21st May 2010

D. Raghunandan

THE climate crisis and efforts to tackle it have witnessed unprecedented mobilisation of popular movements, NGOs, think tanks, experts, intellectuals and activists, as was evident at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen last December. Of course, this “civil society” activism has embraced a very wide spectrum of opinion. Amongst the most vociferous, at various gatherings as well as on the internet, have been those who may be termed climate radicals for want of a better term. Over the past few years, there has been a quite dramatic “green-red” convergence of anti-capitalist, radical environmentalist and anarchist or at least non-organised movements. The position of this tendency was best captured by the slogan of “system change, not climate change”. At first glance, the idea that climate change cannot be combated unless and until its systemic causes are overturned may appear unexceptionable. On the other hand, most progressive movements believe that, given the advanced state of runaway climate change, it may not be possible to wait for system change before tackling the crisis and that the problem needs a multi-pronged approach.  However climate radicalism, which is of course not monolithic, has come to adopt many such extreme positions.

Events and pronouncements at and around the recently held World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held on April 20-22 near Cochabamba in Bolivia bear this out. But first, some background.

BACKDROP

The Copenhagen Summit failed to reach an internationally binding agreement within the Kyoto framework. Ostensibly to save the Conference from ending in a total blank, a so-called Copenhagen Accord, driven by the US, was arrived at by a group of high-emission nations including both developed and developing countries such as China, Brazil and India. The Accord was not endorsed by the Summit, both because of its content (widely seen as undermining the Kyoto Protocol) and due to the way it was arrived at (behind closed doors by a select few countries and totally by-passing the UNFCCC Working Groups process).

Opinion has been deeply divided on the Copenhagen Accord which has nevertheless, and in the absence of any other agreement, been signed by 110 countries so far. As of now, the US and some of its allies are pushing to give the Accord de jure status while there are definite signs that India, China and other large developing countries are pulling back from their earlier support for the Accord. Several countries, notably Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba (from the ALBA grouping of countries), Sudan and some small island states have expressed their total opposition to the Accord. President Evo Morales of Bolivia denounced the Accord’s terms and the non-transparent process that produced it. He also hailed the activists massed and holding parallel discussions outside the Conference venue for moving more meaningfully towards tackling the root causes of climate change, which he identified as capitalism, over-consumption and the destruction of a holistic relationship with nature. President Morales later announced that he would be convening a Conference in Bolivia to take these ideas and alliances forward.

Climate radicals not only rejected the Accord outright but also the entire UN process as part of the global capitalist system which caused the climate crisis. Such groups favour an alternative grassroots process aimed at both formulating alternative solutions and shaping a new social system. This tendency welcomed Bolivia’s call for a Conference.     

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba was attended by over 30,000 people with around 9,250 from outside Bolivia from 142 countries. Most of these latter were climate radicals, possibly with the exception of some groupings such as 350.org (a network calling for GHG stabilization at 350 parts per million rather than 425 ppm as called for by IPCC) which was labeled “liberal” by radicals.

A “Peoples Agreement” was arrived at and announced on April 22 which had been declared International Mother Earth Day by the UN last year at the instance of President Morales. The Bolivian government also made a separate formal submission to the UNFCCC in the form of a draft for the two Working Groups, attaching the Peoples Agreement and incorporating many of its points, but with significant changes in language.

Despite this apparent coming together of progressive Latin American governments and climate radicals, events and statements issued at Cochabamba, and discussions on the internet both before and after, bring out sharp differences and also pose many issues for other progressive movements and climate campaigns to ponder.

CLIMATE ISSUES

The declaration of the Peoples Assembly (http://pwccc.wordpress.com) calls for a global agreement to “return the concentrations of GHGs to 300 ppm [and] therefore the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of one degree Celsius.” This position had been taken earlier too by several developing countries especially in Africa, the Caribbean and some island states but its basis has never been clear, nor has the IPCC agreed.

Of course, a 2 degree rise of temperature would mean huge damaging impact especially in poorer countries. But at the same time, there is almost universal agreement among scientists that average temperatures in the world are already at almost 1 degree C above pre-industrial levels and, even if drastic steps are taken immediately, temperature rise of 2 degrees C is virtually inevitable. GHG concentrations of pre-industrial 300 ppm levels and temperature rise of 1 degree C are simply wishful thinking, impossible to achieve even in the medium term (although actions over several decades involving sucking up huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere are remotely conceivable in the long term) and provide no practical guide to national or global emissions control regimes.

So maybe one should view this only as a tactical slogan to push developed countries to a more achievable target. The declaration’s demand that developed countries should reduce their emissions by 50 per cent without offsets during 2012-17 should also perhaps be seen the same way, since the IPCC only recommends 40 per cent reduction by 2020 and even the EU has offered only 20-30 per cent by 2020, both with offsets. All indications are, however, that radical groups are not really engaged with the UNFCCC global negotiations and view them with a jaundiced eye. At Cochabamba, as one sympathetic correspondent noted, “when UN representative Alicia Barcena took the podium…, she was met with a chorus of hisses and boos.” So these maximalist demands need to be taken at face value and any compromise would doubtless be seen as surrender.

The Declaration even asserts that the current discourse on climate change has been shaped “in complicity with a segment of the scientific community” as “a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.” While much analysis may not identify capitalism as such or use the term, the IPCC Reports representing the broad consensus of the scientific community and endorsed by over 180 governments, elaborate in some detail various social-structural factors such as patterns of industrialisation and industrial agriculture, use of fossil fuels in private transportation, lifestyles especially in developed countries and, overall, the escalation of the climate crisis since the commencement of industrialisation around 1750.

Progressive groups and campaigns around the world mobilise and pressure national governments and the negotiations process on the understanding that these are indeed consequences of the capitalist path of development and that systemic changes will indeed be required if emissions reduction targets are to be achieved, in the full knowledge that not all these demands will be met. As with other movements, there is an ultimate goal and various stages in between. For climate radicals, though, nothing short of an immediate system overthrow is acceptable or worth pursuing. So what kind of system change do the climate radicals want, what alternatives do they have in mind?

SOCIALISM EQUALS STATISM? 

The alternatives as articulated at Cochabamba, and in the debates on the internet, have a few notable strands.

Both Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales in their speeches clearly stated that the alternative to capitalism is socialism. But the word “socialism” is itself conspicuously absent in the Peoples Agreement, not due to the sensitivities of moderates but rather to the deep-seated suspicion of the term among the radicals. In fact, tensions between the climate radicals and the progressive Latin American governments were visible throughout the conference. The Cochabamba conference was attended by a very few government leaders, from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador besides Bolivia, with Hugo Chavez being the only visiting head of state. Yet the suspicion of even these governments was such that some radical groups and indigenous peoples movements from Bolivia and nearby regions set up a parallel conference venue: the Peoples Assembly had 17 discussion tents on as many themes but “Mesa 18” saw sharp criticism of the Bolivian and other governments present and at one point police observers were posted near it!

Tadzio Mueller of Climate Justice Action grudgingly admitted that “while ten years ago the alter-globalisation movement had a very strong critique of institutions such as… governments” today they had decided that Bolivia for instance was “not permeated by neo-liberalism and was an actor they could work with” (quoted in Huffington Post, 29 April 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-s-eshelman/from-cochabamba-to-cancun_b_557293.html). Many other radicals strongly disagreed.

Edith Piaff commented in one e-mail exchange that the “conference was itself something of a legitimisation exercise for… President Morales. Talks about resistance to mega-projects such as dams and the exploitation of mineral resources in Bolivia were marginalised from the conference. Bolivia's socialist project has caused problems for many indigenous peoples through a development model that departs from traditional, more sustainable ways of life and marginalises people who have mineral resources under their lands.” In response to a criticism of her stance citing Evo Morales’ call for “communitarian socialism” she reiterated that “capitalism is just one problem of the general problem of domination.” Another prolific blogger, adding a sharper critique of the Bolivian government, said that “whatever Evo’s thinking, ultimately victory will come not from him but from the grassroots, including other anti-capitalist types from within the pink-tide states, the de-colonial left… against the rising pink tide and neoliberalism,” the phrase “pink tide” being an oft-repeated and rather derogatory reference to the new leftist governments in Latin America.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES

The alternatives envisaged have other dimensions too even if all are not fully articulated. The concept of Mother Earth Rights has many connotations for the radicals, whatever President Morales’ conception.

Any system that replaces capitalism should of course have equality between people and also ecological sustainability or, as the declaration has it, “harmony with nature”. But the formulation goes considerably further and speaks of “the right [of Mother Earth] to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue its vital cycles and processes free of human alteration” (emphasis added). The idea is elaborated by stressing the need to embrace and promote sustenance-based farming methods and other “ancestral models and practices” of indigenous peoples and rural farming peoples. There is much talk of “food sovereignty” but no discussion of how sustenance-level farming will produce surpluses to meet the food security of vast populations who today live and work away from the food production base. The nature-level production systems of indigenous or tribal peoples are clearly central, and also to some extent explain the radicals’ disappointment with Evo Morales Ayma, the world’s only indigenous head of state, who was roundly criticised for his support for mining and other policies of an “extractive state”.  One delegate was quoted as saying “both socialism and capitalism are resource exploitative ideologies that put the human before the earth. An indigenous perspective avoids this pitfall.”

There is a curious distinction between the Bolivian government’s formal submission and the speech of the Cuban vice-president on the one hand, and the Peoples Assembly Declaration on the other. The former talks of damage caused to the planet and the threat to human life, while the latter repeatedly speaks of the threat to Mother Earth itself and even calls for reparations to Mother Earth for the damage done to her. The planet has existed in different eras, much before the advent of human beings, at different levels of equilibrium, and will doubtless continue to do so even if humanity dies out due to climate change.

The climate radicals also display deep distrust of human social organisation, including of progressive governments, except for some idyllic past or a utopian non-state. Even the declaration’s call for climate debt reparations by developed countries to developing nations prompted considerable debate (correspondence April 26-30 in climate09-int.lists.riseup.net). Why should developing country governments, mostly representing the richer classes in these nations, receive these funds? Why should the poor in developed countries be forced to pay through taxation? Is not the “real contradiction between the poor and the rich of the world, some of whom live in the global South”, rather than between developed and developing nations? Imperialism and States, both vanish in this discourse.

It is therefore not surprising that the call went out in Cochabamba for “global greenhouse emissions to peak by 2015 latest and decline thereafter”. A global peaking year, whatever the date, in the absence of detailed carbon budgets spelling out emission levels for developed countries, has been repeatedly rejected by China, India and many other developing countries because this will only mean a cap on development for countries of the South while maintaining the obscene differential in living standards between North and South.

The Cochabamba Conference, bringing together several progressive Latin American governments and climate radical activists and groups has made an important contribution to the debates on climate change. Yet given the narrow range of opinions represented there, its impact on the international negotiations is likely to be limited. Further, the perspectives of “green-red” radicals appear to be getting more extreme, deviating even further away from those of other progressive movements. Perhaps the alliance witnessed in Cochabamba may not last as long, or be as effective, as those working towards the broadest possible alliance of progressive forces would hope for.

14th April, 2010

D. Raghunandan


Earlier articles in these columns have shown how the odd careless remark, a few errors in judgment, a lapse in scientific rigour and peer review procedures, as happened over the clearly erroneous prediction that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, are pounced upon by climate skeptics and corporate lobbies to undermine the scientific understanding of societally induced climate change and hence undercut efforts to bring about policy changes to avert the impending crisis. This despite massive and mounting amounts of evidence to show that, if anything, the problem is even more serious than the extant scientific consensus says it is. For instance, many recent studies on polar ice have tended to show that ice cover at both poles is shrinking faster, and that consequently sea levels would rise even more, and more quickly, than previously thought.

Diminishing ice cover is often referred to as clear evidence of global warming. Further, since the large quantity of terrestrial ice is known to play an important role not only with regard to sea level but also to regulating global and regional climate, changes in ice cover are closely watched and carefully studied.  For many years, satellites have been mapping the area covered by ice and this data has formed the basis of much prediction on the extent and impact of global warming. For instance, the Fourth (and latest) Assessment Report of the IPCC (IPCC/AR4) in 2007 noted that “satellite data since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea-ice extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade” and based on that projected a rise in sea levels  by 28-43 cm (centimetres) by 2100. But a subsequent authoritative report titled Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment released in 2009 by the highly regarded Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research projected a significantly higher sea-level rise of 1.4 metres by the next century!

Reduction in polar ice cover is most dramatically seen in the Arctic and especially around Greenland. Since 2000, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice in the summer has reduced drastically, with September 2007 recording the minimum and 2008 and 2009 being similar. (see satellite images below)

There is thus little doubt that ice cover is shrinking. The real question is how much? So far we have been talking only about the area covered by ice, not about the total volume or quantity of ice. To get from area to volume, one needs to measure the thickness of the ice. The Cryosat-2 satellite (so named because it seeks to study the cryosphere or parts of the earth covered by ice) was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on April 8 last week to do precisely this at a total mission cost of $180 million (Rs.870 crores).

Problem and Challenge Much of the solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface is reflected back to the atmosphere and to outer space. Permanent ice sheets, especially when covered by snow, have high ‘albedo’ (literally whiteness or more accurately reflectivity) and reflect around 80 percent of sunlight. This helps the ice to stay frozen and plays an important role in maintaining the heat balance of our planet. However, when ice cover begins to melt, the albedo effect gets diminished, thus reducing the proportion of solar radiation reflected back and hence increased absorption of heat by the ice, leading in turn to what is termed ‘positive feedback’ that is, increased ice melt and greater warming of the earth. Under normal seasonal variation, vast amounts of ice melt every summer and freeze again in the winter but, with global warming, melt rates are getting higher while the re-freezing is slowing down.

Polar ice is of two types, ice that covers land (ice-caps, defined as less than 50,000 sq.km in area, or ice-sheets, larger than that, although the former term is commonly used to describe both) and sea ice (formed by freezing sea water). These two forms of ice behave differently, have differing impact on climate and will affect the planet in diverse ways as they melt due to global warming and pose distinctive challenges for measuring their thickness.
Seasonal changes of sea ice are known to have a significant influence on ocean circulation patterns called “thermohaline circulation”. When ice melts, fresh water enters into the surrounding ocean reducing its salinity and therefore its density. In reverse, as seawater cools and sea ice forms, the salinity and density increases, causing the surface waters to sink down. Continuous such action drives deep ocean currents towards the equator and away from the polar regions, in response to which a return flow of warmer and less dense water is drawn towards the poles from higher latitudes towards the equator. These ocean currents have a profound influence on climate and weather. One of the more important such warm water currents is the Gulf Stream from the Gulf of Mexico towards the Arctic which keeps Britain several degrees warmer than other northern European countries. With climate change and rise in average temperatures globally, and volumes of sea-ice declining, the Gulf Stream would become significantly weaker, leading to much colder conditions in regions on both sides of the northern Atlantic (thus showing that “global warming” can be a misleading term!). There are even apprehensions that at some particular point, the mechanism governing these important ocean currents could get “switched off” leading to catastrophe, the subject of a recent Hollywood movie!

It must be remembered, though, that melting of sea-ice has no impact on sea levels since the ice is already floating in water.
Unlike sea ice which is only a few metres thick, ice caps or ice sheets over land, such as those that blanket Antarctica or Greenland, are several kilometers thick. Till recently it was thought that ice caps were relatively stable, certainly in their interiors, but evidence now appears to have dashed this fond hope. Ice caps both in Antarctica and in Greenland are now known to be melting, especially from their base, due to the effect of warming oceans. When this huge quantity of ice melts, the water released into the oceans will undoubtedly contribute significantly to a rise in sea levels.
However, to better understand and make predictions about these and related phenomena, scientists need to know much more about the total volume of ice which in turn needs measurement of its thickness.  

Sea ice being thin, its thickness can be measured directly, such as by drilling into it from above, but this method can only provide localized information over a small area. Thickness of ice caps, on the other hand, needs to be estimated by measuring the height of its surface relative to the land below, not an easy task by any means.     

Cryosat-2 ESA’s     Cryosat-2 is the second attempt at undertaking this task, the first mission in October 2005 having failed right at launch due to a software problem affecting the rocket. This time, ESA used Russia’s Dnepr launcher from the usual Soviet-era Baikonur station in Kazakhstan. The launcher was shot off the pad by a high-explosive charge with, unusually, its upper stage flying backwards pulling the satellite up rather than pushing it from below, the new configuration expected to enable greater accuracy in injecting the satellite into its designated orbit.

The spacecraft orbit is the steepest hitherto, taking it as close to the poles as possible. NASA’s ICEsat, with a laser altimeter, flew in a high inclination orbit of 86 degrees but Cryosat2 goes even better with an orbital path of 88 degrees north and south on each orbit, covering most of the Arctic and Greenland coastline of which only 10 percent is covered by current satellites. This clearly non sun-synchronous orbit requires that the spacecraft’s solar panels are tilted so that it can receive maximum possible sunlight and also that it carries newly-designed high capacity batteries.

The satellite (see image below) carries as its primary payload an advanced SAR- Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL). SAR stands for Synthetic Aperture Radar which provides high-resolution and simulated 3-D images even with small antennae by creating a rapid sequence of images while in motion which are then computationally put together. (See PD, May 3, 2009 for a more detailed explanation). To complement the altimeter, the payload includes a radio receiver called DORIS (Doppler Orbit and Radio Positioning Integration by Satellite) and a laser retro-reflector. The International Laser Ranging Service or ILRS, a global network of laser ranging stations, will support the mission. To provide the datum or reference position of the satellite itself against which all other positional readings are read to obtain absolute data, the satellite relies on the oldest navigational method, namely the position of stars which it continuously monitors through three star-trackers. 

The spacecraft’s instrumentation provide accurate data on sea-ice ‘freeboard’ or height of floating ice above sea level, and on the elevation of ice sheets. The SAR technique enables high resolution data in the direction of movement of the satellite. In conventional radar altimeters, distance to the top of the ice would be measured by the radar echo off the nearest point on the surface, but on sloping surfaces such as on land and on the edges of ice caps, there is no reference point to indicate where on the slope this nearest point is. The SAR’s series of multiple images taken at 10 times quicker intervals than conventional radars enables determination of the position and height of the surface in the along-track direction while left and right echo positions are provided by the SAR-interferometry mode which provides the angle of the returning echo, thus all together giving a three dimensional picture and accurate measurement of the thickness of the ice.

September 1980

As with all remote sensing, error correction and calibration has to be done through comparison with ground data both before and after launch. Arctic and Antarctic expeditions are already measuring snow density and behaviour relative to the ice below. After the launch, ground-truthing will be done to validate the radar data obtained and enable more accurate interpretation of the satellite data through the rest of the mission expected to last 3 years.

The Mission goal is to measure changes in ice thickness within 10% of the expected inter-annual variation which works out to a required accuracy of about 7mm per year averaging out variations between sea-ice and ice sheets. Data obtained so far shows that this goal will be met quite comfortably. Cryosat-2 will undoubtedly yield invaluable data on polar ice and considerably advance scientific knowledge of climate change and its impact, and also put at rest much speculative debate and scepticism.

September 2007

An interesting sidelight is that the launcher that put Cryosat-2 into orbit is a modified Soviet-era SS-II ballistic missile only slightly modified for commercial use. And earlier in the week, NASA also launched a modified Global Hawk, the US Air Force’s most potent Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) spycraft that can fly at high altitudes of over 60,000 feet for a very long time, to monitor sea-ice and ice sheets. If countries so decide, all knowledge and technology can indeed be harnessed for the collective benefit of humankind.  Talk about turning swords into ploughshares.

11th February 2010

D. Raghunandan

It seems even a day cannot go by without some newspaper, magazine or TV channel carrying an expose about yet another blunder by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On the eve of the Copenhagen Conference, there was the so-called “climategate” scandal when hackers breaking into computers of the Climate Research Unit at UK’s University of East Anglia discovered e-mails and documents revealing attempts to suppress evidence going against the Unit’s conclusions. Then the story broke about an erroneous prediction in IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC/AR4) that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 due to global warming. A virulent campaign was conducted mostly in the British press not only against the IPCC but also against Chairman Rajendra Pachauri who was held responsible for the IPCC flaws and also accused of personal corruption especially by securing research funding for The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi (which also he heads) based on faulty findings in the IPCC Report.

Going by the media frenzy, one would think the IPCC had got it all wrong, on glaciers, extreme weather events, dwindling numbers of polar bears, what have you. IPCC’s Assessment Reports were seen as the gold standard of climate science and now uddenly, IPCC stands accused even of fudging the facts. Climate skeptics never had it so good. Two decade-old arguments have been reinvigorated: scientists are needlessly spreading panic, climate change may not actually be happening, and even if some of it is, how do we know it is not natural? 
There are clearly many levels of debate involved here. First, regarding the facts. Second, as regards procedures in reviewing research and arriving at conclusions. Third, as regards individual and institutional ethics in the IPCC, in TERI and in government. And fourth, perhaps as important as all the others especially in a broader context, the credibility of science itself.   

Himalayan howler First prize for blunders must go to the statement about Himalayan glaciers in IPCC/AR4 that “the likelihood of them disappearing by 2035 or sooner is very high” (Working Group II or WG-II, Section 10.6.2). As admitted by IPCC after the controversy made headlines, this statement was based on “poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers”. That is putting it mildly! The assessment is simply wrong and should never have been made, certainly given the evidence cited.

Dr.Murari Lal from India, one of the Coordinating Lead Authors of the AR4’s WG-II Chapter on Asia, and not himself a glaciologist, has since stated in an interview to London’s Daily Mail that the date was inserted in order to “impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action”. This excuse of good intention only make matters worse, for it confesses to an agenda-driven rather than fact-based scientific conclusion. That said, there are other angles to the story too.
The 2035 prediction is not carried anywhere else in the Report. In the Executive Summary to the whole AR4, a more careful statement on trends is made: “widespread mass losses from glaciers… are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing… meltwater from major mountain ranges eg. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes.” It is well known that Himalayan glaciers are poorly studied, especially on the Indian side, and the authors of IPCC/AR4 do not seem to have placed too much stock on, nor based any major conclusions, on this statement. Indeed the 2035 date is nonsensical even by the unsubstantiated annual rate of recession given in the Report! But even those attacking the IPCC with the Himalayan glacier stick have not, and cannot, dispute the above more general opinion rightly defended by the IPCC as “robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with the underlying science and the broader IPCC assessment.” It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that rising temperatures will sooner or later result in melting of polar ice and of mountain snow caps and ice.    

The science is still correct In the case of other errors pointed out, the IPCC Report is even less at fault. The UK’s Sunday Times carried a tendentious story titled “IPCC Wrongly Linked Global Warming to Natural Disasters”. The story was splashed by several other media outlets including Indian newspapers. But the article was prompted by some social scientists casting doubts on a statement supposedly made in the IPCC Report on high economic costs of natural disasters, not on anybody questioning the linkage between climate change and extreme weather events! IPCC/AR4 in fact makes no definitive statement on economic costs beyond the indisputable observation that “extreme climate events… can cause significant loss of life and property damage in both developing and developed countries”. IPCC Reports are famous for their qualifying statements and predictions in probability rather than in absolute terms. Here too the Report states that some studies showed negative economy-wide costs while others did not, that there are many complex factors affecting costs appraisal of, say, near-term agricultural impact, and that “there is considerable uncertainty associated with assessment of economic impact of climate change”.

So let us be clear. Several issues have indeed been raised by the controversies over different statements in IPCC/AR4, but none of them contradict the core assessments that climate change is real and man-made, that global average temperatures are rising, that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are increasing and that these will have serious consequences for humanity. On these there is wide scientific consensus. More than 17,000 published and peer-reviewed papers have been taken into account and more than 3000 scientists have been involved in writing AR4. No other scientific exercise hitherto has involved such extensive and inclusive work. The message of the IPCC is incontrovertible, the attempt here is to shoot the messenger.

It must be noted that from the very beginning of the climate debate, there has been a concerted effort to discredit the science and scientists backing the idea of anthropogenic climate change. Fossil-fuel based energy and automobile industry lobbies, the US and some other governments, right-wing think tanks and many others have been known to distort evidence, doctor reports, famously within the White House itself, and otherwise cast doubt on the growing evidence and consensus. Big tobacco did the same and produced many “scientific” studies “disproving” the link between smoking and high incidence of lung cancer. Not all climate skeptics or media reports fall into this category, of course, and several valid issues have no doubt been highlighted. But the increasingly shrill chorus of the current campaign against the IPCC and its core findings smack of orchestration.

Deficient procedures However, none of this excuses the mistakes made in IPCC/AR4 which have resulted not so much from poor research but from inadequate review cross-checking procedures vital in so complex and multi-disciplinary a subject.

The peer review system, that is appraisal of research by other experts in the same or related fields, has long been the established best practice in science to assess the quality of research and its findings. Yet it also carries some inherent dangers, especially when not practiced scrupulously. The peer review system is often abused by hand-picking of reviewers with favourable views on the research subject or friendly relations with the scientist in question. Old boys’ networks, cronyism and mutual back-scratching have long plagued research, as academics and researchers in India know only too well!    With over 90,000 reviewers’ comments, and with multiple authors for different chapters, IPCC/AR4 may have built-in fairly good checks but obviously not foolproof ones. The glacier data cited was from just one scientist, and it is not known what other reviewers had to say about it then, but certainly afterwards many Indian and other glaciologists have raised serious questions.  But as Dr.Murari Lal observed, the mistake in the Report was made not by just one or a few scientists but went unnoticed by the many hundreds of authors and reviewers involved! IPCC peer review in future must go beyond a few selected reviewers, and procedures need to be evolved to enable the wider scientific community to also read and comment on IPCC Reports. Mistakes may still occur but not for want of doing everything possible to check them.

For his part, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh went hammer and tongs against the IPCC blunder and lamented that Indian scientists had not done enough climate research and were too dependent on western information. True enough, even though the glaciologist cited here happened to be Indian! Then his Ministry went on to officially publish a clearly agenda-driven “counter” study on Himalayan Glaciers which was also not peer-reviewed and contained numerous unverified statements and internal contradictions, including an executive summary that differed with findings in the text! The Minister also conveniently forgot that, as per UN procedures, the IPCC Report had been reviewed and approved by the Indian government who too had overlooked the mistake! Everyone has an axe to grind, it seems. And now the Minister has decided to send a government minder to all IPCC Board Meetings, ostensibly to exercise oversight on the IPCC and Chairman Pachauri! Does science benefit from being sarkari?

Grey literature A more troublesome problem is the use, certainly in the glacier case, of what is known as “grey literature”, that is articles or other publications that have not been peer-reviewed.  The Report’s statement on Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035 is referenced to an article in a journal of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), wherein a further reference had been made to an earlier magazine interview given by the single glaciologist referred to above! Not a peer-reviewed publication, not a research-based conclusion, just an off-hand speculative comment highlighted in the publication of an NGO committed to pushing for climate action! WWF too has had to clarify that the statement on glaciers was speculative. Other prominent international environmental NGOs too have had to make similar admissions in the wake of the recent controversies.

In the modern era, rapid advances in science and technology are impacting a wide swathe of society in many ways. Increasing specialization as well as cloistering of research behind corporate or institutional walls has further heightened the distance between science and the people it affects, prompting suspicion and fear about both science and scientists. Indeed, issues relating to large dams, GM foods, environmental pollution and climate change are intrinsically societal issues and cannot be left only to experts to decide upon. Peoples science or public interest science has come up as a response to shutting out peoples voices from decision-making relating to S&T which is sought to be confined only to those with expertise in the subject. Numerous NGOs, popular movements and “civil society organizations” now rightly conduct independent studies on many S&T issues, publish material, pronounce opinions and campaign on them.

Surely the same caution, cross-check, peer reviews and verification that are demanded of the mainstream scientific community should also apply to such NGO studies, publications and campaigns based on them. This has most definitely not happened till now, and many sweeping statements and unverified pronouncements are made by various organizations on complex issues.

The recent controversies will have served a good purpose if the IPCC, as assured by them, build more robust systems and procedures for the Fifth Assessment Report to ensure that the well-enunciated Principles Governing IPCC Work, namely to thoroughly review the “quality and validity of each source” of information and conclusions, are adhered to. It is clear that most climate skeptics and critics of the IPCC have not, and do not, bother to do this. But will at least NGOs and popular movements do the same?

D.Raghunandan
22nd December 2009

The Copenhagen Climate Conference has ended disastrously, the only saving grace being that things could have been even worse. People’s expectations that this meeting of world leaders would finalize a legally binding global arrangement to rescue humanity from calamitous climate change have been rudely dashed. Frustration, anger and disappointment are widespread, but not surprise, since many had predicted just such an outcome including in these columns.

No agreement was reached on targets for deep and binding emission cuts by developed countries. No firm commitments were made regarding finance and technology transfers to help developing countries cope with climate change, or on mechanisms and measures for effective implementation. None of these were in fact on the agenda of at least some countries at Copenhagen.

From day one, the US and its developed country allies made a planned and systematic effort to kill the Kyoto Protocol itself, remove the crucial distinction in the global Treaty architecture between industrialized and developing countries, and decisively shift the burden of reducing global emissions on to developing countries. They have half-way succeeded in these attempts and it was only the determined and united resistance of the developing countries that prevented the complete subversion and formal dismantling of the Kyoto Treaty, although this unity too started fraying at the edges towards the end. 

Just as the Conference was about to close in complete disarray, a so-called “Copenhagen Accord” was drawn up by the US along with the BASIC group of Brazil, South Africa, India and China, with the assistance of 22 other countries drawn from all continents and groupings. The Accord is in the nature of a political agreement with no legal force or approval by the Conference and, as such, its very operational status is very much in doubt. Even though it was widely perceived to be weak, flawed and dangerously open to differing interpretations, it was finally supported however reluctantly by most countries and blocs as providing at least some basis for future negotiations. Without this Accord, the Copenhagen conference would have closed not only with no agreement but also with no future direction and perhaps even no hope of ever attaining a global pact. This would have suited the US and other developed countries who have always, and in all contexts, opposed internationally binding agreements since, under a laissez faire dispensation, they can carry on with business-as-usual and impose their will upon others through bilateral and multilateral arrangements. The Accord should be seen as merely an instrument to keep the ball in play so that the game is still on. 

Serious consequences No one can seriously call what transpired at Copenhagen “negotiations” since the term assumes parties willing to move from earlier stated positions and converging towards a common one. Developed countries, led by the US, did not budge an inch from their emission reduction pledges made several months before Copenhagen, even though these were far below the 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 as called for by the IPCC and despite knowing full well that this would condemn hundreds of millions of people especially in the developing countries to grevious deprivation or even death due to climate change.

The US stayed at their pathetic 3 percent, the Japanese at roughly the same and even the EU did not raise their 20 percent to 30 percent as they had promised to consider.
As UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon put it, “Nature does not negotiate with us.” IPCC has warned that the window of opportunity to prevent runaway climate change and irreversible damage is small and narrowing with each passing day. Indeed, since the release of IPCC’s Fourth Report in mid-2007, evidence has been mounting that the situation is deteriorating even more rapidly than earlier believed. A secret UN report released during the Conference showed that, with the low emission cuts pledged by developed countries at Copenhagen, global emissions would not peak (i.e. reach maximum) by 2015 and then start declining as required, which would mean that global temperature rise could reach 3 degrees C by 2050, not 2 degrees as repeatedly promised.

But in effect, therefore, the world is now where it was before Copenhagen, teetering on the brink of runaway climate change, hanging on by a frail thread offered by the Accord which, as we shall see, is like a minefield, strewn with traps for the unwary. But the game will not be just about the right words but about power equations and purposeful negotiations to bring about the best results. The world is replete with Treaties crafted with the best of intentions but which are manipulated and twisted to suit the interests of the US and other forces of global capital. In the months to come, India and other developing countries will have to carefully work their way through the minefield in order to reach the goal of an internationally binding climate Treaty.

A great deal of introspection based on experience of the past few months, and during the Copenhagen Conference itself, is called for. The failure of the Conference to extract deeper cuts from developed countries, and of negotiations leading up to it including the tactics adopted by large developing countries, must rank uppermost among the aspect s calling for analysis. A few other salient features are discussed below.

Towards a new Treaty? US President Barack Obama’s take-it-or-leave-it speech at the Conference shattered his carefully cultivated messianic image and the illusions of many. At Copenhagen, his smiling “Yes we Can” slogan changed to a grim “No we Won’t”. Obama told the Conference he had come “not to talk but to act”, but all he did was to say that the US had done whatever it had to and had nothing more to offer. He also pushed the US agenda of dismantling the Kyoto Protocol and called upon developing countries to forget the past (meaning historical responsibility of developed countries for high atmospheric GHG concentrations, 30 percent contributed by the US alone) and leave behind the “fault lines… we’ve been imprisoned by… and the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years” (meaning differentiated responsibilities and equitable sharing of the global atmospheric commons) leading therefore to the conclusion that “all major economies… must reduce their emissions”, once again removing the crucial Kyoto distinction between industrialized and developing countries.             
It was difficult to believe that two years had gone by since the Bali Action Plan was drawn up and two Ad-hoc Working Groups, one on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) for enhanced emission reduction commitments by developed countries and the other on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) towards achievement of broader and longer-term goals, were set up. These two Working Groups had held extensive consultations with national governments, experts and civil society organizations around the world in order to promote a convergence of views and prepare draft negotiating texts for Copenhagen. Yet all this work was rudely and arrogantly cast aside by the US and its allies, ably aided by the Danish Chair of the Conference who manipulated the proceedings in such a way that discussions on the KP track were completely sidelined while all discussions focused on the LCA track. The aim was clearly to by-pass the Kyoto Protocol with its differentiated targets for developed and developing countries, and to work on a single track that would later be converted into a new Treaty.

It took two walk-outs by African delegates, with India playing intermediary in the second instance (Indian negotiators were at pains to point out that they had not actually joined the boycott), for the Conference Chair to even nominally restore the twin-track discussions. It was only in the last couple of days, just prior to the arrival of the Heads of Government, that a virtual complete revolt on the Conference floor by all developing countries finally forced the issue but by that time the stalemate was set in concrete.

Poor Tactics It is a matter of some surprise why these moves by the US and its allies, actively aided by the Danish Chair, were not nipped in the bud at the very outset in the opening days of the Conference rather than being allowed to overwhelm the Conference to the point of completely undermining it. The official and often reiterated Indian position that it did not want to take issues with anybody but would adopt a constructive role offers some clue. In Copenhagen, cooperation was taken for, and to a great extent translated into, acquiescence.

In fact, if one looks back to developments over the past few years going back to even before Bali,  it would seem that India and other large developing countries have paid a heavy price for going along with supposedly “consensus” formulations of the US and other G7 countries in earlier meetings of the G8 plus G5. This is not just hindsight. As regular readers of these columns would know, warning bells had been sounded even at those junctures in reviews of climate discussions at these Meetings. Joint statements of the G8 plus G5 on aspirational goals of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C and collaborative efforts to combat climate change were issued at the G8 Summits at Heiligendamm in Germany in mid 2007, at Toyako in Japan in 2008 and at the so-called “Major Economies Forum” in L’Aquila, Italy earlier this year. While India basked in the supposed glory of dining at the high table of global powers, and others thought these had brought about a gradual shift in the US position, these Statements implicitly put forward the idea that the US, other developed countries and India along with other large developing countries were all sailing in the same boat. All these came back to haunt the Copenhagen Conference. The dangers contained in the “Copenhagen Accord” should therefore be looked at in this light as well.    
The mostly unilateral commitments by developing countries such as China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia prior to Copenhagen, which they were not obliged to do under the Kyoto Protocol, also need to be re-examined. To some commentators these declarations appeared to have enabled these large developing countries to seize the moral high ground. However, as events unfolded it became clear that, again as forewarned in these columns, they were used by the developed nations to their advantage. The US and allies merely kept pushing the developing countries to cut more, or to concede more ground for instance as regards monitoring and verification, while themselves refusing to increase their emission reduction commitments. The leaked UN report revealed that the mitigation actions volunteered by developing countries  amounting to 5.2 billion tonnes of GHGs was considerably more that the emissions cuts pledged by the developed countries amounting to reduction of just 2.1-3.4 billion tonnes! Since the commitments by developing countries were made unilaterally, not conditional upon reciprocal action and deep cuts by developed nations, there was no pressure on the latter. In fact, the US and others also took the opportunity to put a further spin on this saying developing countries had made no concessions at Copenhagen, conveniently glossing over the fact that all these major concessions had been made before!

Looking ahead The real task now lies ahead, hopefully with lessons learnt. First the minefield of the Copenhagen Accord. The mines are in plain sight but still need careful navigation to avoid tripping over them and setting them off.

At the very outset, there is no date set in the Accord itself for arriving at a global and legally binding Treaty. The earlier reference to the next Conference in Mexico City in December 2010 has been deleted in the final version. First priority should be to prioritize this goal which, though, is implied in references to the LCA Working Group Report which contains it. Failing this, this will be only an open-ended “national pledge-based” agreement as the US has been pushing for with a review only in 2015.

Targets for global emissions, or for a peaking year, have been left out, not just in the Accord but even during negotiations and especially by India which has pretended that that these are of no concern! There is perhaps a fear that, if global emission limits such as 50% of 1990 levels by 2050, or a peaking year of not later than 2015, are mentioned, this will be used by developed countries to adopt low targets for themselves and thrust the balance on to developing countries. But this is where linkages with developed country targets and reciprocal actions come in and should be insisted on. 2 degrees C is not an operational target but an outcome that depends on limiting the quantity of emissions and the time within which this is done, both of which can be achieved through targeted actions and monitoring of the same. Current formulations suffer from the same weaknesses as previous ones.

Doors have been opened in the Accord for the removal or at least blurring of distinctions between developed and developing countries. At US insistence, even voluntary mitigation actions by the latter will be subject to “international consultations and analysis”, a thinly veil over international monitoring and verification. The provision for funding is worded not as a binding commitment of developed countries but that they would seek to “mobilize” these amounts from various sources leaving open the possibility not only of uncertainty as to amounts but also of diversion of aid money, funding from World bank or IMF etc.    

India also needs to think seriously about differences among G77 developing countries that came to the surface in Copenhagen. While India has rightly paid attention to cementing the BASIC alliance, and of course is falling over backwards to please the US in the interests of the “strategic alliance”, it needs to ensure that it cements its natural alliance with the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), the African Union and the bloc of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) together accounting for over 85 nations. There is a deep sense of disquiet among these countries that the “big four” developing nations are making common cause with the developed countries while sacrificing the interests of the most vulnerable. This is one red line India would do well not to cross.