FROM THE BLURB
Kyoto 2 — How to Manage the Global Greenhouse: Oliver Tickell; Zed Books, London & New York, and Books for Change; 139, Richmond Road, Bangalore-560025.
Rs. 400.
The Kyoto Protocol, the world’s first tentative step towards avoiding the threat of climate change, has failed. That there is an urgent need for a new course of action is the main argument of this book in which the author puts forward an original solution — Kyoto 2. Using a system of finite production rights for greenhouse gases, which would be traded by organisations on a global auction, ‘Kyoto 2’ seeks to succeed where the original agreement failed. Regulated by an independent body, the funds could be poured back into healing the wounds inflicted by climate change. In his combination of idealism with realistic proposals, he exposes the flaws in current approaches, and envisions a fairer and more effective system.
The purpose of ‘Kyoto 2’ is to deliver the objective of the Climate Convention, the most important outcome of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio: “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system… within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.”
Alternative Economic Survey, India 2007-2008 — Decline of the Developmental State: Altenative Survey Group; Daanish Books; 26 B, Skylark Apartments, Gazipur, Delhi-110096. Rs. 295.
This is the 15th in the annual series that critically looks at the state of India’s economy and development secanrio. The volume details with facts and arguments how the ‘reformist’ regime, caught in the web of contradictions and dysfunctional outcomes of its own making, has deformed the social fabric and its development process. It underscores the terrible costs the policies of total surrender to the market forces are imposing on the common citizens’ right to livelihood and meaningful participation. The contributions to the volume examine various aspects of the functioning of the economy; assess the impact of ‘reformist’ policies; and underline near collapse of the neo-liberal ‘growth-first and growth-last’ policies. Ironically, this very failure is being used to push for more policies favouring big capital — national and international, along with claims of going in for ‘inclusive growth’. Threat to democracy and its constantly dwindling social content are built-in features of a market economy dominated by a few, especially because the economy is being asymmetrically integrated with the economies of the rich countries. The volume also tries to project elements of alternative policies and programmes that can address current problems in the interest of common citizens.
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