India blocking climate talks: Warsaw, Bangkok, and Kyoto negotiations
slate.com
slate.com
I don't understand how anyone can fault India for its current stance given that the state we are in was caused by the developed countries. The only way anyone can fault India is by asserting that an Indian life is worth less than a life in a developed country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
This is like moving into a new house and being forced to pay for the damage caused by the old tenants. And the old tenants are forcing you to pay for the damage while they live across the street in a brand new house constructed by stealing from the old place.
Please note that people aren't indifferent. Without technology and the economy, people in India would starve. I would also suggest that in a less developed economy, people are much more likely to be aware of that.
Industry is not bad, it's what humans alive, in the numbers that we have.
Now, these models are not entirely correct and still lack elements (climate is a very complex system), but it's not as if no thought had been put into the relationship.
I don't quite get what you mean by "during their period of industrialization". Industrial progress does not work that way. One can't just pick a number (e.g. 25) and say India is 25 years behind the developed countries in its path to industrialization. Some Indians are still living in the stone age [1]. Others, such as the average Indian commenter on HN, is working on technology that we will all use, a couple of years down the line.
Whatever the case may be, I think you'd learn a great deal if you stayed in India for a couple of years. The recycling I have seen here is, in some ways, better than anywhere else in the world [2]. A few examples that you'll see commonly here: carry-bags and wrapping paper made of old newspapers, shoes re-soled using worn-out tractor tires, peddlers going door-to-door giving big discounts on new vessels, in exchange for old vessels, etc. People at various economic strata of society squeeze out every little bit of economic worth from every little thing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people
[2] On second thought, it's quite likely that many others of the so-called developing countries would recycle about as much as Indians do.
Look over the history of the Industrial Revolution -- roughly 1750 - 1950. At the start of that we had no real working engines, transportation systems, concept of energy or thermodynamics, understanding of evolution or germ theory, and a whole host of other concepts, as well as practical technologies: steam engines, metalurgy, steel, chemicals, electricity, communications, fertilizers, drugs, information technology.
The countries modernizing now do have all of these things, and the possibility of avoiding many of the mistakes which were made by the countries which pioneered the transition (England, the US, Germany, France, and the rest of Western Europe).
As late as 1860, cholera epidemics were killing millions of people throughout Europe and tens of thousands in London alone (imported from India, as it happens). Sewerage systems, water treatment, antisceptics, anesthesia, and eventually antibiotics came out of this -- but the first two alone provided the lion's share of life-expectancy gains in England and the US.
The other thing we're very well aware of now is that 1) continuing to extract fossil fuel resources at the rates we've been doing will drastically change the climate and living conditions on Earth, possibly irrevocably and fatally to no only the economy but humans and most large animal species, and 2) those fossil resources will be too difficult to find and extract for net energy gain within the forseable future regardless. And those are only two of many impinging constraints humans face.
The recycling economy of which you write is only one change which will likely become far more widespread. John Michael Greer's notion of "catabolic collapse" -- which explains both much of the financialization and "software eats everything" aspects of the past two decades -- extends that idea:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/01/onset-of-cata...
http://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf
Look to your own Indus Valley Civilization for an earlier instance (an no, this time is not different).
That's not quite what I said.
> but the first two alone provided the lion's share of life-expectancy gains in England and the US.
Longer lives => contributing to pollution for a longer period... Are you making the point that modern medicine has contributed to global warming?
> The other thing we're very well aware of now is that 1) continuing to extract fossil fuel resources...
You replied to me. So I think you're responding to something I said. I don't see to what.
As for the Indus Valley Civilization, there are many hypotheses about its collapse, but there is little consensus in academia for its contributing factors. Each person seems to float his own pet theory about the matter, quickly contradicted by another person showing evidence to the contrary. Maybe "catabolic collapse" is a real phenomenon. I looked up John Michael Greer on Wikipedia, and lost all interest in it for now.
It's a direct (though partial) anchoring quote to identify what portion of your comments I was addressing. You said it. Exactly.
Longer lives => contributing to pollution for a longer period
That's one effect.
Another is that life becomes far more predictable. Risk and uncertainty are both factors which tend to work against the development of a rich and advanced culture. If a family can be reasonably assured that the children it births will live to maturity, the costs of food, housing, education, etc., are more likely to reach fruition and payoff. That's a large part of the dynamic that's though to lead to the demographic transition (see Hans Rosling and others). I've got my own concerns about DT, and theories about the reduced birthrates of highly concentrated cultures (Western Europe, non-hispanic US, Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere), but as a first order approximation it seems to hold. Once you've stabilized the population you can look at both reducing it (critical to long-term survival) and enriching it.
Are you making the point that modern medicine has contributed to global warming?*
There's very little in the history of the past 250 years that hasn't contributed in some way. It's complicated. My overarching point, however, is that we now know far more about what our limits are and can address them.
So I think you're responding to something I said.
Fossil fuels are the primary driver toward anthropgenic global warming, which is in fact the matter at the heart of this HN article. They've also been the driver of most economic (and population) growth of the past 250 years, by making a vast, clean[1], reliable[2], readily utilized, and highly fungible form of energy available. So yes, it's complicated. And it's a question I'm looking into at more length. And it's specifically fossil fuel use curtailment which India is fighting in international accord proceedings.
Indus Valley Civilization
An instance of the collapse of an advanced culture which happens to be proximate to your presumed location (I take it you're in India or have spent considerable time there). There are others. I strongly recommend Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies (his work is referenced strongly in Jared Diamond's Collapse).
Greer
He's not an orthodox thinker. I won't speak to all of his beliefs, but I've found his blog to be useful reading (and recommend you look at it) and the concept of catabolic collapse specifically useful. As I indicated, it's got credence in Marc Andreesen's "software eats everything" concept, in financialization, see books of the past decade or two on Wall Street / financial market shenanigans from Mark Lewis, and others (The Big Short, Hollowing Out America, etc.).
Orthodox economics certainly has its own set of fantastical beliefs (and gross distortions). Something I've more than a passing relationship with (I majored in the subject).
______________________
Notes:
1. As compared with animal power for transportation. "Mud", a/k/a dung, was a huge pollution and public health problem prior to motorized transport. The polluting effects which are experienced from fossil fuels occur at levels of utilization which simply had not been attained by its precursor fuels and energy sources. That said, yes, in sufficient quantity it can be quite bad (acute effects) and the chronic effects of CO2 release are now understand to be of vast significance.
2. Not subject to seasonal or other variability as with growing fuelwood, grains, water, wind, or direct solar energy. Until the point at which stocks of fossil fuels are practically exhausted.
About your important points: yes, the industrial revolution (roughly 1750-1950 as you say) was when most scientific, industrial, medical and engineering advances were made, and this happened in England, the US and Western Europe. All true, but, even here, it was not as if these changes were driven solely by a spirit of inquiry or general altruism, and it was not as if the rest of the world had no role to play. It was greed and the competition amongst nation states that drove a lot of the change; and it was financed to a large extent by systematic exploitation of people from other parts of the world - through colonisation, slavery, etc. India itself was under British colonisation during most of this period (1750-1950). And whole swathes of Africa and Asia were similarly colonised in that period.
About cholera, if it was "imported from India", it was the British themselves who did the importing of it and their people suffered the consequences. On the other hand, the indigenous people living in Australia and the Americas did not ask the British and Europeans to come to their lands and bring in small pox with them, but they did anyway; and it devastated whole populations there.
If they're false, it's a lost cause. People are not going to lower their living standard, especially not in India, to comply with new limitations.
So let's see.
I've got my own very serious doubts as to how much energy can be delivered, and at what EROEI, from renewable / sustainable sources. The good news is that we've got technology, science, and understanding now which we didn't have 250 years ago, and the odds are very good that they'll survive even a profound decline in industrial and economic capacity. But to think that national and/or global economies will continue plugging away without energy sources of some stripe (and fossil fuels are going to become untenable whether for environmental, supply, extraction cost, EROEI, or other bases) is sheer fantasy.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/07/1214314/-World-s-La...
A remarkable statement from the largest coal company in the world. Coal India produces more than 80 percent of India’s coal, and not only is it turning to solar as an efficient business practice, it understands India cannot power itself by coal.
Not snide. A statement of historical fact, noted for irony given the nationality of the person I was responding to. I was relying principally on James Burke's statement in episode 7 of The Day the Universe Changed, "What the Doctor Ordered": http://fixyt.com/watch?v=wM2UZ26b1EQ (19 minutes)
It's readily corroborated:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_cholera.htm
Cholera is a disease caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera. The disease first emerged in the 1800s from Calcutta, India where it had caused disease for centuries. Since then, 7 cholera pandemics have swept through the world.
I'll note that even recent epidemics are traced to south Asia. The cholera epidemic in India was imported from Bengali UN relief workers:
Cholera strains isolated in Haiti were genetically most similar to strains detected in Bangladesh in 2002 and 2008; thus, cholera was most likely introduced into Haiti from southern Asia (2). Despite the genetic similarity in the strains, no attempt was made by the researchers to ascertain and rule out the source of the outbreak in Bangladeshi policemen stationed at Mirebalais between September and October 2010. Another, although less likely, source for the introduction of cholera into Haiti could have been travelers or relief workers who may have recently been to southern Asia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310591/
I'm not blaming India for the epidemic, and I'm well aware that England was engaging in uninvited management activities in the region at the time. Though it's interesting to note that one of the first effects of globalization was importation of a mass epidemic -- we're dealing with similar issues today (various influenzas, SARS, AIDs), and there were earlier and other cases (syphilis imported from the New World, smallpox exported to it).
On Greer: he's very unorthodox. I'd suggest weighing his concepts on their own merits, and as I've noted in another response, the idea of catabolic collapse is really him putting an identifier and mechanism on a trend and mechanism others have noted.
it was not as if these changes were driven solely by a spirit of inquiry or general altruism
I am making absolutely no assertion that this is the case generally. The question of why industrialization emerged where and when it did is a fascinating one. I've been revisiting Burke's Connections and viewed The Day the Universe Changed both of which spend a great deal of time covering this period. I'm well aware of the social inequities which accompanied the transition.
In the large view, though, that's incidental to the larger problem: we (humans) have to figure out how the hell we're going to get past a confluence of multiple impinging crises: dwindling fossil fuels, climate change, other resource limits (water, topsoil, phosphorus, copper, "peak everything"), and underlying all of it, a fundamental problem of population, per-capita resource consumption, and equity in allocation both within and between nations. I'm very strongly pessimistic for the future, spanning a period probably roughly paralleling the duration of the Industrial Revolution -- the next 250 years. Though depending on what decline scenarios you subscribe to the fall could be more or less gradual.
One very real possibility is that the developed world make concessions to the undeveloped / developing world in terms of carbon emissions. Another is that the parties fight it out. Pursuing growth for its own sake will, simply put, backfire in the worst possible way. It's one of the larger prisoner's dilemma games ever constructed.
On Greer, what specific references do you have to his "non-evidence-based healing techniques"? I haven't run across those myself yet (he's a recent discovery of this past year).
You aren't being unbiased when you point out medicine and technology, but not colonialism.
I was not attempting to fully describe the differing circumstances surrounding industrialization of different states (, as I do not have the knowledge or ability to write a complete account); instead I tried to show that they have experienced different opportunities and circumstances through a limited example.
Does Rome or France conquering England have an effect on the way we should manage global emissions policy or not? Because if it doesn't, why are you mentioning it?
Do the different circumstances that India has during industrialization mean they should take a greater role in limiting their emissions or not? Because you mentioned just two items, medicine and technology, which are both positive. And you didn't indicate how they relate to emissions.
Instead of slipping in minor irrelevant facts that betray your bias, just state your opinion.
"Be civil."
"Civility" when discussing colonialism is just stacking the deck in favor of the colonists.
Read my post again. What is insulting? Describing behavior as cowardly, and then backing it up with two points that remain unanswered?
I could understand if the posts were baseless rants directly insulting the person I replied to with no content whatsoever, but that is not what happened.
All of the words in that post were appropriate, given the thesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
Similar circumstances accompanied the Holodomor -- the Ukranian famine (then part of the USSR) from 1932-1933 in which 2.4-7.5 million people died, again while food was being exported to support the Russian SSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ukrainian_famine
The point: history is rife with inequities. Addressing the problems we face now is going to have to involve setting those aside. I've speculated that it might be literacy (allowing records of the inequities to be preserved) which has a certain relationship with perpetrating the memory of such injustices (though it's also been pointed out that ignorant societies can be mobilized by demagogues).
In the instant case, I think it's fair for India to call for concessions by industrialized nations, but it's ultimately self-defeating to pursue a "growth" policy which will be anything but.
You are not going to get India on board by claiming Ireland had it just as bad. India's GDP per capita is $1500. Ireland's is $45000. That's a factor of 30.
China is going to think the same way. They are going to see any bluster from western countries about emissions as thinly veiled attacks on their ability to industrialize. That's a perfectly reasonable opinion.
There are plenty of developing nations with their own histories of conflict. India and Pakistan come to mind. Much of Africa. Much of SE Asia and (take your pick) Japan and/or China (I'm omitting the colonial cases of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the US here).
So: you're wearing LDC blinders. And my broader point is we need to get over this. Not ignore it, but get over it.
In the context of emissions, it's perfectly reasonable for a developing country to say "Well, we were just colonized, so we're not really keen on reducing our competitiveness to fix a problem you created" to a western country. "History is rife with inequities", will not mean anything to them.
And if you want to fix the problem of emissions, you need to understand that, instead of just saying "Well these developing countries are sure being jerks by blocking talks!"
What is an LDC blinder, btw?
Blocking talks (and I'll have to give the article / broader story a closer read to see how accurate that is) is a dick move, plain and simple. Making an alternate proposal (and I'd be more than happy to consider normalizing CO2 emissions per capita as an alternative) would work for me.
When a significant aspect of the Slate article dealt not with CO2 emissions but with HFCs -- hydroflourocarbons, used as refrigerants and themselves potent and long-lived greenhouse gases -- it becomes rather more difficult to pull the carbon / colonization card. Which is just what India are doing here.
You've gone on the attack against several people in this thread, largely on the "India was oppressed" card. Not to put too fine a point on it: that's not productive. If you want to introduce that fact into your debate, I'd suggest finding an alternative argument.
If you care about emissions, you need to understand that. Saying that they are making dick moves for making perfect reasonable, rational decisions given their position will not be compelling to them.
Mind: the industrialized Western nations need to learn this as well.
"Because, Colonization"
argument is silly, both Ireland and India were colonized for prolonged periods, both experienced extreme hardships in that time (and some benefits too of British rule)
both became independent roughly around same time, yet now both have very different standard of living for average person
blaming colonization is stupid when there are multiple other variables present
India was colonized and India has access to better technology and medicine compared to the original industrialized nations during their time to industrialize. Both are facts.
Regardless, India does not have an incentive to care about Ireland's or anyone else's path to industrialization. This is important if you want to convince India to adopt emissions standards.
About your argument, it is very easy to assume you are implying something very sinister. You mention that two countries had roughly the same colonial past and gained independence at roughly the same time, but one country is 30 times more productive per capita.
It is reasonable to expect someone to assume you are implying that one country's people are 30 times better than the other's. That is obviously putting words in your mouth, but you left a lot in your argument to the imagination.
I was pointing out that it is disingenuous to claim India has different circumstances if you are going to point out technology and medicine, but not that it was colonized as recently as the late 40s.
If you want to point out countries that are doing fine after colonization, I would think America would be the best example.
I know that the discussion of general air pollution is slightly off topic here, but it really is very bad in New Delhi, and eventually does reach the subject of climate change.
Another perspective: If India doesn't care about air pollution within India which affects it's own population, it's unlikely they will care about some glaciers melting far away sometime in the future and affecting people in far away countries.
I'm not up with Indian politics, but I rather suspect that the current refusal to deal with emissions is more about climate change denialism mixed in with a sense of anti-colonial defiance than anything else. Don't forget that it's actually easier, politically speaking, for a developing country such as India to adopt renewable energy than it is for the developed world, goodness knows they have the engineers to make it happen! We need baseload power, our society has been constructed expecting it to exist, but as Indian populations get electricity, it's not going to be a major drama if electricity supply is intermittent - that's still way better than no electricity at all.
We'll have to relocate a few cities, or abandon them. Sure, not pleasant, but nobody will be burning.
There are two other possibilities you don't consider:
1. India could prevail in negotiating for carbon emission reductions elsewhere (the US, EU, Japan). Technology transfers greatly increasing India's GDP/bbl wouldn't hurt either -- it's presently around $400/bbl, the US sees $1000/bbl, most of Europe is in the $1500-$3000/bbl range.
2. Stunning advances in renewable, sustainable, and/or low-carbon energy technologies could allow for growth in India's standard of living without additional carbon emissions. I put the likelihood of this as low.
Long run: there's a balance of population and per-capita resource consumption. The total sustainable rate is fixed. The question is: do you wish for a future with a very high population, or a for one with a high per-capita standard of living? They're at odds.
The earth and the climate don't care who pollutes how much. The total amount of pollution matters and there shouldn't be a privileged few consuming magnitudes higher than the rest. Plain and simple.
I suspect we'll get there.
What I'm less certain of is what that standard of living will be.
Sorry, I'm not parsing that. Are you missing a negative somewhere?
My intended meaning: a greater level of allocation equity may be achieved. If we're lucky, it's going to be at a relatively high level (I'd be happy with a late 19th / early 20th century industrialized world equivalent). If we're not, it will be at subsistence agricultural levels -- somewhere between late bronze and early iron ages.
Modern industrialized civilization is a tremendous heat engine, and without high-quality fuel inputs, it will cease to function. That will tend to decrease global wealth and population drastically.
As to the statement: life ain't fair.
There's a question of whether it's better to let some survive and/or thrive, and others not. It goes back a long ways. One of the more recent debates emerged when Garrett Hardin published his "Lifeboat Ethics" essay in 1974, which prompted fierce debate for several decades.
1. Suddenly, they're affected by climate change, or claim to be.
2. It's just a ploy to increase energy costs for developing nations and keep them behind.
This may or may not be true but with this kind of perception, such talks will never go through. Also, there are choking levels of pollution in New Delhi [1] and Beijing. The cities are really uncomfortable, and there is a growing body of research to show that air pollution is carcinogenic. [2]
These countries would do well to curb pollution and use clean energy just in the interest of public health. Unfortunately, public health is very low on the agenda.
New Delhi is on the brink of ecological collapse (or maybe beyond that depending on the definition). There is no clean air, clean water, or clean soil. There are no numbers to indicate how many pollution related deaths occur in India annually or what kind of productivity is lost. Frankly, no one cares either. Until someone is personally effected (in a drastic way, like NO2 poisoning and dropping dead..) there will be no change. A very large percentage of children in New Delhi are diagnosed with asthma. [1]
Climate change is a far cry from getting discussed if domestic air pollution isn't a cause for concern.
Source: I am Indian and spend a lot of time there quite often.
[1] - http://bkpk.me/cigarettes-arent-that-bad-after-all/
[2] - http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/17/health/geneva-air-pollutio...
That fact of the matter is that every economy goes through this cycle (of growing up). Child labor, poor health-care, now pollution and soon patents.
While not being pertinent to this discussion, the country with the greatest patent lobbying bodies is also the country that committed the greatest IPR violations. More here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQZJ5Jl41nk
Guess what, the catalytic converter exists now.
Western countries just want to have more stuff at all costs. The developing countries know this, from direct experience in recent memory. So they are not going to play ball.
It is extremely critical to understand that the reasons the developing countries are not playing ball is different than the reasons developed countries are not playing ball.
Well that's a little disingenuous, no? I know the intellectually lazy like to point out how the west didn't have any restrictions 80-90 years ago during their industrial boom, but you have to keep in mind that 80-90 years ago, they didn't know what a greenhouse gas was. And they certainly couldn't know the long-term impact. We're ALL suffering from those mistakes and ignorance.
The earth is a spaceship and we ride along in it as we travel through our galaxy. It's a spaceship with a finite amount of available resources and a fragile atmosphere. Past ecological abuses are just that, in the past. We need to look forward to the future and protect our spaceship or we all die.
1. Suddenly, they're affected by climate change, or claim to be.
2. It's just a ploy to increase energy costs for developing nations and keep them behind.
You're spot on, there.
or this
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bharat-stage-iii-vehicles-...
There are enough of us trying to change the system from within (notwithstanding the Delhi election day after tomorrow). This has resulted in pollution being one of the main aspects of all three major political parties manifesto ([1] vs [2] vs [3])
So let's not say that "it isn't a cause for concern".
[1] http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/we-will-work-free-delh... [2] http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/congress-manifesto-pro... [3] http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/bjp-manifesto-taps-pub...
Last time I checked, both China and India argued that global emissions limits should be done on a per-capita basis, and that therefore China and India should not be obligated to reduce their emissions.
While there are arguments to be made against this claim (e.g. should China and India be rewarded for their large populations?), it would be nice to see these arguments being addressed directly, rather than assuming that non-Westerners are only ever driven by base politics.
Or how about anybody who isn't rich enough to have at least savings sufficient for 6 months without any income (which is probably 98% of the planet) is only ever driven by short-term politics.
From the perspective of India or for that matter any developing nation aspiring to free its people from the shackles of poverty the above argument is commonsensical (sic) while the Slate article is condescending and biased in favour of developed countries.
Excerpts from the above article -
Copenhagen hardly matters. If it doesn’t produce an agreement, it clearly won’t matter. But even if it yields an agreement, that will matter very little.
Why? Because reducing carbon emissions by 80% from the 1990 levels – the target for 2050 for rich countries – depends on technological breakthroughs, not political pledges at Copenhagen.
...
In the Kyoto treaty on climate change, 37 rich countries pledged to reduce their carbon emissions to 5% below their 1990 level. But most actually increased their emissions. These very treaty-breakers now propose another treaty!
...
Despite climate uncertainties, it makes sense to mitigate emissions as insurance against a disaster that may never happen. Treaties are often signed to provide mutual insurance against political and economic risks. But if the insurance premium becomes costly enough to threaten economic distress, governments will abandon the treaties (a la Maastricht). No government will create a recession today to avoid a future disaster that may not happen anyway.
The lesson for Indian strategy at Copenhagen is clear. India should talk tough and not worry about being called a deal-breaker. When a deal’s value is so uncertain, it matters little whether it’s broken or not. India should keep its commitments light, and be ready to jump ship if others do. Never assume that others will actually implement climate pledges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=USA+total+primary+energ...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=USA+vs+India+coal+consu...
USA should make do with one gas-guzzling truck less per person, instead of bullshitting their pseudo-intellectual "green" preaching on India and China.
And India is the problem?
The world's per capita emission in 2010 was 3 times that of India. US emits 10 times more than us on a per capita basis. It befuddles me. HN please explain how India is in the wrong here?
https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/LyQx8fcv...
You can see the relationship between GDP and energy via Wolfram+Alpha:
China: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china+total+primary+ene...
India: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=india+total+primary+ene...
That said: the entire planet's got a bit of a problem, and the truth is that growing the economies of China and India through yet more increased fossil fuel consumption (much of both nation's energy comes from the worst possible source: coal), will have tremendously bad consequences.
Another factor is that the promise of economic growth has long stood in for efforts to produce greater equity -- with a growing pie, a promise of a better future can be made to all. When the pie stops growing (or even slows markedly) that relief valve is no longer available. Worse, the dynamics of various systems and institutions, including liberal democratic ones (but also "free market" systems) appear to behave pathologically under resource constraint circumstances (not that non-democratic ones behave better in all cases). It's a rather sticky problem (and for the record: I happen to like many of the features of democratic and liberal institutions).