Climate Challenge: poorer nations must hang together

It was a little over a year ago that around 70,000 persons, including heads of states from several countries, converged on Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. One of the spectacles that several participants witnessed, and which was reported widely in the media worldwide, was the burning of a large pile of sugar imported from Europe. The farmers of Africa were protesting against the huge subsidies provided to agriculture in Europe, which have apparently made the whole of Africa dependent on food imports from the North, wiping out the livelihoods of farmers on that continent. Anyone who sensed the strong sentiment behind this incident in Johannesburg would readily understand the firm stand that the developing countries took at Cancun in the WTO meeting recently. While several issues remained unresolved during this meeting, the most contentious subject on which an agreement could not be reached related to the phasing out of subsidies on agriculture by the developed countries. Some inferences can be drawn now a month after the Cancun meeting ended inconclusively. First, while Cancun represents a major setback, it is not necessarily the end of the road in the ongoing Doha round of negotiations under the WTO. Our commerce minister Arun Jaitley has voiced this view. This means that there is considerable work to be done, and the government of India would do well to seek the best expertise available in the country. The second observation that could be put forward is that perhaps for the first time in a critical area of international negotiations, the major developed countries stuck together without breaking rank, despite concerted efforts to divide them. Consequently, the developed countries have learned a lesson, which may impact on the course of future negotiations under the WTO, and perhaps in other areas as well where multilateral agreements are under negotiation. The most unfavourable outcome of Cancun could be a lasting impasse in negotiations under the WTO, which would certainly restrict international trade and continue with agricultural subsidies in the developed countries to the detriment of the developing world. Even more serious would be the implications for negotiations in other areas where multilateral action is critically overdue. Most prominent among these is the urgency of an agreement to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. As it happens, the worst impacts of climate change are likely to be felt in the developing countries, and by the poorest communities in all countries. A delay in reduction of emissions to stabilize the concentration of GHGs in the earth?s atmosphere essentially implies an intensification and prolongation of the impacts of climate change, which would affect health, agriculture and availability of water in several parts of the world; sea level rise is already threatening societies in the small island states and coastal areas worldwide. A weakening of the multilateral system under the United Nations, for instance, would in the end leave no winners. As common inhabitants of spaceship earth we need global agreements in areas where the actions of any society threaten on the welfare of any other. A stronger affirmation of support to multilateral bodies and their effectiveness would create conditions whereby humanity may rise above narrow interests and illusory short-term gains. The alternative would be social disorder, political tensions and threats to global security. In the year 2005, negotiations are scheduled to begin for an agreement on the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, beginning after 2012. And yet, it is not clear whether the Kyoto Protocol will be ratified. The outcome is entirely in the hands of Russia, which has still not revealed any decision on ratification or otherwise. Irrespective of whether the Kyoto Protocol comes into existence or not, in the next round of negotiations growing pressures would be applied on the developing countries, particularly China, India and Brazil, to take on certain commitments for limiting the emissions of GHGs. Would the same unity among developing countries that was exhibited in Cancun remain at work in climate change negotiations also? And, if there is a complete stand-off between North and South, can we at all escape the ill-effects of climate change in every corner of the globe? By contrast, the swift action that was taken globally for implementation of the Montreal Protocol stands out as a remarkably prompt initiative in multilateral decision-making. However, the question could be asked legitimately whether the Montreal Protocol received swift global support only because it threatened the countries of the developed world far more seriously than societies living in the tropical and sub-tropical regions. Countries like India also need substantial analysis on issue like linking trade and environment to forestall other barriers being erected by the North. There is at least a large degree of understanding today that poverty on a wide scale anywhere in the world is a threat to the world as a whole. A fair and equitable trading regime is the most effective means to reduce poverty and an essential step in creating favourable conditions for multilateral initiatives, which must prevail to overcome the critical challenges facing the world today.