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Climate change policy: youth to suggest modifications

Siddhesh Inamdar

Mumbai: Ever imagined wind power plants rotating on top of city buildings? Did you think a backpack with solar panels attached to the top flap was science fiction? Coordinators of the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) don’t think so.

In fact, such innovations to combat climate change at the individual level are what is needed in today’s world. This was the message sent out by the ‘Agents of Change Conclave – Road to Copenhagen’ held at the American Centre here on Saturday.

The IYCN’s Agents of Change programme also intends to send a delegation of Indian youth to the United Nations’ 15th annual Conference of Parties (CoP 15) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December this year. This conference’s most important agenda this year would be to chalk out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol (KP) that expires in 2012.

The KP is an environmental treaty that establishes legally binding commitments regarding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for its signatories.

“Whatever is going to happen in Copenhagen [from India’s side] will be decided in New Delhi first,” said Debi Goenka of the Bombay Environmental Action Group. Keeping this in mind, the IYCN has decided to organise Badlaav, a climate camp that will be held in the capital for a week in July. It will try and influence the government’s policy on climate change.

This camp, according to IYCN coordinator Ruchi Jain, “will be an effort on the lines of Powershift, a movement that took place in Washington in 2007. Over 10,000 children gathered outside the White House to pressure the U.S. government to shut power plants that ran on coal.”

Since the time of the KP, the Indian government’s stand has been that the developed nations should sponsor the developing countries’ fight against climate change, as they were the ones who caused it in the first place by following rampant industrialisation.

Samarjit Khanna, another IYCN coordinator, pointed out: “India’s per capita emissions are 0.25 tonnes, as against U.S.’ 5.60 tonnes. But in reality, this is a phenomenon called ‘hiding behind the population.’ Our actual emissions make us one of the biggest emitters in the world. Hence, India should not shirk its responsibility.”

Shyam Asolekar of the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) said environmental activism was not merely for the environment’s sake. It had social implications as well. “It is peace-seeking and justice-seeking. Hence ex-Vice President of the U.S., Al Gore, was given the Nobel Peace Prize. Imagine the state of ignorance we are living in — a man was given the Nobel Prize for just disseminating information about the issue!”

Rajan Sharma, Manager of Asian Paints, talked about the importance of rainwater harvesting in a city like Mumbai which demands 4,200 million litres a day.

The conclave drew linkages between the environment and food security, water shortage, biodiversity and even terrorism, underlining that our efforts to combat climate change would not just determine our future but also the kind of future we would give our future generations.

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