Special correspondent's report on IPCC error

ToI got it right when it starts of with what a huge goof-up it has been.
IPCC retracts 2035 alarm on Himalayan glacier melt - India - The Times of India

For the first time in its history, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a panel of 2,500 of the best climate scientists in the world — accepted on Wednesday that it had made a huge goof-up in its fourth assessment report on climate change and withdrew its assertion that the Himalayan glaciers ran the risk of being wiped out by 2035.

The rest of the newspapers too followed a similar script.
dnaindia.com: Finding on Himalayas 'poorly substantiated': Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Pioneer > Online Edition : >> Finding on Himalayas poorly substantiated Climate panel
Indian Express: IPCC admits Himalayan glacier goof-up
Hindustan Times: Climate panel sorry for glacier error

Surprisingly, Chindu has adopted a different approach to the news. The headlines comes out in support of Hasnain, while sidelining the committee's admission.
The Hindu : Front Page : Vested interests have targeted my research, says Hasnain

Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain, whose research on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, led to a major controversy, on Wednesday blamed “certain prejudicial forces” for mounting a campaign against his “diligent” research.

Well, not exactly surprising when you know that Hasnain is a muslim, JNU scholar. His double secular credentials trump any trumped up charges.

Scenes from Copenhagen

Scenes from the UN climate talks at Copenhagen.

Is India's Climate Change Stance Defensive as The Hindu Claims?

Today's lead editorial 'Break the climate deadlock' has a lot of good things to say about what China has done with regard to climate change. There is however little about what India has done; on the other hand, we are adviced to follow China's lead. As developing countries, both have similar interests where climate change negotiations are concerned. There is also nothing inherently wrong in learning from other countries. Rather, the question is whether India is lagging behind China with respect to formulating policies to deal with climate change or in preparation for the upcoming Copenhagen summit. If that is the case, the editorial does not say why or where we ought to catch up.

If China has published its National Climate Change Program in 2007, India released its own National Action Plan on Climate Change last year. Hu Jintao's remarks at the UN were widely covered and can be read here. They are significant for what he did not say but the reader would not guess that reading only the editorial. Here is what The Hindu says:

The first will be a reduction, by the year 2020, of the energy intensity of its GDP growth by a notable margin from 2005 levels. In parallel, China is engaging the United States on climate change with potentially beneficial outcomes for both sides in terms of technology development and preferential assistance. All this should persuade India to abandon its defensive stance.

Hu's actual remarks as relevant here were:

We will endeavor to cut carbon dioxide emissions — (inaudible) — GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from the 2005 level.

Second, we will vigorously develop renewable energy and nuclear energy. We will endeavor to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 percent by 2020." [ Emphasis added].

In other words, these are self-imposed goals that China will attempt to meet, not a guarantee to the international community to commit his country to those targets. Most of his other promises were either similarly stated as endeavors or were made only in principle with no numbers being offered. Indeed, it was this failure to lay down specific goals that attracted significant attention in other newspapers (see the New York Times editorial here, the Telegraph's take on it here and the Guardian's report here. A US official made the same point as reported in the BBC here).

Jairam Ramesh's statement refusing to accept binding limits imposed by treaty is not inconsistent with what Hu has stated here with respect to China. Just as he announced that China has imposed mandatory national targets, India too is similarly considering imposing unilateral and voluntary curbs on carbon emissions (see here) though in our system, it will naturally take time to consult all the stakeholders before legislation to that effect can be passed (there are many issues regarding the specifics of such a proposal). Hu spoke about the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities embodying the consensus of the international community in accordance with China's climate change program. India's National Action Plan also refers to the same principle (see page 47) and based upon it, concludes that 'developing countries are not required to divert resources from development priorities by implementing projects involving incremental costs – unless these incremental costs are borne by developed countries and the needed technologies are transferred.' The editorial offers no convincing reason to substantiate its view that India's stand is overly defensive as compared to China's.

In the second paragraph, it lists India's problems while claiming that China unlike India has spelt out clear actions to deal with them:

In the Indian context, the poor efficiency of thermal power plants also needs to be addressed. The solar mission, which forms part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change, needs a major push. It is revealing that in 2006, a not-so-sunny Germany produced 2,220 gigawatt-hours of power from solar energy while India’s tally was 19, equalling tiny Luxembourg. To make a credible case at Copenhagen, therefore, a lot of detail needs to go into the eight missions that make up the national plan. The States need to vigorously pursue the green agenda in areas such as sustainable agriculture, water protection, urban planning, and forestry. Here again, China’s policy is on firm ground. President Hu Jintao has spelt out clear actions on renewable energy, greater reliance of non-fossil fuels, and increase in forest cover.

India's plans to improve the efficiency of our thermal power plants and the problems in doing this are dealt with in the Action plan (see page 39). There is also an entire chapter in the plan on the National Solar Mission. The government also announced last month an ambitious solar power plan for the same purpose (though whether it takes off depends on whether western countries are prepared to pay for it and transfer technology for the purpose). Hu may have committed China towards climate friendly policies but how far his country will actually go is far from clear at this time. India has played the game well so far and neither the lack of acknowledgment of some of its steps nor the implied criticism of its stand as 'defensive' are justified.

On Recent Op-eds in The Hindu

'The Way Forward':

The Hindu editorial (2nd September) titled 'The Way Forward' has little new to offer. It makes only one suggestion namely, asking the government to open the Srinagar-Islamabad highway but recognizes that the problem with doing that lies with not India but Pakistan which means that there is not much the Delhi government can do about it anyway. Apart from that, it exhorts the EC to conduct early elections - again, hardly a brainwave. Neither of these is going to resolve the Kashmir issue by themselves; at best, they can facilitate a settlement to a limited extent, nothing more. On the key issue of Kashmir's political future and India's role in resolving it, what does the paper have to say? Sadly, not a thing.

Sainath on Hurricane Politics in the US:

The Hindu has exhibited a very keen interest in the upcoming Presidential election in the US. No prizes for guessing who it is rooting for. But it was quite surprising to see P.Sainath, the rural affairs editor, write upon the American political scene and how Hurricane Gustav will impact it! Sainath clearly follows American domestic politics and events very closely - that is evident from the number of occasions in which he quotes from the Wall Street Journal (his comments usually dripping with sarcasm). But to my knowledge, this is the first time he has actually written a full op-ed on the subject - for a change, the tenor is not envious like it usually is.

'Building Model Campus Communities':

Sujatha Byravan's article titled 'Building model campus communities' was strange to say the least. The article for the most part talks about how universities and engineering institutes in particular can become more ecofriendly, how they can reduce their carbon footprint, save energy and generally become more efficient. That begs the question: what actually is the contribution of these institutions towards global warming? Compared to the figures she quotes for industry and agriculture, miniscule I presume. Her real point is amplified in para 7 when she talks about the advantages that such institutions have to foster innovation:

Campuses have the capacity to build successful climate innovation systems: all the organisations and individuals involved in generating, diffusing, adapting and using new knowledge; the interactive learning that must occur when organisations engage in generation, diffusion, adaptation and new use of knowledge, (that is, new products and processes); and the institutions — rules, habits and conventions — that govern how these interactions and processes occur. Engineering school campuses, with their unique education, talent and skills, separate enclaves, and relatively independent management, are ideally placed to develop into fertile breeding grounds for climate innovation and serve as models for the rest of the community. IITs and other engineering colleges also have access to government and private funds to provide investments required for a metamorphosis of this kind.

When I started reading this article, this is the part I expected her to really focus on. How can our institutions help conduct research on climate change? Why are engineering colleges better placed than say, liberal arts colleges or specialized national institutes to conduct such research? How much investment would it take to upgrade existing engineering colleges to take up such an effort? Does it require a change in the curriculum? Does it require refashioning our model for higher education? What can the government do in terms of policy and financing to facilitate it? Sadly, none of these questions were answered (perhaps I was mistaken to have expected it in the first place but then, addressing these questions would have rendered its objective more meaningful.)

The author's idea instead seems to be that our students, exposed to environment friendly measures in college, would carry forward the same model to whereever else they go after graduation. But if the idea is to inculcate in them such a lesson of life, school is probably a better place to start than college. That is where their worldview is initially formed and where students learn the values they are expected to uphold and live by for the rest of their lives.

'Cooperation with Discord':

Today's article by Sreeram Chaulia was interesting to say the least. The Hindu published criticism of its own correspondent Vladimir Radyuchin in that article. Criticism of Russia and China has generally been disallowed on its pages in the past, so it is worthwhile to note that the paper has made something of a modest beginning here. Of course,a detailed answer to the question of why China refused to back Russia upon the Georgian question at the SCO summit meeting would have been interesting but the author does not provide any.

A final point: the recent criticism of the Indo-US nuclear agreement on the pages of the People's Daily which has received wide coverage in other media appears to have been ignored by The Hindu.

Australia's Labor Govt: Free-thinking or Unthinking?

I was amused to read P.S.Suryanarayana's 'Australia: a free thinking ally of the U.S.' today. The general tone appears quite laudatory of the Australian labor party PM Kevin Rudd. Why the great enthusiasm for his leadership? For two reasons it appears: his willingness to stand apart from the US and his desire to put his country's relationship with China on a special footing.

This is the same guy who pointedly indicated before his election that his government would under no circumstances sell uranium to India. True to his word, he has reversed the previous conservative government's position and since then stuck to the view that India would be entitled to the standard benefits of the NPT provided it signs up as a non-nuclear member state, something it would obviously never do. He has also clearly indicated that he values the relationship with China far more than India. He has been anxious to involve China as an active dialogue partner in all economic and security related matters in South East Asia. He has also shown a decidedly lower level of enthusiasm in bringing India into those equations, something that stands apart from the previous John Howard government's attitude. Some of these facts also happen to be mentioned in this article.

Yet, he is described as 'free thinking'. One could ascribe to him the quality of being a thinking PM if he did something novel or principled such as standing up for a cause of some kind even at the risk of acquiring the ignominy of others. I see absolutely nothing of the kind here - he has simply sought to revert his country back to the classical European world view that it has long held before George Bush's ascent to power. Non-proliferation dogma, appeasement of China, pro-environment/anti-climate change, faith in a multipolar world (read that as reigning in American unilateralism) - all of these are standard leftist talking points that every European PM adheres to. With the decline of the Bush administration's power, he has simply taken the opportunity to return Australia, long a bastion of European political correctness to its former ways. Refusing to meet the Dalai Lama, failing to recognize India's unique situation vis-a-vis proliferation and rejecting the promotion of democracy as a worthwhile foreign policy goal are all gospel for socialists and are neither new nor particularly principled and certainly cannot be termed 'free thinking' - indeed, parroting the same positions does not amount to thinking at all.

He says that Mr. Rudd is anxious to cooperate with Japan which 'has taken a leadership role' in create a planet-sustaining environment. Japan was actually a hold-out at Kyoto for quite a long time and is still strongly opposed to any curbs on whaling, a practice it continues to engage in often covertly under the guise of research efforts on whales. Greenpeace has had a long running battle with Japan on this issue. I agree that Japan is an important industrialized power that needs to be taken along for climate change efforts to succeed but leadership would not be a word I would use for a country that has been anxious to water down hunting regulations. Mr. Suryanarayana is obviously so excited that Australia is actively making efforts to build alliances such as China and Japan even if it is not particularly keen on including India within its calculations that he is probably willing to overlook such minor things that might run contrary to his thesis of a 'free-thinking' nation on the move.

Climate vs. Weather Change

Today's paper has a headline 'Climate Change to Blame for musth'. I initially understood this to mean something happening to elephants as a result of the climate change phenomenon but actually it is only a change in the elephants' cycle as a result of an unexpected bout of rainfall. The person quoted is a veterinary surgeon and technical expert on the elephant squad, not a climatologist. Someone ought to tell the Hindu the difference between weather and climate. It appears that all the talk of climate change on the planet has gotten into the head of the writer who posted this item.

Kerala CM's Pearls of Wisdom

Here is a weird news item on the Hindu today:

The Kerala Government has decided to set up a mechanism to study the impact of climate change, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said here on Monday.

Launching the anti-epidemic action plan on the World Health Day, he said outbreak of epidemics caused by climate change in the state was a matter of grave concern which needed to be studied scientifically and remedial measures put in place.

Keeping the environ hygenic and clean was a big challenge of modern times. Kerala was once reputed for its effective health care system and cleanliness of the environ. But now disposing the solid waste, including those thrown up by hospitals, had become a major issue, he said.

The waste generated by hospitals included toxic material and to ensure that they were not dumped in public places, existing rules would be enforced strictly, he said.

Initially I wondered how the great state of Kerala, not exactly being California, plans to stem climate change all on its own. And then I realized the CM is actually talking of hospital waste! If there is a connection between the two, I am probably not smart enough to get it. He goes on:

The disposal of cyber waste was another area of concern and instances of advanced countries shipping them to be dumped in countries like India had been reported, the Chief Minister said.

The departments of science and Information Technology would be asked to evolve methods for handling the cycber waste, he said.

Again, the word 'cyber waste' is generally used in the context of the internet to refer to half-made websites, domain names that have fallen into disuse and a lot of stuff on the internet that is either outdated, incomplete or erroneous - the sort of stuff that is simply not fit for 'consumption'. So, for a moment, I wondered how the Dept. of Science and IT would solve this problem and for that matter, why it needed to do so given that there are far more pressing things to worry about. But the CM here is really talking of computer waste - that which arises from old computers, used parts, etc. Obviously we have a CM from the CPM here making a fool out of himself trying to showcase himself as a very up-to-date and tech-savvy manager. And who else to help him do so but the ever-faithful Hindu always ready to provide coverage to such gems of his wisdom?