On High Flame

IF spring's here, can summer be far behind? For much of the country this year, the usually gentle and mild months of March and April were harsh and hot, with the mercury hovering 5 to 6 degrees above normal, even hitting 40 degrees in early March in some parts. That begs the question: will this summer be a repeat of last year's, which claimed about 1,350 lives?

Quite likely. All of northern India is already in the grip of a heat wave, with temperatures soaring to levels usually reached over a fortnight later. For instance, Orissa, where the toll in last year's heat wave was 650 lives, is already sizzling at over 40 degrees. Meteorologists predict that coastal towns and villages could be worst hit, with temperatures crossing the 50-degree mark. Six people have succumbed to the heat in the introductory assault itself, and the state government isn't taking any chances this time. Buses may have to idle while the sun is at its peak; siestas may become the order of the day; people have been advised to drink lots of water; and hospitals ordered to stock up salt, ice and medicines to treat heat stroke.

Orissa's not a lone instance. The entire Northeast has not received any rains in the last six months affecting, among other things, tea production. Coffee plantations in Karnataka's Coorg district are also being hit. Places in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have already recorded temperatures of over 45 degrees.

But what's heating up the country? Is it a caprice of climate, as the Met department would have it? Or is it, as some environmentalists reckon, a reaction provoked by human meddling with the environment, for instance, deforestation? Or the more complex effects of global warming because of the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere thanks to deforestation and fossil-fuel burning? That's what many weather-watchers suspect but do not come right out and say so for lack of scientific evidence. Also on the suspect list: El Nino and sun-spot cycles.

Climate being what it is—a hard nut to crack—it's difficult to put a finger on it. Says G.B. Pant, director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune: "While a hot summer is consistent with a warming trend coupled with diminishing rainfall in parts of India, we cannot confi-dently pinpoint the culprit, be it El Nino or GHGs." This ambiguity in interpreting regional climate variations in terms of global warming is precisely why global warming is so difficult to relate to. Take Chhattisgarh district of Madhya Pradesh, for instance. For the last three years, villagers here haven't seen monsoon rains. Relentless droughts together with untimely downpours during the dry season have destroyed paddy crops, bringing economic ruin to the peasants. Now would you call this customary monsoon madness or a coherent testimony to global warming?

This local-global connectivity is equally elusive in big cities where, because of greater interference with the environment, climatic vagaries are more frequent and pronounced. Last year, for instance, Chennai recorded its hottest day of the century. As it turned out, it was also the hottest year of the century worldwide. People immediately made the obvious—if simplistic—connection: global warming. "But, for all we know," cautions Pant, "it may well have been a local aberration. The heat-island effect, in which a thinning green canopy and thickening concrete cover dry up the earth, could have jacked up temperatures. " The onset of the heat this year too has been at a, well, scorching pace. The transition from spring to summer came 15 days too soon; Delhi got its hottest April of the decade. Weather-watchers predict another killer heat wave this summer. "With the entire northwest and central India affected, it's clearly not a case of local warming," points out S.R. Kalsi, deputy DG at Mausam Bhavan, the nodal weather monitoring authority.

So is this a mere flash in the pan or are we being pushed, as it were, from the frying pan into the fire? Public perceptions tend to veer towards the latter but weather diviners are sceptical. "People say that a particular winter is the coldest they have experienced, or a summer the hottest, but history may not support such views. Human memory is too short to remember long-term temperature changes, and one is biased towards the most recent experiences," IITM's Pant explains.

If personal recollections are prejudiced and unreliable, what do objective analyses of temperature and rainfall records tell us about India's climate? Is there a warming trend, consistent with the theory of global warming? Again, there are no straight answers. Only indicators. Primarily because of the complexity of climate behaviour but partly also because of the lack of doggedness on the part of Indian scientists to crack it. A 1985 study of temperature variations between 1901 and 1982 suggests that the annual mean temperatures for the country as a whole has risen by a significant 0.4 degrees Celsius over the last century. This is in line with the 0.6 degree Celsius rise in the average global temperatures this century. The study reveals that while there is more warming over the northern and southern parts of the west coast, the interior peninsula and the northeast regions of the country, parts of northwest India are cooling off. Some more digressions of Indian climate:

However, there are some regional trends emerging. The west coast, north Andhra Pradesh and northwest India are getting more rains while parts of east Madhya Pradesh, west Orissa, northeast India and parts of Gujarat and Kerala have been experiencing a lax monsoon. In the Garhwal and northeast Himalayas, the absence of the usual moisture has led to several forest fires.

By far the least ambiguous signal of global warming seems to be the retreat of glaciers. Says S.I. Hasnain, a glaciologist at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), "Once 25 km long, the Gangotri glacier has receded by 8 km since '70. Not only are glaciers receding, they're becoming thinner. I believe that most of our glaciers are slowly shrinking, but unfortunately we haven't studied our glaciers as much as the Nepalese or the Chinese." Their studies too show clearly that the glaciers are in retreat.More alarmingly, if the prediction that a quarter of all glacial mass will disappear by 2050 holds water, millions of people dependent on the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers for survival could face a severe water crisis. "This is because in the dry season—June to September—water supply to these rivers from glaciers, which is almost 75 per cent, is more stable and predictable than that from rainfall," explains Hasnain.

This warming trend could also render ecologically fragile species extinct. According to biodiversity expert P.S. Ramakrishnan of JNU, in warmer climes exotic hardy weeds have already begun to creep up mountain slopes, wiping out species vulnerable to small changes in climate. "In the Corbett National Park area in Garhwal, for example, the exotic weed lan-tana is fast expanding its empire, as are pine trees," he says. Baba Sundaranandji, an amateur naturalist who has spent his last 50 years at Gangotri, says that many plants that he had photographed 30 or 40 years ago have disappeared. Peter Smetacek, a Hungarian lepidopterist, has also recorded the disappearance of many butterfly species in the Kumaon Himalayas.

CLEARLY, the Indian climate is changing, along with that of the world. Most experts agree that much of this change is linked to rising GHG emissions. They warn that as the concentration of carbon dioxide doubles, the earth will become warmer by at least 2 degrees Celsius over the next century, leading to irreversible changes in climate. Sea levels may rise, inundating smaller islands and submerging coastal populations; extreme events like droughts, floods and cyclones may become more frequent and devastating; vulnerable species may become extinct; crop yields may decrease; diseases like malaria and dengue may invade fresh territories and vulnerable populations.

Remember though that these dire predictions are based on mathematical models of climate change. And the degree of damage predicted differs depending on which model is chosen and what data is fed into it. "To give you some idea of the uncertainties involved," says climatologist Murari Lal of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, "currently there are seven global climate models, all of which give wildly varying results when it comes to regional forecasts." Add this to the fickle climate behaviour, and it's probable that many predictions may turn out to be exaggerated or even completely wrong. If that's so, is it wise, ask sceptics, to invest billions of dollars in curbing GHGs? Perhaps not, but imagine if all or much of it turns out to be true. The damage then would be immense.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, initiated in 1994 and ratified by India, represents the political commitment of nations to combat the threat of climate change. Barring a few dissenting voices, there is a general consensus that global warming is not an abstraction. Indeed, the billion dollar question now is not whether GHGs are warming up the planet but who the greatest emitters are, how serious the threat is, who would suffer the most and how, and what the least expensive ways of getting around this looming menace are.

These are as much political as scientific posers. For, how one assesses the impact of climate change and apportions the responsibility for it would determine not only how much but also how quickly nations, mainly the industrialised world, will have to invest in curbing GHG emissions. The small island nations, for instance, would want a bigger and speedier cap on GHG emissions lest they are consumed by the swelling oceans. But industrialised nations prefer a smaller and slower reduction so that their economy is not hurt.

So where does India stand in the emissions standings? Its contribution to the global GHG kitty is minimal. Against 1,355 million tonnes a year for the US and China's 1,300 million tonnes, India emits just 150 million tonnes. The per capita figures are more telling: the US has 5.4 million tonnes, Japan 2.5 and the global average is 1.1; India contributes only 0.22 million tonnes per head.

While only a minor player in the drama of climate change, India could become a major casualty. In fact, in the business-as-usual scenario, climate models predict that Asia and Africa would face the brunt of a much warmer planet, with economic impacts ranging from 2 to 9 per cent of GNP, as against 1 to 1.5 per cent for developed nations. Remember, once again, these projections are at best ballpark figures as estimating regional impacts of climate change is fraught with huge uncertainties. So depending on who's doing the study—or more appropriately, who's paying for it—these grey areas can be easily exploited to play up—or down—the impact.

In November 1997, in the Japanese city of Kyoto, after much hectic parleying and lobbying, the US, the European Union and Japan finally agreed to reduce overall GHG emissions by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008-2012. Some scientists, however, believe these commitments are not enough; rather than the touted 5.2 per cent decrease, they argue, a small increase above 1990 levels could be expected. Says R.K. Pachauri, director, Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), "What one witnessed at Kyoto owes nothing to science and all to diplomacy." Two years down the line, even these inadequate targets remain on paper. Chiefly because of the US intransigence to ratify the protocol unless the developing countries—mainly China, India and Mexico—also cut down their carbon dioxide emissions. In diplomatic terms, the US wants a "meaningful participation" from developing countries. This move has taken developing nations by surprise as it had been agreed earlier that they would be exempted from any commitments for the industrialised world which is and will be the biggest emitter of GHGs.

The US has proposed what it calls the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to bring about this 'meaningful participation'. Essentially, it's a quid pro quo where industrialised countries invest in carbon-efficient projects in developing countries in exchange for tradeable "certified emission reduction" (CER) units. To oversee this trade, an executive board is to be set up. Says Kathleen McGinty, an environmental officer in the Clinton cabinet and currently a fellow with TERI: "It's a very practical idea. While the developing countries get cleaner and energy-efficient technologies, which means better environment and more productivity, the developed nations can meet their GHG targets less expensively and hence quickly. For India, whose environment is under immense pressure from development activities and which is likely to face the brunt of climate change, CDM offers an excellent opportunity."

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) disagrees. The CDM, it believes, is an iniquitous mechanism since developing nations will sell their cheap options to industrialised nations at rock-bottom prices and be caught out when it is their turn to reduce emissions. "The US," CSE director Anil Aggarwal wrote in Down to Earth, "plans to buy as much as 93 per cent of its emission units at the cheapest cost in the marketplace. It proposes to pay as little as $14 to $23 per tonne for its emissions credits, as against $125 if it does it at home." He feels emissions limits must be on  a per capita basis so that the right of every individual to the atmosphere is taken into account.

CSE's is a lone dissenting voice. For other Indian players with interests in the climate change sweepstakes, notably TERI, Development Alternatives and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), CDM is not a bad thing per se so long as economic interests are protected. Says Pachauri, "For instance, we should see to it that CERs do not account for more than say 10 per cent of a buyer's total commitment and that carbon accounts are not fudged; that we are not dumped with outdated technologies; that we do not underprice CERs. Unfortunately, our bureaucrats have very little idea of the subtleties involved in the politics of climate change, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are finally persuaded to endorse CDM without significant benefits to India."

That India still hasn't officially enunciated its policy on climate change reflects the perfunctory interest of mandarins in the environment ministry. Writes Danish researcher Susanne Jacobsen in her analysis of India's policy on the issue: "A lack of domestic debate on climate change, the ad-hoc style in the Indian bureaucracy's preparations and its tendency to rely heavily on a domestic scientific community which caters primarily to foreign concerns leaves the Indian government poorly prepared for creating bargaining room for its national interest. India is left merely to respond to the agendas on climate change of politicians, researchers and industrial interests of the North." And its people left to sweat it out.