The differentiated impacts of climate change - II

European lead is a positive step but Indian consequences still dire

March 19, 2015 06:08 pm | Updated November 13, 2021 10:48 am IST - MADURAI:

mridulaclimate2

mridulaclimate2

Last time we looked at the differing impacts that climate change had on various countries and framed the discussion through the lens of a prisoner’s dilemma: two prisoners in separate cells; if they cooperate they’re free if they don’t they both go to jail.

This time we ask: “What do the prisoners do in this dilemma, and where does that leave the world?” The US “prisoner” has muddled incentives - parts of him lose heavily in the changing climate, parts are unaffected while some powerful parts of him stand to lose if status quo is altered. The payoff of the Chinese “prisoner” is uniformly negative if status quo persists - so he would prefer to see cooperative action on climate change. What of the two other “prisoners” - the EU and India?

European countries look like the poster children of action on climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases (the causative agents of global warming) are down since 1990 and; a further binding 40% reduction in greenhouse gases (from 1990 levels) is targeted by 2030.

Europe achieved its targets for three reasons: the 2009 financial crisis and the 2011 Euro crisis caused the European economy to falter (and lowered the amount of energy it used), the outsourcing of production of a substantial fraction of the “stuff” consumed by European customers (and the emissions associated with producing the stuff) and the pursuit of renewable power. How they perform in future will depend on what their “payoff” is.

Air pollution (some of which exacerbates global warming) causes half a million deaths in Europe annually; Glacier melting and the flooding of rivers and rising sea levels threaten low lying countries like the Netherlands (where up to an eighth of the country lies below sea level). Intense water scarcity and increasing summer temperatures hurt agriculture and tourism income of Southern Europe. Many northern European countries benefit with lower heating costs, higher agricultural productivity and longer tourist seasons. There are winners and losers within Europe, but because Europe is developed, the losers can manage the changes.

Given the manageable negative payoff from climate change, why is Europe acting? Part of it maybe a desire to gain prominence in the world stage, a stage increasingly being dominated by the US and China. They can get leadership credibility only if they lead by example. Second, a higher sense of social equity in European countries may be driving action through a social justice angle. Third, European companies stand to gain from action on climate change. Some of the world’s leading wind energy manufacturers and LED lighting companies are European. 92% of responding Euro 300 companies report that climate regulation presents an opportunity to their business.

Now, India. India is and will be badly affected by the changing climate. We are a hot, dry and poor country - thus vulnerable to the heating and drying aspects of climate change (think floods, droughts, lost livelihoods and increased infection) and with limited financial space to adapt. We have abundant reserves of relatively inexpensive coal. We have a young country with a large poor and middle class hungry for iphones and commercial dreams. They will want the government to spend on education and jobs, not on carbon sequestration. We cannot take on binding unilateral targets of emission without ambitious binding emission reduction commitments and financial assistance from developed countries. Why? India cannot afford to cut its emissions aggressively - but even if it did, this would be futile if the rest of the world continued to emit for then, the world would still get warmer.

Taken together, India’s payoffs if status quo persists are very negative unless everyone cooperates; China’s is negative; US’s is very mixed; Europe, though the status quo payoff is not very negative, by credibly signalling that they will always cooperate, has made it more likely for others to cooperate . Returning to the prisoner’s dilemma, if prisoner A knew with certainty that prisoner B would always keep silent (say he had a secret camera in prisoner B’s room), it is extremely likely he would keep quiet, thus enabling both of them to be set free. Consider this: Europe made its 40% emissions reduction public announcement in October 2014. The China and US joint announcement to curb greenhouse gas emissions came a month later, in November, after eluding the world for so long.

The depressing truth is that the differentiated “payoffs” from climate change makes substantive action unlikely in a consensus based forum like the UN. We could try for better success by framing the issue on moral grounds like slavery and shame countries into complying by invoking reputational consequences. But that’s a long shot.

Given this, how should India act?

(To be continued)

Climaction is a fortnightly column that is published in MetroPlus Weekend on alternate Fridays. The next article in this series will appear on April 3. Feedback and questions may be e-mailed to climaction2015@gmail.com

Click here to read >Part 1 of this series.

(Mridula Ramesh is the Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles. She is also a student and teacher of global warming.)

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