[Assam] Climate Justice in the Northeast

[Sushanta Kar]

 Friends,<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/52817;_ylc=X3oDMTJyZm9yNGIwBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzMzNjYzNDcEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA2MTEzODY4BG1zZ0lkAzUyODE3BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzEyNjAyNjc2ODM-><http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/52817;_ylc=X3oDMTJyZm9yNGIwBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzMzNjYzNDcEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA2MTEzODY4BG1zZ0lkAzUyODE3BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzEyNjAyNjc2ODM->
I
would like to request you to go through this article and see
How the imperialist are designing to destroy bio-diversity of  NE
India Sushanta
Kar




Posted by: "Farida Majid" farida_majid at hotmail.com
<farida_majid at hotmail.com?Subject=+Re%3AFW%3A%20Climate%20Justice%20in%20the%20Northeast>
 farida_majid03
<http://profiles.yahoo.com/farida_majid03>  Mon Dec 7, 2009 4:17 pm (PST)



Please read the piece below by an Indian activist in the Northeast region
which hugs the border of Bangladesh. The howlers against India should know
that Tipaimukh dam is an important environmental issue for all human beings
in the region.



[Highlights are mine]



Farida Majid


Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 09:21:53 +0530
Subject: Re: [india-unity] Climate Justice in the Northeast






Dear Friends

I had sent the article in the Assam Tribune as an attachment.
With best wishes

Walter


The Assam Tribune, December 6, 2009

Climate Change or Climate Justice in the Northeast?

Walter Fernandes

The Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP 15) beginning at Copenhagen on
December 7, 2009 is the most important COP after the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.
In that protocol the rich countries made a commitment to reduce by 5.2
percent by 2012 with 1990 as the base, their emission of four greenhouse
gases (GHG) that damage the ozone layer and cause climate change. But all of
them have backtracked on it and are putting pressure on India, China, Brazil
and South Africa to reduce their GHG emissions. Because of such pressure the
Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting was turned into a climate change
meeting. There was pressure on India during the G-8 summit to reduce its
carbon emissions. President Obama phoned to Dr Manmohan Singh on 1st
December.

The rich countries are thus trying to escape their responsibility. They
focus on emission reduction and ignore resource sharing. But more and more
analysts recognise that climate change is a development issue that questions
the fossil fuel based model which the world has known for two centuries. The
GHG emissions it causes are threatening the earth’s sustainability but the
rich countries do not want to change their consumerist lifestyle that
depends on it. So they are trying to shift the burden to the poor.

Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) is one of their ways out of the Kyoto
protocol. A country gets points for emission reduction according to the
number of projects it has under it. That is good in itself but the rich
countries have found a subterfuge by inserting a clause that allows them to
get points for emission reduction by funding CDM projects in poor countries
without changing their own lifestyle. The first CDM is low emission
technology. Some rich countries transfer their outdated technology to the
poor because it is less GHG emitting than what they have at present but it
is not clean.

More important are carbon sinks that are forests or greenery meant to absorb
the GHG emissions. The carbon sinks do not have to be in the polluter’s
region or continent. For example, Northeast India has been identified as a
possible carbon sink for Europe. It is never mentioned explicitly but during
the negotiations a proposal is made every now and then to turn this
biodiversity rich region into a carbon sink. Most carbon sinks are
commercial monoculture forests. The Northeast is one of the world’s 25
mega-biodiversity zones. So turning it into a carbon sink will involve
planting a series of commercial forests that will destroy the biodiversity
on which is based the identity and livelihoods of the people of the region.
This aspect is ignored in the international negotiations that treat it as a
CDM.

That brings two facets of the justice issue to the fore. The first is
international justice. The fossil fuel based development model and
overconsumption of resources by the rich is responsible for the problem. But
they are trying to shift the burden to bigger countries in the developing
world that want to invest in their own development. The USA with 6 percent
of the world’s population contributes 25 percent of its GHG emissions.
Europe and USA account for 20 percent of the population and for 80 percent
of its emissions. India, whose per capita emissions are about a hundredth of
those of the USA and less than a fiftieth of Europe, is asked to reduce them
because in recent years it has been investing in projects that are
increasing GHG emissions.

The second issue is justice within the poor countries. The most vulnerable
groups like the agricultural labourers, fish workers and small farmers do
not leave their “carbon footprints” behind i.e. they do not contribute to
GHG emissions. If they do, they are “survival emissions” such as methane gas
produced by paddy cultivation and animal husbandry while the rich countries
and the Indian middle and upper classes produce “luxury emissions” through
fossil fuel and synthetic materials. These vulnerable groups, particularly
women among them pay the highest price of climate change but they are
ignored in the negotiations.

This issue is crucial for India where 70 percent of the population depends
on climate sensitive sectors like agriculture and fisheries. Climate change
has enormous implications for them particularly for the Northeast which is
one of the world’s 25 mega-biodiversity zones but has become a biodiversity
hotspot in which biodiversity is being destroyed fast. One of its impacts is
greater intensity and frequency of floods and droughts. The landless, fish
workers and small farmers are its worst victims. Turning the region into a
carbon sink will destroy it further. But the Government of India seems to
have accepted commercial monoculture as a CDM. For example, the Bhadrachalam
Paper Mill in Andhra Pradesh has planted eucalyptus for raw material on 300
acres of land taken from the tribals. That has impoverished the tribes. So
for sheer survival they resort to the only alternative available to them of
overexploiting the forests around them for sale as timber or firewood. That
damages the environment much more than what the paper mill claims to
preserve. But the eucalyptus plantation that is responsible for their
impoverishment and environmental degradation has been declared a CDM and
gains points for it.

The Northeast can face a similar situation. If this policy is followed in
the region and its people are impoverished and forced to overexploit the
resources for survival, they will be declared enemies of nature. Consumerism
of the rich nations and of the middle and upper classes in poor countries
has caused the problem. These classes invest in more and more vehicles. The
state is investing on coal-based GHG emission producing thermal power
plants. The 48 major dams it is planning in the Northeast will destroy its
biodiversity and impoverish its people. Scarcity of resources will be one of
its consequences. That will result in competition for scarce resources and
more ethnic conflicts.


These justice issues do not figure in the climate change negotiations.
Awareness of climate change is low in the region though it is paying a high
price for it. Time has come for persons committed to justice to join hands
to demand an equitable climate justice policy that goes beyond emission
reduction and protects and develops people’s livelihoods. The region has to
accept the challenge of evolving a climate justice based development model
that creates jobs for its estimated 40 lakh unemployed backlog and for the
youth coming out of its universities, while preserving its resources and
avoiding further damage to the environment.

The author is Director, North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati.


Dr Walter Fernandes
Director, North Eastern Social Research Centre
110 Kharghuli Road (1st floor)
Guwahati 781004
Assam, India
Tel. (91-361) 2602819
Email: nesrcghy at gmail.com <nesrcghy%40gmail.com>
Webpage: www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/NESRC

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