According to Denmark’s finance minister meeting in Scotland yesterday with his counterparts from the G20, there is now no chance next month’s Copenhagen climate summit will produce a replacement for the Kyoto Treaty.
Such a pessimistic view has underpinned the fresh idea that the G20 itself should be the forum to beat out a new climate agreement. The argument is that since these top 20 world economies represent some 90 percent of the world’s wealth, 80 percent of its trade and some two-thirds of its population, what it decides will really matter.
This is as it may be but it is still quite wrong that the G20 nations should seek to sideline the global climate summit and arrogate to themselves the responsibility for defining and agreeing future actions to curb man-made impacts on the world’s climate.
The main error is that every other country would be left out of the loop. For sure, there would be promises of full consultation and solemn vows to take on board all of the concerns expressed by every other nation. But this would simply not be good enough and for one very important reason. This is not an issue for any one grouping of nations — however powerful their economies and great their combined populations. The reality of climate change is that it is affecting every single country. More cogently it is clear that the most serious consequences will be felt in the poor Third World countries, whose economic well-being has been precarious at the best of times. Whatever the dire outcome for wealthy nations, they have the money and resources to deal with flooding or changed agricultural output in one way or another. Indeed erecting flood defenses or building skyscraper hydroponics farms actually represents an economic opportunity for them.
Not so for dirt-poor countries who must rely on support from the rich First World. They therefore need to be front and center in the climate change debate, not beggars standing outside some G20 conference, hoping against hope that when the deals have been done behind closed doors, something substantial will be tossed into their waiting bowls. And there is a further very good reason why the UN’s Climate change summit is the only proper forum for debate and agreement. Developing countries are going to have to do their bit to curb emissions, whether it is abandoning catastrophic slash and burn, destruction of forests to create new but marginal farmland or turning away from polluting power production. Managing the radical economic and social adjustments inherent in such changes has to be part and parcel of a coordinated worldwide policy. If instead G20 countries handed down their decisions from on high, it is reasonable that Third World countries will reject them as exploitative.
Therefore the G20 should abandon any plans to seize the climate change agenda for itself. Instead its members must knuckle down with everyone else in Copenhagen, including the pesky, vociferous environmental lobbyists and try to hammer out a deal that is more likely to stick because it has been agreed by everyone.
Cultural heritage
India has a long way to go in protecting its cultural heritage, said The Hindu in an editorial on Saturday. Excerpts:
Heritage conservation practices improved worldwide after the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (Iccrom) was established with Unesco’s assistance in 1959. The inter-governmental organization with 126 member states has done a commendable job by training more than 4,000 professionals, providing practice standards, and sharing technical expertise. In this golden jubilee year, as we acknowledge its key role in global conservation, an assessment of international practices would be meaningful to the Indian conservation movement. Consistent investment, rigorous attention, and dedicated research and dissemination are some of the positive lessons to imbibe. Countries such as Italy have demonstrated that prioritizing heritage with significant budget provision pays. On the other hand, India, which is no less endowed in terms of cultural capital, has a long way to go. Surveys indicate that in addition to the 6,600 protected monuments, there are over 60,000 equally valuable heritage structures that await attention. Besides the small group in the service of Archaeological Survey of India, there are only about 150 trained conservation professionals.
Increasing funding and building institutions are the relatively easy part. The real challenge is to redefine international approaches to address local contexts. Conservation cannot limit itself to enhancing the art-historical value of the heritage structures, which international charters perhaps overemphasize. The effort has to be broad-based: it must also serve as a means to improving the quality of life in the area where the heritage structures are located. The first task therefore is to integrate conservation efforts with sound development plans that take care of people living in the heritage vicinity. Unlike in Western countries, many traditional building crafts survive in India, and conservation practices offer an avenue to support them. This has been acknowledged by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage charter for conservation but is yet to receive substantial state support. More strength for heritage conservation can be mobilized by aligning it with the green building movement. Heritage structures are essentially eco-friendly and conservation could become a vital part of the sustainable building practices campaign in future.
