FORAY | Sunday, January 31, 2010 | Email | Print |  | Back
Climate of disbelief
Chandan Mitra
When exactly will Himalayan glaciers disappear? A huge row broke out earlier this month over a report prepared by the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Climate Change (IPCC), subsequently endorsed by the UN. The IPCC report was based on a study by ex-JNU don Syed Iqbal Hasnain who, it is claimed, had reached the alarming — rather, alarmist — conclusion that all Himalayan glaciers including the revered Gaumukh, origin of the Ganga, will cease to exist barely 25 years from now. The prediction that by 2035 Himalayan peaks will lose their permanent snow cover including life-giving glaciers naturally caused widespread international anxiety. India came under intense pressure before and at the Copenhagen climate summit to agree to significantly scale down carbon emissions which, in turn, could slow down industrial growth.
Now it transpires that the 2035 date was a huge goof-up from which the UN has formally retracted. Various conspiracy theories are thus doing the rounds, the most incredible being that it was a typographical error and the actual date is 2350! Others, mainly detractors of IPCC in India suggest it was a deliberate ploy to coerce us into accepting impractical targets for reducing carbon emissions and cut dependence on “unclean” fossil fuels such as coal. In recent weeks the chief of the Nobel prize-winning IPCC, Dr RK Pachauri, has been the target of vicious personal attacks in the Western media for his alleged past association with companies selling fossil fuels.
This is thoroughly distasteful. Without wishing to be seen as Dr Pachauri’s apologist (he can well defend his own case), India needs to be alert to Western pressure on emission cuts. Having industrialised two centuries ago and caused global warming in the first place, they now want India and China to cut back growth targets. So, while they safeguard high living standards industrialising nations in Asia and Africa are expected to live at the margins of development. To that extent, Iqbal Hasnain’s report (although he has strenuously denied putting an exact date for glacial disappearance) has done disservice to India’s case.
Recently, it has also been revealed that not only Indian scientists and IPCC, but NASA too had put out a report saying Himalayan glaciers were set to melt down by 2030 — that is just 20 years from now and five years ahead of Hasnain’s prediction. It is obvious that these projections are unrealistic: Himalayan glaciers won’t depart in such a hurry, nor probably will the Arctic ice cap. It is said that unlike scientists, lobbyists are not expected to be entirely accurate with their facts; in other words some exaggeration is permitted to them in order to draw attention to a cause or issue.
The real issue, I believe, is not whether glaciers will disappear within the next 25 years or later. But the fact is that many of them are receding just as it is true that globally temperatures have risen much faster in the last few decades than at any time in recorded history and sea levels have risen over the years, slowly threatening low-lying island nations like the Maldives. These are incontrovertible facts. So, just because the IPCC’s forecast on Himalayan glaciers turns out to be woefully incorrect, there is no reason to conclude that global warming is a myth.
Unfortunately, the industrial lobby in the West is busy doing exactly that with the help of their captive media. By personally running down Dr Pachauri and the organisations he heads, the attempt is to discredit the entire notion of climate change. The campaign is targeted at Western Governments to make them scale down financial commitment to combat global warming and also not bother to cut down fossil fuel consumption because climate change is a “bogus” theory; life can go on as it has for the last 50 years or so.
This is a self-serving stance which seeks to safeguard Western standards of living and lull developing countries too into inaction so that multinational companies can continue to dump their outdated products and inefficient technologies on developing countries while latest technology is deployed at home.
This is not to suggest that the Government of India should not rigorously adhere to its non-binding commitment on emission cuts by 2020 while the West merrily ignores its part of the deal. India must be alert to the reality that even if Himalayan glaciers don’t disappear with the next three decades, recede they will and climate change is already rolling on.
Instead of settling scores with IPCC and Dr Pachauri, who is the first Indian to achieve global celebrity status for his untiring championship of environmental issues, we should focus on what must be done to save our snows, forests, wildlife and biodiversity. That is the only way to ensure greater longevity not just of the Indian but also human civilisation as a whole.
Fortunately this has been a good, traditional winter worldwide. I was in Beijing in January 2009 and found people worried to distraction because it hadn’t snowed even once till that time. This year, the city is experiencing its heaviest snowfall in 30 years. Europe, too, has been snowbound since December and London had a white Christmas after many years.
Actually this has further spurred disbelief over the pace of global warming with some scientists contending that a mini-Ice Age is unfolding. Others, equally dismissive of the prophets of climate change claim that every 30 years or so, the Earth naturally corrects climatic distortions and after three decades of warming we are now in for a 30 year long course correction.
These predictions are clearly shots in the dark without scientific basis for propounding them. The world community must act in unison on substantive facts not fanciful theories that seek to negate the reality of global warming irrespective of its precise pace. Just as we experience a spell of drought in India after long years of normal rains, it is possible that some countries are undergoing very harsh winters this year. That does not mean that the clock has been turned back altogether. Both good years and bad have to be evaluated in totality in order to formulate a long-term strategy instead of offering knee-jerk reactions based on temporary phenomena.
For example, although I was heartened to note that Himalayan peaks were fully covered with snow when I visited Ramgarh near Nainital mid-January, in stark contrast to the unedifying black rocks that stared at us the same time last year, it has not snowed extensively in India’s hill States reinforcing the fear that the coming year will be as bad for water flow in the rivers as the last year was.
In sum, we need to respond maturely to the spectrum of issues raised by the reality of climate change, cut down emissions in a coordinated way with industrialised countries taking the lead. While panic may not be called for in view of the reassurance about glaciers, there is little to celebrate because man is still very, very far from deciphering the language and laws of Mother Nature.
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