The following article by A. Srinivas in Hindu Businessline says that India need not resort to technology transfer from the developed world or compromise on its rate of growth by implementing emission reduction targets.
Sabyasachi

Climate change in our backyard

There are a number of areas where India can clean up its act without relying on technology transfer from the developed world or compromising its rate of growth.
Emission reductions would require people to make intelligent lifestyle choices.
A. Srinivas

A lot has been said on why India should not commit to emission reduction targets. It is correctly argued that the primary responsibility for cleaning up the atmosphere lies with the developed world, since it accounts for an overwhelming proportion of the stock of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Does this mean that developing countries such as India should focus only on “growth” and forget about rising emission levels?

Climate change hits India hard in terms of costs and livelihoods disrupted, even though India accounts for about 4 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions. Even as scientists — from the Indian Institute of Science, the IITs, Indian Space Research Organisation and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology — have documented climate change over the last five decades, some policymakers continue to believe that climate change is a bogey created by the West. It is time we woke up to the seriousness of the issue.

INDIA IMPACTED
Research has virtually established climate change in central India — the region from Uttar Pradesh in the north to Maharashtra in the south and from Gujarat in the west to Orissa in the east. A study by B. N. Goswami, V Venugopal, D. Sengupta, M. S. Madhusoodanan and P. K. Xavier, published in the journal Science in 2006, says there has been an increase in extreme rainfall events over 50 years in this region.

M. Rajeevan of the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory goes further and relates this to the rise in surface-level sea temperatures, pointing out that extreme events were fewer in this region in the decade 1940-50, coinciding with subdued sea temperatures. In the process, he comes closer to establishing a link between the warming of the earth and the altered climate in central India.

A reply to a starred question in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2009, by the Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mr Prithviraj Chavan, makes a more cautious observation in this respect: “Although some recent studies hint at an increasing frequency and intensity of extremes in rainfall during the last 40-50 years, their attribution to global warming is yet to be established... our country’s own assessment using regional climate models indicates that extreme rainfall events are likely to be more frequent in the later part of the 21st century in the world including India.”

Extreme trends observed
A paper by S. K. Dash, Makarand A. Kulkarni, U. C. Mohanty and K. Prasad, published in theJournal of Geophysical Research (Vol 114, 2009) observes that “in the last half century, the numbers of moderate rain days averaged over the whole of India have significantly decreased during the summer monsoon season. Similar decrease is noticed in the number of low rain days…On the other hand, the number of heavy rain days considered over the entire country shows some indications of increase, though the trend is not statistically significant…Significant decrease in the numbers of moderate and low rain days have been observed in the hilly region and the west central India. On the other hand, the numbers of heavy rain days have increased significantly only in the north-east.”
It also says: “Significant decrease in the number of…long-spell rain events and simultaneous increase in the short and dry spells over India at large may suggest monsoonal systems have weakened.”

Scientists say that the rise in extreme trends implies that if there is a major flood in a region in a particular year, the chances of the same region experiencing a searing drought the following year are high.

These swings call for higher levels of preparedness at various levels — from disaster management to cropping patterns. It will no longer do to wish away destruction caused by extreme floods and drought as an aberration.

The Indian Council for Agricultural Research is working on varieties of rice that can cope with both floods and drought, but that might take time coming.

Smart technology, which includes using surface-level sprinklers in fields and promoting rice varieties that require little water, is all very well, but one needs to go further and transform not just farming techniques but also the way we live. A research paper that gives a disaggregated picture of GHG emissions, provides some insights into where corrective action is possible.

THE WAY AHEAD
The paper, Greenhouse gas emissions from India: a perspective, by Subodh Sharma, Sumana Bhattacharya and Amit Garg (Current Science, Vol 90, No 3, February 10, 2006) points out that “carbon dioxide emissions were dominated by emissions due to fuel combustion in the energy and transformation activities, road transport, cement and steel production…at a sectoral level, energy sector contributed 61 per cent of the total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (of 1,485 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2000), with agriculture contributing about 28 per cent…”

The paper points out that the maximum growth rate in emissions in the 1990s was in the industrial processes sector, which accounted for a little over 10 per cent of India’s total emissions in 2000.
While emissions from industrial processes rose by 21.3 per cent annually, the energy sector’s increased by 4.4 per cent annually, while emissions from agriculture were unchanged.

There are a number of areas where India can clean up its act without relying on technology transfer from the developed world or compromising its rate of growth.
Persuading the industrialised countries to relax their IPR regime for transfer of clean technologies is no mean task. Instead of losing time here, India can commit itself to certain new approaches.

The promotion of mass public transport systems, particularly rail, over private road transport can help curb emissions. ‘Food miles’ — transporting food products over long distances — can be slashed by encouraging consumption of local produce.

Urbanisation is not an environment-friendly process. The movement towards cities can be checked through the promotion of labour-intensive industry, notably textiles, in rural areas.

Above all, emission reductions would require people to make intelligent lifestyle choices. A rapidly growing economy need not be one that produces things of dubious worth. In the babble and din over climate change, this has been forgotten.
The source article can be found here:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...1150290700.htm