It’s Getting Hot In Here

It’s official: India has joined the Asia-Pacific Pact (APP) on climate change.

This might seem like a good thing, right? Not exactly. The APP basically amounts to a clean technology-sharing initiative between the U.S. and Australia (the two industrialized Kyoto laggards), along with China, Japan, South Korea and now, India. The APP has been criticized for its excessive focus on technology and market mechanisms at the expense of having any sort of binding targets or timetables. It has also been perceived as an attempt to undermine the broader multilateral Kyoto framework. And now India, my ancestral homeland, where the aspirations of a billion people greet every waking day, is heading down this misguided path.

It’s a little strange to hear now in November 2006 that India’s joining the APP, as I had basically accepted it as a foregone conclusion when I attended the UN COP/MOP in Montreal last December. I remember working as a member of the youth lobbying team to try to set up a meeting with Prodipto Ghosh from the Indian environmental ministry. After attempting to get in touch with him for a while, I happened to encounter him in the halls of the convention center one day. My heart pounding, I went up to him and introduced myself, hoping that as a youth and fellow countryman I could get him to listen to my hopes about how India should move forward.

Our brief conversation did not go very well. I encouraged Ghosh to ensure that India continue to engage the Kyoto framework and not be distracted by U.S. intransigence and the nascent APP pact. Somehow Ghosh interpreted that as a suggestion that India should take on binding emissions reductions commitments, putting me on the defensive. We exchanged a few more remarks and then Ghosh was gone, off to another meeting or something similarly diplomatic.

I was frustrated by that conversation then, and I am frustrated now upon hearing the most recent news. But hope springs eternal in India’s grassroots social movements, among the most vibrant in the world. From struggles against dams on the Narmada River to the ongoing fight for justice in Bhopal, India is on the frontlines of the global battle for social and environmental justice. In 2002, when the UN Climate Change conference (COP- was held in the Indian capital of New Delhi, 1500 people representing 17 Indian states and 20 countries came together at a parallel Climate Justice Summit and drafted the Delhi Climate Justice Declaration. Their conclusion: “We reject the market based principles that guide the current negotiations to solve the climate crisis: Our World is Not for Sale!”

Our World is Not for Sale. Those who try to lead us down a slippery path of market mechanisms and technology transfer would do well to remember that, and realize that the grassroots will not be fooled!