Aam aadmi wows panelists in Copenhagen

The unofficial Indian delegation is creating as much news at Copenhagen as the official one. Two ragpickers, one from Delhi and one from Mumbai, stood up to question a United Nations official on clean technology, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 12, 2009, 01:07:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Copenhagen

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The unofficial Indian delegation is creating as much news at Copenhagen as the official one.

Two ragpickers, one from Delhi and one from Mumbai, stood up to question a United Nations official on clean technology. A Rajasthani farmer demanded to know why the Copenhagen negotiators weren’t prioritising agriculture.

A Mumbai student withstood freezing temperatures in a protest demonstration to convince fractious negotiators to agree to a deal.

The official Indian delegation numbers only 35 people, but more than 1,500 Indian representatives of non-governmental organisations are also leaving their imprint on the Summit.

Raju Santi, a 24 year-old ragpicker from north Delhi, stunned United Nations officials when he entered a meeting on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which funds the adoption of clean technologies in developing countries and asked in Hindi why ragpicking wasn’t recognised as a clean technology. With him was Baby, from Mumbai, who goes only by her first name. She elaborated on the problems ragpickers face — in Marathi.

“I asked them why incinerators which cause carbon emission are in CDM and we who support recycling of waste, resulting in lesser carbon emission, have been ignored,” said Santi, who’s studied till class V.

“Around 15 million people in south Asia are ragpickers. But instead of providing them support for climate mitigation, CDM authorities are ending their livelihood by providing financial support to plants that burn municipal waste.”

Mumbaikar Sailash Ratnakar stood almost naked in freezing temperatures outside the Bella Centre on Thursday, asking delegates to ensure a treaty. “I am here for a cause,” said Ratnakar.

Ram Kripal, from Rajasthan’s Bikaner district, was at Copenhagen to represent more than 600 million Indians who depend on agriculture for their livelihood and for whom climate change poses the biggest risk.

“Nobody is talking about agriculture. The conference is just a business opportunity for companies,” Kripal told HT.

Kirpal made a presentation to a UN subgroup on agriculture, saying rich countries should fund agricultural research in developing countries.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
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.Read More

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk Hunger Strike LIVE and more across India.