The world may have agreed to 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature by 2050, but it will not be long before there is an agreement on 1.5 degrees Celsius, if the Copenhagen accord fructifies.
The world may have agreed to 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature by 2050, but it will not be long before there is an agreement on 1.5 degrees Celsius, if the Copenhagen accord fructifies.
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Rise in temperature was one of biggest debates in Copenhagen, with rich countries and developing economies such as India insisting on 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature and island nations, led by Tavulu (a small island country in Pacific), and least developed nations insisting on 1.5 degrees to survive the onslaught of climate change.
To appease poor nations, the Copenhagen accord mentioned 1.5 degree Celsius.
"The objectives and the implementation of the accord will be assessed and the process of assessment will be completed by 2015 in order to consider further strengthening the possibility of long term goal of liming the temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius," the Copenhagen accord document said.
If this happens, India's development pathway will be hit. Under the 2 degrees scenario, WWF-India had projected that India's carbon emissions will peak by 2025 and stabilise by 2045. After that, it would start declining.
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Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh also agreed that India's emissions will have to peak in this century but refused to specify the year by which it should happen.
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Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh also agreed that India's emissions will have to peak in this century but refused to specify the year by which it should happen.
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In case of 1.5 degree Celsius, the window of emission growth for India is much less. Its emissions will have to peak and stabilise by 2018, making it difficult for India to grow at 8-9 per cent a year.
"We cannot allow our growth to be jeopardised to achieve 1.5," Ramesh said.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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