JESSICA DESVARIEUX: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
India is in the grip of an extreme heatwave that has killed more than 1,100 people in
the past week. Some states have seen temperatures as high as 150 degrees Fahrenheit. With the
extreme heatwave in India, some are pointing to its connection to climate change. But can
we make that connection? With us to help us connect the dots are our two guests.
Joining us from Delhi, India, is D. Raghunandan. Rhagu is a member of the Delhi Science Forum,
which is a public interest organization dedicated to popularizing science and technology policies.
And also joining us from Vancouver is Anjali Appadurai. Anjali is a member of the Global
Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.
Thank you both for joining us.
ANJALI APPADURAI: Thanks, Jessica.
D. RAGHUNANDAN: Thanks.
DESVARIEUX: So Rhagu, let's start off with you, since you're on the ground there in India.
I understand that scientists are often reluctant to link extreme weather events like this current
heatwave in India to climate change. So can you just point us to some specific studies,
or any sort of evidence that can connect this extreme heat wave to climate change?
RHAGUNANDAN: Yeah. Well, scientifically the difficulty is in pinpointing a causal relationship
between a particular extreme weather event and climate change. We know that with climate
change, and we have figures now showing this, we will have more heatwaves every year. Slightly
higher temperatures each year. More extreme rainfall events each year. That we know. But
whether this particular heatwave is because of climate change or because of local climatic
or weather events, that's a slightly more difficult question to answer with a great
deal of certainty.
DESVARIEUX: Rhagu, those figures that you mentioned. What studies are you talking about?
RHAGUNANDAN: There are a number of meteorological studies in India as well as internationally
by the IPCC and by other agencies which show that the number of high rainfall events every
year have increased over the past 20 years. The number of heatwaves have also increased
over the past 20 years. But as I said, it's very difficult to pinpoint whether this particular
heatwave is because of climate change, or other regional or global weather events.
DESVARIEUX: Okay. But we can pinpoint who's being affected by these extreme weather events.
Anjali, can you just talk about some people who are most affected by this heatwave?
APPADURAI: Yes, Jessica. So the majority of people of this--the majority of this 1,100
casualties of this heatwave were homeless people. And the people who are affected first
are people of lower incomes, laborers who are expected to be working outside in the
sunlight. So this is a familiar situation we see with climate impacts around the world.
It really, it usually works out this way, those lower on the socioeconomic ladder affected
first. And that's one of the prime characteristics of climate change and how it's going to play
out in our world in the next few years.
DESVARIEUX: Now let's speak specifically about India's contribution to carbon emissions.
India is a heavy consumer of greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels. Rhagu, what specific energy
policies has India maintained that's contributed to climate change?
RHAGUNANDAN: India is high on fossil fuel energy production. In terms of electricity
generation for example, we are roughly in this country somewhere around 50 to 60 percent
of electricity generation is down to coal. Now, that's the transition which India is
trying to make, moving towards solar energy generation. But it's a slow transition given
the costs.
However, the flipside is on a per capita basis, India still is way, way below the global average
in terms of energy consumption. So in absolute numbers, we are high emitters. But on per
capita basis, we are extremely low. The U.S., for example, has about 16 times the per capita
energy consumption as India does.
DESVARIEUX: Is there real momentum, you mentioned transitioning to solar. Is there real momentum
in India to really move towards a greener economy?
RHAGUNANDAN: Yeah. There is good momentum on several fronts. One of them is a shift
towards solar electricity generation and to wind. But the obstacle here is costs more
than anything else. As we all know, solar and wind both are more expensive, particularly
solar, than other forms of energy production, particularly coal.
India has set a very ambitious target for solar, and maybe we can discuss that a little
bit later. But the other major driver is savings on energy by large industries. And this is
prompted not so much by climate considerations as by energy costs in industries like steel
and cement. The bigger obstacles, however, are the rising energy expenditures in the
transportation sector driven largely by personal transport and the expanding middle class,
and the failure of India to invest more in rail rather than in road. The big challenges
I think are in personal transportation, as I mentioned, but also the resistance comes
from the automobile manufacturers as well as from government, both of whom seem to think
that the automobile sector is a major driver of economic growth in the country, as well
as housing sector being a major driver. And these industries, the real estate industry
and the automobile industry are resisting energy efficiency policies which could save
a lot of energy, but which for [GDP] growth reasons is being held back.
DESVARIEUX: Anjali, I want to ask you about the role of the U.S., China, and Europe in
producing greenhouse gas emissions. What level of responsibility have they taken in trying
to aid developing countries like India who make the case that they did not produce the
brunt of these carbon emissions during industrialization, and need help from wealthier nations? Has
the West and China really stepped up?
APPADURAI: Right. There's an important distinction to make here. I think it's important to start,
the starting point should be that okay, we have a climate crisis on our hands, and 75
percent of the emissions in the atmosphere right now are the result of emissions from
the industrialization of the West. And that industrialization has gotten the so-called
developed countries, this is UN language, the developed, industrialized countries versus
the developing countries, the developed countries to the level of wealth and human development
that they're at right now.
So in the last few years, in the developing countries where 80 percent of the world's
population resides, those countries have started to go through their own industrialization
process, like China and India are kind of leading the way on that. They're the world's
largest developing countries. And so their emissions are starting to rise in the way
that sort of the U.S. and England were rising in their process of industrialization.
So notably, as a side note to that, much of the carbon output of countries like China
are actually generated as a result of producing goods that are then directly exported to the
U.S., so that's something to take into account as well. But it just shows you that the problem
is, it's systemic in nature. It's the wealthiest, essentially, in the world who have caused
the most emissions thus far.
And so then there's a question of who's responsible. So there's clearly historical responsibility.
But then there's also an ongoing current responsibility. But it's important, as Rhagu mentioned earlier,
it's important to note on a per capita basis, so on a per human basis, who is really paying
for climate change and who has the responsibility to deal with the issue the most. So someone
in China is using up to 20 times fewer emissions than someone in the U.S. is, for example.
And there's less historical responsibility there. So when it comes to who has the responsibility,
developed countries unequivocally have the brunt of the responsibility. And China's not
so much in that camp because of the lack of the historical trajectory.
So that's well established in the UN negotiations. It's developed countries are legally obligated
to step up and support developing countries not only through having strong domestic targets
at home to curb their own emissions, but also through the very, very important pillar of
climate finance. And finance can take several different forms, but it's essentially international
transfers to help developing countries not only adapt to existing and ongoing climate
impacts, but also to help them transition to a renewable economy. Because that transition
can't happen on its own and out of the blue. The world is still very much operating on
a Western economic model.
DESVARIEUX: And is that the basis for the Green Climate Fund, Anjali?
APPADURAI: Yes. The Green Climate Fund is a bit of a, it's a bit of a, honestly, an
ongoing disaster. And it just goes to show the state of climate finance right now. Climate
finance has really suffered. There's been a severe lack of commitment on the part of
the developed world.
So the GCF, the Green Climate Fund, has been negotiating for a long time. And basically
their decision was that the developed countries would work up to a pledge of $100 billion
U.S. annually by 2020. And so there was a deadline of April 30th of this year for them
to get up to that number. But actually what's been pledged so far is only $4 billion. And
so there's a real shortfall in what's been pledged versus what has been calculated as
the need. So it's really hard to point to developing countries and sort of expect them
to transition to a low-carbon economy if the financial component is just not coming in.
DESVARIEUX: So Rhagu, you've just heard Anjali talk about the Green Climate Fund and how
underfunded it is. Is there anyone in the Indian political landscape making the same
point?
RHAGUNANDAN: Yes. In the sense that the so-called developed world owes it to the developing
world to help the transition to a low-carbon or zero-carbon economy. But from a specifically
Indian point of view, I don't see India standing in the same queue as Burkina Faso asking for
Western funds. Which would be I think not the right thing for India to do, because if
it does then India would take the lion's share on a per capita basis.
But there are some fairly large big ticket items of expenditure which India needs to
invest in which could do with Western funding. Such as, for example, a shift from road to
rail transport will require thousands of kilometers of new rail lines. And that's a very expensive
proposition which could do with Green Climate funding.
So yes, there are enough people talking about it, but I think the dilemma is, does India
stand in front of the line, or does it allow the least developed countries, the island
states, the African nations, to get a bulk of that money?
DESVARIEUX: Anjali, why can't countries, developing countries like India, easily transition to
renewables? Is this simply about funding?
APPADURAI: No. I mean, so this is a common argument, that developing countries need to
industrialize and develop down a different pathway, a less dirty pathway than the developed
countries did it, right. Like, not cars, not industry. Renewable, carbon-free technology.
And that's a great idea, but there's so many multiple institutionalized barriers to that.
And finance is a huge one. And as we just talked about, the finance is really lacking.
The North-South financial transfers are lacking.
But there's also a really not often talked about barrier of intellectual property rights.
And this is a huge point of contention in the UN negotiations around this. Over 90 percent
of the patents for clean technology are held in Western countries. Most of them are held
in the U.S. So there needs to be an open conversation about transferring those intellectual property
rights to the South so that those technologies can actually be invested in, can actually
be replicated, can actually become infrastructure, to transition Southern economies to a low-carbon
economy. And that's a conversation that the developed countries have repeatedly shut down
and repeatedly ignored at the international level, because IPRs, intellectual property
rights, are a real point of contention. And they represent actually a lot of money for
industry. For private industry in Western countries.
And that's a huge part of this whole climate mess. It's corporate interests--as countries
try to work this out multilaterally, there's a whole big bloc, and that's corporate interests,
that really block a lot of progress on this. So that's the unspoken barrier, the elephant
in the room. We need to start talking about it. The intellectual property rights are preventing
these technologies from being transferred.
DESVARIEUX: Very interesting point. Did you want to just jump in, Rhagu, very quickly?
RHAGUNANDAN: Yeah, I just wanted to say that the IPR issue is real. It also once again
boils down to money. Who pays for the intellectual property rights? And if the corporations in
the West want to be paid for those IPRs, then they will eat up a chunk of this Green Climate
Fund, which will then further deprive the developing countries of money.
So it does boil down to dollars and cents at the end. Not too many cents, mostly dollars.
But it does boil down to money and the question of who pays for the IPRs. And that is certainly
a very serious obstacle.
DESVARIEUX: All right. Rhagu and Anjali, thank you both for joining us.
APPADURAI: Thanks, Jessica.
RHAGUNANDAN: Thank you.
DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.