examples can be seen throughout our history and with pronounced significance in the last 40 years, ever since America’s oil production peaked in the early 1970′s.
The irrepressible paradox of our times is the fact that our obsession with increasing growth is now unable to reconcile to decreasing levels of fossil fuels around the world. The International Energy Agency in its world energy outlook 2010 has stated that world production of oil has plateaued at around 86-88 million barrels a day in 2006. Conventional sources of oil from onshore and offshore rigs are beginning to level out with some of the biggest fields like the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia peaking. To quench our thirst for oil, we have since begun digging deeper and harder with ever increasing costs to tap unconventional fuels like the tar sands, deep water gulfs, arctic ice caps etc which are environmentally disastrous. Such risky efforts to secure fossil fuel resources have become a priority for many OECD and fast developing countries. This race to the last remaining resource of oil on the planet has inevitably lead wealthy nations to invade, occupy or politically and economically influence major oil producing countries like those in the Middle East. From Saudi Arabia to Iraq to the latest war on Libya, political and energy analysts have connected the dots and shown the direct relation between oil and these wars. The history of recent dictatorial regimes in these regions can also be traced back to western influences and the role of energy. Such regimes have also been strongly stereotyped and vilified as hubs for Islamic fundamentalism thereby providing the justification that western powers needed to attack. Mainstream media can take a fair share of the blame for this.
The impending crisis with Iran is no different with it being one of the largest producers of oil in the world. Countries are continuing to talk about tapping newly found oil reserves in the Caspian Sea and South China Sea but political forces are already hitting sparks with China and the U.S at logger heads in South China sea and Russia joining the party for the Caspian Sea oil. It is high time we realize that even this new found oil will only last a couple of years before we begin to allow a systemic collapse of our economies with our own hands. This modern geopolitics driven by oil has caused irreparable damage to millions of ordinary citizens around the world and we cannot afford to continue with our obsession with fossil fuel driven growth. Our planet has limits and therefore our economic and political plans for the future should find an equitable way between nations to live within these limits.
Climate change – a challenge and a much needed diversion
Our incessant burning of fossil fuels has created an immense challenge for humanity. Climate change has already begun unraveling with extreme weather and disasters raging across the planet. 2011 set new records in environmental disasters and rising temperatures. Scientists continue to strengthen the science around climate change and are constantly warming us to drastically reduce our carbon emissions. Given this scenario, is war an option?
Definitely not! An oft ignored issue by environmentalists and activists is the fact that emissions from wars are one of the highest. R&D, export and import of weapons and the ultimate use and destruction of infrastructure can cumulatively lead to a lot of emissions. Wars, as we have seen in the past decade, put an often unbearable burden on the fiscal reserves of countries that participate. Further pressure on our already weak economies will make it highly difficult to allocate funds to essential public services, let along climate change. The recent announcement of Obama to cut defense expenses seemed too good to be true and rightly so, as the United States continues to expand its military presence around the world in anticipation of more battles and wars! Such wanton use of public money when more pressing issues like climate change are upon us is nothing less than harakiri.
The Green Climate Fund which was established to support least developed and Island nations to tackle climate change does not have adequate money when science is demanding an inflow of 2-3% of global GDP to address the issue. No nation can afford a war when climate change poses a threat to many more lives in the long term than wars!
Conclusions
A war with Iran should not and cannot be an option. Negotiations need to be escalated and a multilateral decision has to be taken on this issue. Too often the powers that be have violated international laws and brought misery upon millions of civilians in order to serve their own vested interests. If Iran is allowed to be a repeat of the story of Iraq, we would be doing humanity a great disservice.
2011 brought with it the Arab Spring and the occupy movements that have created a much needed debate in the people of the world on the serious issues of our times. 2012 will need to see a ramp up of these movements where ordinary citizens will hold their countries accountable and demonstrate the real power of democracy!
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Picture: Abbie Trayler-Smith / Panos Pictures / DFID
At the outset of this new year, under the banner of the United Nation’s sustainable energy for all campaign, the voices clamoring for a revolutionary shift from centralized fossil power to decentralized clean energy are growing louder. What’s more, they are increasingly coming from traditionally conservative corners that are recognizing that the only way to deliver energy access is to rely on decentralized clean energy. 2012 is the year that this innovative new approach that will deliver hundreds of millions from poverty, firmly entrench clean energy, and help democratize the world begins.
The foundations for this departure from orthodoxy have been laid by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has essentially admitted in a series of energy access papers that the majority of those without electricity today will never be wired to the grid. The Government of India goes even further estimating that two-thirds of its unelectrified households need distributed power after it spent a decade increasing centralized energy supplies (by 60%) only to see a correspondingly paltry increase in energy access (10%). To these realizations can be added a growing number of countries seeking to throw off the shackles of dirty kerosene expenses (see Kenya’s call to be ‘Kerosene free’) and it’s clear the situation is ripe for change.
At the same time decades of experience from a broad set of actors are bringing successful models to fruition placing the lofty goal of universal energy access firmly in the realm of the possible. This grassroots effort is colliding with a fundamentally shifting economics for clean energy vis-a-vis fossil fuels that is ensuring decentralized clean energy is the best option for off grid areas.
Here’s how the UN SEFA campaign can take advantage of these aligning stars to shift the focus from pilot projects to scale, from traditional aid based models to a dependence on enterprise. Doing so will catalyze revolutionary changes that will reverberate throughout societies around the world:
1) Create an Energy Access Enterprise Investment Fund to finance cell phone tower conversions away from diesel to clean energy. There are 639,000 existing off grid cell phone towers powered by expensive diesel generators. Converting these towers to clean energy already makes economic sense but liquidity constraints make financing these conversions difficult in today’s market. The campaign should work to identify sources of funding that can finance the conversion of these towers by allowing them to be the first call on the capital. More importantly, the campaign should leverage its position to ensure that a portion of the installations are built with excess capacity that local entrepreneurs can use to power surrounding communities; a concept referred to as Community Power, which is one of the most exciting innovations in rural electrification.
2) Make electricity an associated product with cell-phones, or as a product charged through cell-phones. Cell phone companies are scrambling all over each other to provide free charging to their off grid customers because they only way they can increase their revenue is if customer’s phones stay charged. When their push is combined with emerging pay as you go business models that create radical affordability we can serve 600 million people — over half the population lacking access to electricity. This is already happening in a number of exciting ways but needs to be scaled. The campaign should help bring together big mobile phone off-grid operators and investors to catalyze financing that will make this happen in a big way.
3) Provide public funds to support electrification for the bottom-half of the off-grid world. The other half of the off grid world – the half that doesn’t have a cell phone and is really the poorest of the poor – will require concessional capital that must come from international public institutions like the World Bank or exciting new initiatives like Norway’s Energy Plus initiative. The problem is institutions like the World Bank are still pouring billions into failed grid extensions that are doing little to solve the problem of energy access. These portfolios should be redeployed to support decentralized clean energy and combined with concerted advocacy aimed at world governments to gradually shift existing fossil subsidies towards a United States Small Business Association model that provides 90% loan guarantees to rural electrification efforts based on decentralized clean energy. The campaign can reward the World Bank and innovative governments who make bold pledges with international recognition at the Rio +20 conference in June.
4) Create Consumer Demand and Awareness. Sociological models show that disruptive technological adoption tends to proceed from a small subset of consumers to the more conservative majority once a certain momentum has been built. The gap between the early adopters of a new technology, and the early majority, can be the most important, and significant, barrier to widespread adoption. Public institutions can play a vital role in overcoming this barrier by financing the early stage marketing and awareness campaigns that NGO’s, social entrepreneurs, and small businesses alone can’t afford. Institutions like the World Bank can and should provide grants for fleets of Solar Demonstration Centers like the one SELCO-India operates in rural India to demonstrate the multiple services clean energy can provide poor consumers including, mobile phone charging, lighting, and purified water. Such a fleet, coupled with broader policy support for enabling environments - like creating stable supply chains, support for products and services that increase income generation and productivity, training institutes to impart generalized broad-based technical skills, and the provision of appropriate financing – would undoubtedly generate much needed momentum for renewable energy adoption and energy access worldwide.
These are just a few of the many opportunities the 2012 Sustainable Energy For All campaign must seize in order to catalyze off grid markets. Doing so could, as my colleague Carl Pope points out, lead to outsized impacts including half of humanity being powered by decentralized solar. But entrenched interests, failure of vision, and the crushing weight of the status quo threaten business as usual. In 2012 this campaign must rally behind the realization that business as usual means failure as usual, a situation that the world’s poor simply can’t afford.
On December 13, The Hindu’s editorial announced that “India Lost the Plot at Durban.” The editorial said that the Indian delegation was “isolated” and “intransigent” and quite simply “unprepared for the groundswell of support” for a comprehensive legally binding agreement. Jayanthi Natarajan, the Minister of Environment and head of delegation, fired back, in a rebuttal to the original editorial, that her team was successful in preserving the “development space” for India and other developing countries for another ten years, and through its “principled” position, was able to bring back equity into the talks.
When does a principle like equity become intransigence? Was India really speaking on behalf of the developing countries? Did these developing countries look up to India to help preserve their “development space” as Natarajan seems to think or wants us to believe? Or, did they jump on to the European Union led single treaty bandwagon lock, stock and barrel?
India’s position is a tough one. Indian agriculture still depends on the vagaries of the monsoon, abundance of cheap coal has locked the energy mix into a fossil fuel heavy one unless major policy changes are made, and growth is thought of mainly in terms of carbon based industrialization. How does such a country wrestle with international obligations, show leadership, and keep its priorities straight? This post fundamentally reflects my own attempt at understanding India’s position on climate negotiations and the tactics it employs.
Equitable Access to Sustainable Development- what exactly is this loaded term?
Equitable access refers to global atmospheric space. The logic is that all human beings have equal ‘entitlement’ to this space and that past usage must be taken into account to determine how the remaining space is allocated. This term seems to be India’s effort to reincarnate the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in a more operational form. India fought a tough battle to have this inserted into the COP agenda. There will be a workshop on equitable access next year. It’s worth pondering about this concept in a little detail.
India seems to like this term for the following three reasons (albeit very flawed):
a. India’s per capita emissions is low. It stands at around 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person. Using this statistic, India says it simply cannot be asked to sign up for legally binding commitments because the emissions level is so low. What the negotiators conveniently forget to mention is that no country would argue that people below the poverty line, however liberally defined, would need to operate under a carbon constraint. For people not meeting that basic threshold of livelihood, improving their condition is clearly the most overriding priority. As a result, India is simply creating a straw-man argument to posture on this basis. And, 1.5 tons of carbon is the average amount. There are islands of high carbon intensity in the country and a blanket 1.5 average doesn’t do justice to the variation in between.
b. Climate change negotiations has been the territory of the environment ministry. The situation resembles that of a carpenter with a hammer- programmed to find a nail to hammer it down. Environmental negotiators are trained to think in terms of point source pollutants. Hence, the gut reaction is to identify the sources of the pollutant and design ways to cap it. Plus, it leaves us with a very convenient solution- lets figure out how much we can pollute and divide up the ‘space’. The problem is that greenhouse gases are not so easy to cap as they pervade throughout our economies. Addressing climate change will require a systematic reconfiguration to how our way of living has been wired. Essentially, negotiators are trying to bring down an elephant with a table knife. It simply won’t do. This problem is not specific or unique to Indian negotiators alone (more on this below).
c. Development as the first priority- how could anyone dispute that development is the overriding priority of developing countries, especially if they’re developing countries themselves? By creating a false dichotomy between greenhouse gas reductions and development, India is kicking the can down the road. Where is the notion of equity for its own people who are extremely vulnerable to climate change? Development does not have to mean increased emissions and development will be a lot harder in a world struggling with climate change. Furthermore, the obsession with per capita atmospheric space points to a distorted belief of what people really need. People need energy services for their end uses, not the energies by themselves, let alone their accompanying emissions. Hence, a focus on the needs of the people rather than carbon needs to be the way forward.
Was India the voice of the developing countries?
India has a long tradition of claiming the mantle of leadership. It did so during the days of the Cold War as a key proponent of the Non Aligned Movement and has been a strong holdout on trade negotiations under the Doha Round on behalf of developing countries. Climate change seems to be a natural extension. While major emitters like India and China did announce emissions intensity targets, they were very opposed to turning these pledges into legally binding targets. This was done in the spirit of preserving the principle of equity and more precisely the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. For a long time, the developing countries, with their positions articulated primarily through the Group of 77 and China, seemed to fall in line with the notion of preserving the developed-not developed distinction that has been enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention. However, the insistence on the preservation of this distinction had been the very reason why the major historical emitters like the USA and EU were holding out. In the final plenary of the Durban, G77 was silent- meaning there was no consensus in the group for someone to speak on behalf of the group.
The developing countries found their voice in Durban. The Least Developed Countries and the Africa Group joined the European Union-led call for a comprehensive legal agreement that included everyone. It truly was a moment of awakening; a moment when the developing countries finally called the bluff. By siding with the EU, the developing countries expressed their collective frustration at how the climate negotiations had been held hostage for so long. So, it seems a little absurd for Natarajan to insist that the developing countries provided ‘groundswell’ support. Similarly, the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group also collapsed. Brazil, widely known to be one of the most flexible developing countries, was happy to sign up for a legally binding outcome. South Africa, usually not as enthusiastic as Brazil, also signed on, as it risked not achieving anything concrete under its very own presidency of the COP if it didn’t throw its weight behind the Durban Platform as well. That left only India and China. The Emperor was indeed naked and it was right for the Hindu to call it so.
This leads me to ask: was Natarajan justifying the recalcitrant Indian position (and claiming support of developing countries) to domestic constituencies? Rather, was Natarajan, symptomatic of the beleaguered state of the current UPA government, trying to squash rumors of India having conceded too much?
Cutting deals or entitlements?
Edward Luce, in his bestselling In spite of the Gods, describes Indian negotiators as akin to high school debaters eager to score points on rhetoric in international negotiations. As much as I thought that this observation had undertones of condescension, I’m starting to wonder if Luce made a very pertinent point. When does posturing really end; and, do negotiators end up believing the posture they adopt more than the fundamental interest that underlines those postures? Are the negotiators able to translate these postures into meaningful gains? Pratap Bhanu Mehta thinks the sense of ‘entitlements’ heavily influences how India engages with other countries. It is no surprise that one principle that India is so strongly pushing for is the equitable access to atmospheric space.
Natarajan’s response to the Hindu’s criticism regarding the lack of a “positive mandate” was that India was successful in halting the “negative mandate” of the developed world. There is a feeling of victimization; a feeling of rich countries out to get us. Perhaps this is resonant of the post Independence era socialist thinking; perhaps it reflects a country grappling to reconcile the challenges of being a developing country with its sense of civilizational greatness. In any case, there needs to be some serious thinking on how to engage in more effectively in multilateral negotiations, particularly at a time when the interests of India do not seem to be congruent with the interests of the larger developing world. The time has come for India to put forward a positive agenda, in the climate negotiations and otherwise, and play the role of a bridge that can connect the developing and developed worlds.
Guest post by Grace Boyle, Greenpeace India
Roughly one in six people in the world live in India.
Approximately 40% of those people have no access to electricity – and the amount with access to a reliable, quality supply is even smaller.
The centralised energy system currently favoured by policy makers is not delivering electricity fairly, especially to those who live in rural areas.
As the climate talks in Durban continue, we’ve taken a close look at eleven cases across India in which pioneering individuals are taking a fresh approach, and creating reliable energy services through decentralised renewable energy systems.
Taking Charge is published by Greenpeace, with photographs by leading Indian photojournalists. The full report is available to download here.
The social side of decentralised renewable energy:
Technology is fairly straightforward – it’s the social aspects that are the most complex. Access to energy is intricately connected to economic and social advantage. So what happens when entrepreneurs, innovators and ordinary communities take their energy futures into their own hands?
Who manages it, pays for it, and benefits from it?
A few of the pioneers I met:
Ram and Mario Esteves are brothers. They founded a community organisation encompassing 902 villages, which has built 5,500 biogas units in the homes of poor women in Karnataka. The units were financed by a €1.1m forward sale of carbon credits under the CDM and their usage is being monitored daily. They are now building 18,000 more. Inside the houses, women cook in a clean environment and no longer have to struggle back from the forest with firewood, a day-long journey during which they were vulnerable to sexual assault. “Ultimately, it’s the social issues that are important,” says Ram. “If there’s a match between these and climate change issues, so be it. If there’s no match, so be that also.”
Srinivasan is an entrepreneur who has set up his solar thermal hot water heaters on a hospital roof in Delhi. His company is one of India’s first ESCOs (energy services company), paid by the hospital to heat their water to an agreed temperature every day. The hospital saves money on their previous gas heating method, and shrugs off the maintenance and risks of owning technology. Srinivasan turns a profit, and is now setting up a solar PV plant on the roof of a school.
Shanmugam is the ex-president of Odanthurai Panchayat, a group of eleven densely-populated villages in Tamil Nadu. Educated only up to the age of fifteen, he would take the bus to renewable energy trade fairs to tour the tables and quiz RE companies on what they could do for his Panchayat. He’s installed 575 solar streetlights, a biomass gasifier for pumping filtered water, and a nightsoil biogas system that residents are loathe to admit using because of social stigma. In 2006 he took a bank loan and purchased a 350 kW grid-connected wind turbine in a Suzlon windfarm – the first local public body in the country to do so. In three years, the loan will be repaid and the electricity produced by the turbine will not only wipe the Panchayat’s electricity bills to zero, but bring them an income of 800,000 rupees a year.
Five fundamentals:
Despite the diversity of geography, technology and operator model covered by these case studies, a few common truths emerged in the process of learning and writing about them.
The poor are willing and able to pay for electricity. Noble ambitions to deliver free electricity to the poor through a centralised electricity grid often end up as broken infrastructure and spasmodic supply in reality. Instead, people use diesel, burn butter lamps or hitch up car batteries to televisions – all expensive options that mean the poor end up paying more than the rich for electricity. In all our case studies, people paid a cheaper rate for electricity from renewable energy. In some, the community had decided which of its members to make exceptions for – three widows in a Himalayan village, for example, received free electricity.
Decentralised renewable energy can be applied to a diversity of situations. The beauty of small-scale, decentralised energy systems is that they can be tailored to deliver the exact energy services required locally. And if there’s a problem, they can be responsive. The magnificent Husk Power Systems have electrified over 100,000 households through biomass gasification of rice husk. When they started, local millers raised the price of rice husk, noticing it was now valued. So Husk Power opened their own mill, dehusking villagers’ rice for free. Once a reasonable price had been settled on with the local millers, they shut down their mill and directed the trade back to the local businesses.
A leader helps. Every single one of our case studies had a leader. The route to leadership didn’t seem to be important – the leaders we found included a priest, a pair of engineer friends with a political point to prove, and an elected member of local government – but their ability to mobilise communities was.
It’s about extracting more from existing supply chains, without damaging them in the process. A cow is of great value to a family because it gives milk, and its dung can be used for fertiliser. The Karnataka families with biogas units get even more from a cow by digesting its dung anaerobically to make cooking gas – leaving a nutrient-rich slurry that makes an excellent fertiliser. Similarly, a micro-hydro unit in the Western Ghats diverts a section of stream to create up to 5 kW of electricity, yet the stream is left unchanged. In fact, the community is now taking steps to protect the stream’s flow.
Proper management and maintenance is crucial. Maintenance services must be available to even the most remote of areas – a pivotal point recognised by SELCO and Prakruti Hydro Labs. However, technology should also be appropriate to its users. We visited one extremely poor community where the people lived in terrible conditions and were given a solar lamp for a few hours each day. We decided not to feature it. Frankly, solar lamps were not priority for those people – they needed medicines, sanitation and better food. However, the best projects we saw acknowledged energy access as part of a holistic development initiative, linked with income, equality, and health.
Download the full report from the Greenpeace India website.
Contact Grace Boyle at grsboyle@gmail.com
COP 17 Durban, South Africa
This is the fifth annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP) conference that I have attended. My journey in the process started with the landmark COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. That conference was the first major one that was to layout a roadmap for what the post-Kyoto regime might look like. Its mandate was to establish a new comprehensive strong treaty by COP 15 in 2009 (Copenhagen). Copenhagen did not result in a new regime, it yielded some political targets for emissions reductions by major emitters and hollowed the process of any trust it may have built up over the years. COP 16 was weak and only seemed to be a victory because of how low the expectations really were. The world is no safer today than it was 20 years ago when the Rio Earth Summit established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In fact, emissions are higher, the planet is warmer and all signs point to a global average temperature rise 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. This is at a time that scientific research is calling for a global cap at 1.5 degrees which we would reach immediately even if we were to stop all emissions today.
So what is happening at this COP? Despite getting minimal media attention in the lead up to these negotiations, they are quite important. The fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding instrument that holds much of the developed world responsible (save the United States) for reducing emissions is set to have its first commitment period expire in 2012. Here we need a commitment from the parties for a second commitment period to continue to reduce emissions and sustain the growing carbon market. A market that has helped spur the innovation of many new clean technologies. Already there are signs that signatories to the Kyoto Protocol want out. Japan, the host country for the Protocol for example. Canada announced its formal withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol just the day before the negotiations started. Efforts by some parties to push off any major decision until 2020 are alarming and were recently slammed by the Director of the UNEP. It is unlikely at this point that the text on “Shared Vision” which is meant to establish a global long-term reduction of 80% by 2050 and a peaking year for emissions of 2015 will emerge in the final decision at this COP. However a representative of the African Group stated boldly today that “African soil would not be the graveyard of the Kyoto Protocol.” Let us hope that is not the case, but perhaps its fate will be left up to the negotiations next year in Doha, Qatar.
The lack of parties’ commitment to mitigate has put a lot of pressure on finance for adaptation and technology transfer. Durban may deliver by approving the work of the Transitional Committee on the new Green Climate Fund and get this annual $100 billion dollar fund started by 2020 in order to meet the needs of developing countries. With the world still dealing with the economic downturn it is uncertain whether or not the markets will be able to deliver that kind of funding. Delegates complained that the price of carbon in Europe had dropped to 5-6 Euros and that the 2% levy on CDM (which is still in need of reform) had generated a pitiful amount of funds which are necessary for “survival” as adaptation funding. India has floated a proposal to deal with the issue of “equity” based on “entitlements” to emit given the remaining global carbon budget. If their proposal (which is based on historical emissions) is to be used, developed countries would have little to no room to emit more carbon, in some cases having negative entitlements for which they would have to pay developing countries in order to give them the clean technologies they need to not emit. Currently this proposal is being discussed amongst the negotiating blocks and has not entered the formal negotiation agenda. If not the financial mechanism, perhaps the Technology Mechanism will make some breakthroughs in Durban by addressing the issue of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and the work of the Climate Technology Centers and Network (CTCN). Technologies are crucial to getting the mitigation process started, with or without targets.
I sat quietly listening to the opening statements of the usual suspects yesterday as the negotiations kicked off. The night before the heavens had opened up with a torrential downpour which caused heavy damage and loss of some lives in Durban—perhaps a sign that the Earth was tuned in, even if the politicians weren’t. “No single nation is dispensable,” stated the Chair of the Association of Small Island States, a grouping of 43 states threatened with sea-level rise. “Now. Now. Now. Now, for the people, now, for the planet,” she said in a desperate attempt to remind the parties that decades had passed and much is at stake. We can walk away from Durban and keep attending conferences or we can make substantial progress. Progress to reinstate faith in the process, and pave the way for a future we want.
The bright lights of Diwali have further exposed the depth and breadth of India’s coal crisis bringing a 21st century reality into painful focus: Geologically speaking coal is abundant, economically speaking cheap coal is not. India may be the first country to face this harsh reality, but it will not be the last. Fortunately, the clean energy sector is soaring, spurring wind and solar wars as nations fight to ensure they are not left in the black fog of the coal era. The question India now faces is whether it will seize the opportunity this crisis presents, or swim against the tides of history.
India’s reaction to the coal crisis is critical because the fallout is only getting worse. When they can secure coal supplies plants are forced to charge prohibitively expensive rates that are bankrupting state electricity boards and distribution companies. But for the most part coal is hard to come by as the supply situation is so bad that Coal India has taken the dramatic step of no longer guaranteeing fuel supply contracts to power plants. The result is power plants are now facing critical shortagesthat pose systemic default risk causing leading credit rating agencies to issue a warning on the sector.
The situation is dire but the response coming from the industry and the government is even worse. Thus far it has largely been to decry “environmental hurdles” standing in the way of coal mines and power plants while demanding more coal be secured at any cost. The problem is that “strict environmental clearances” have been anything but. The “bogey of green clearances” has been thoroughly debunked by the Center for Science and Environment who showed that environmental clearances have actually doubled over the past five years. This spin was targeted at former minister of environment and forests Jairam Ramesh whose record for clearing or rejecting projects was basically no different from his predecessors’. Between August 2009 and July 2010, Jairam cleared 535 total projects and rejected a whopping six.
The harsh reality is that the era of cheap and abundant coal in India is over. What’s left of the cheap stuff can only be found under thickly forested areas inhabited by populations weary of the coal curse (see Greenpeace India’s recent report on Singrauli). These communities are rightly fighting the displacement and economic depravation that comes with it demanding the countryMove Beyond Coal. The result is that the social, environmental, and direct economic cost of getting at this coal is, as it should be, prohibitively expensive.
Weary of this fight the government and industry has increasingly turned its gaze to the international coal market. But imports are no solution as they leave the nation at the whims of an increasingly expensive and volatile international market place. The desperately needed bailout of Tata Mundra and construction halt at Krishnaptnam attest to the folly of this course of action.
All of that is the bad news. The good news is that the government need not double down on the disastrous path of digging for more coal, or buying up foreign mines. It has another option: build the foundation for a sustainable energy future on its booming solar industry. Record investments are pouring in as solar prices are set to fall 40% over the next 4 years while the market grows at a whopping 178% Compound Annual Growth Rate to reach 9 GW by 2016. It’s growing so fast that installed capacity is expected to grow to 2 GW by 2013 up from just .05 GW last year. That’s why the US Export Import Bank is clamoring to finance ever more solar projects in India after setting arecord of $575 million earlier this year.
The drastically different trajectory of the solar sector gives India a clear choice: Double down on terribly expensive, destructive and heavily polluting coal or move now to capitalize on this solar boom and ensure they get it right. The global community is now focusing its attention on theUnited Nations campaign to deliver Sustainable Energy for All. A full quarter of the global population lacking access to electricity resides in India. Where centralized coal investments have failed, solar is poised to deliver. Now is the time to seize the opportunity this crisis presents and pursue a radical departure in energy policy that unshackles the country from coal’s destructive legacy. It’s time to recognize the era of cheap coal is over, and that the age of cheap solar is now dawning.
