Illustration: Tarique Aziz

By Sunita Narain
NEW DELHI, Apr 22 2019 (IPS)

Our acceptance of climate change doesn’t keep pace with our energy consumption reduction. However, the latest International Energy Agency’s (IEA’S) Global Energy and CO2 Status Report for 2018 has some good news.

It offers where possible answers lie in our quest to mitigate climate change. This is what we should discuss. But transitions in energy use will be contested and even be more difficult, if we don’t factor in climate justice.

IEA’s report finds that global energy consumption is up — twice the average rate of growth since 2010. This is because of robust economic growth in the world and weird weather, ironically because of climate change.

As a result, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are up, with the power sector accounting for two-thirds of the growth in emissions. Oil demand increased by 1.3 per cent in 2018 and so has the demand for coal.

Sunita Narain

IEA estimates that CO2 emitted from coal combustion was responsible for over 0.3°C of the 1°C increase in global temperature over the pre-industrial levels.

But here is the good news that has the potential to turn around the energy trajectory that jeopardises our future. First, natural gas is replacing coal for generation of power — roughly 24 per cent of the growth in natural gas use in the world was because it was being substituted for coal in power plants.

This happened mostly in the US and also in China — where its domestic policy to clean air pollution (called the Blue Skies initiative) pushed for curtailment of coal use in industrial boilers and power plants.

Without this shift, CO2 emissions would have been 15 per cent higher, estimates IEA. However, we need to note that gas does have higher methane emissions — a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) — and this is not accounted for by the IEA assessment in its CO2 balance sheet.

Secondly, renewable energy — solar, wind, hydel and bioenergy — is now a big part of the power balance sheet of the world. Renewable-based electricity generation increased by 7 per cent.

This, as IEA puts in perspective, is Brazil’s total energy electricity demand and one-point higher than the annual growth rate since 2010. China accounted for 40 per cent of the increase in renewables; Europe some 25 per cent and interestingly, both the US and India witnessed 13 per cent increase in renewable energy growth.

Renewable energy accounted for a quarter of the global power output in 2018, second after coal. In Germany and also in the UK, renewable energy provided over 35 per cent of the electricity.

Without the switch to gas and increased use of nuclear and renewables, CO2 emissions would have been 50 per cent higher, for the same economic growth that the world saw in 2018, says IEA. This is not small. This is not to be scoffed at. But this is not enough.

The problem is the unequal nature of wealth in the world and the fact that this energy transition has to be made even as significant parts of the world need more energy — to light up homes, to cook food and to run their industries. This is the challenge and this is where we totally fall short.

The US, for instance, desperately needs to reduce its total GHG emissions — its contribution to the stock of gases already in the atmosphere is massive (almost a quarter). It has to reduce.

But in 2018, its CO2 emissions actually increased by 3.7 per cent. This is despite the fact that it substituted coal for gas and so, brought down its emission intensity. In other words, it has increased its emissions to such an extent that it has negated any gains it could have made because of this shift.

This is also when methane is not being added to its emission balance sheet. This is not good; not good at all.

Similarly, the use of oil — primarily used for road transportation — increased at higher rate in the US, even when compared to China and India. This is when ownership and use of personal vehicles is already gargantuan and gross in the country.

So, how will the world contract its emissions? How will it still provide the right to development of the poor and the now emerging countries? Will it and can it? This is what needs to be discussed. This is the inconvenient truth of climate change action.

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Credit: IPS

By Sunita Narain
NEW DELHI, Aug 17 2018 (IPS)

The minimum we expect from the government is to differentiate between right and wrong. But when it comes to regulating our food, it’s like asking for too much. Our latest investigation vouches for this. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)’s pollution monitoring laboratory tested 65 samples of processed food for presence of genetically modified (GM) ingredients.

The results are both bad and somewhat good. Of the food samples tested, some 32 per cent were positive for GM markers. That’s bad. What’s even worse is that we found GM in infant food, which is sold by US pharma firm, Abbott Laboratories, for toddlers with ailments; in one case it was for lactose intolerant infants and the other hypoallergenic—for minimising possibility of allergic reaction.

Sunita Narain. Credit: Center for Science and Education

In both cases, there was no warning label on GM ingredients. One of the health concerns of GM food is that it could lead to allergic reactions. In 2008 (updated in 2012), the Indian Council of Medical Research issued guidelines for determining safety of such food, as it cautioned that “there is a possibility of introducing unintended changes, along with intended changes which may in turn have an impact on the nutritional status or health of the consumer”.

This is why Australia, Brazil, the European Union and others regulate GM in food. People are concerned about the possible toxicity of eating this food. They want to err on the side of caution. Governments ensure they have the right to choose.

The partial good news is that majority of the food that tested GM positive was imported. India is still more or less GM-free. The one food that did test positive is cottonseed edible oil. This is because Bt-cotton is the only GM crop that has been allowed for cultivation in India.

This should worry us. First, no permission has ever been given for the use of GM cottonseed oil for human consumption. Second, cottonseed oil is also mixed in other edible oils, particularly in vanaspati.

Under whose watch is GM food being imported? The law is clear on this. The Environment Protection Act strictly prohibits import, export, transport, manufacture, process, use or sale of any genetically engineered organisms except with the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

In fact, they will say, there is no GM food in India. But that’s the hypocrisy of our regulators–make a law, but then don’t enforce it. On paper it exists; we are told, don’t worry. But worry we must.

The 2006 Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA) reiterates this and puts the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in charge of regulating use. The Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 2011 mandate that GM must be declared on the food package and the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act 1992 says that GM food cannot be imported without the permission of GEAC. The importer is liable to be prosecuted under the Act for violation.

Laws are not the problem, but the regulatory agencies are. Till 2016, GEAC was in charge–the FSSAI said it did not have the capacity to regulate this food. Now the ball is back in FSSAI’s court. They will all tell you that no permission has been given to import GM food.

In fact, they will say, there is no GM food in India. But that’s the hypocrisy of our regulators–make a law, but then don’t enforce it. On paper it exists; we are told, don’t worry. But worry we must.

So, everything we found is illegal with respect to GM ingredients. The law is clear about this. Our regulators are clueless. So, worry. Get angry. It’s your food. It’s about your health.

What next? In 2018, FSSAI has issued a draft notification on labelling, which includes genetically modified food. It says that any food that has total GM ingredients 5 per cent or more should be labelled and that this GM ingredient shall be the top three ingredients in terms of percentage in the product.

But there is no way that government can quantify the percentage of GM ingredients in the food—this next level of tests is prohibitively expensive. We barely have the facilities. So, it is a clean chit to companies to “self-declare”. They can say what they want. And get away.

The same FSSAI has issued another notification (not draft anymore) on organic food. In this case, it says that it will have to be mandatorily “certified” that it does not contain residues of insecticides. So, what is good needs to be certified that it is safe.

What is bad, gets a clean bill of health. Am I wrong in asking: whose interests are being protected? So, take charge of your food. Your health is your business.

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By Sunita Narain
NEW DELHI, Jul 20 2018 (IPS)

A global trade war has broken out. The United States fired the first salvo and there has been retaliation by the European Union, Canada, China and even India. Tariffs on certain imported goods have been increased in a tit-for-tat reaction.

Sunita Narain

China is heaving its might on the world. President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative is an open call for its global influence. In July 2017, China launched the ambitious plan to invest in the technology of the future—artificial intelligence.

There are dark (unconfirmed) whispers about how it is going about acquiring many new-age technologies by rolling over western companies operating in vast markets.

The last century belonged to the US and Europe with Russia as the communist outlier. China became mighty all because of the emergence of the free trade regime in the world. Just some 35-odd years ago, it was behind the iron curtain.

But then the World Trade Organization (WTO) was born in January 1995. China’s trade boomed. It took over the world’s manufacturing jobs. India, too, found its place by servicing outsourced businesses like telemarketing. “Shanghaied” and “Bangalored” entered the lexicon—as jobs (and pollution) moved continents.

This way, globalisation fulfilled its purpose to usher in a new era of world prosperity. Or so, we thought.

Instead, globalisation has made the world more complicated and convoluted. In early 1990s, when the discussions on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were at its peak, there was a clear North-South divide.

The then-developed world pushed for opening up of trade. It wanted markets and protection through rules on “fair” trade and intellectual property. The then developing world was worried what the free trade regime would do to its nascent and weak industrial economies.

More importantly, there were fears of what these new open trade rules would do to its farmers, who would have to compete with the disproportionately subsidised farmers of the developed world.

In 1999 tensions flared up at the WTO ministerial meet in Seattle. By this time, reality of globalisation had dawned and so it was citizens of the rich world who protested for labour rights, worried about outsourcing of their jobs and environmental abuses.

But these violent protests were crushed. The next decade was lost in the financial crisis. The new winners told the old losers that “all was well”.

Today Trump has joined the ranks of the Leftist Seattle protesters, while India and China are the new defenders of free trade. The latter in fact want more, much more of it.

But again, is it so straightforward? All these arrangements are built on the refusal to acknowledge the crisis of employment. The first phase of globalisation led to some displacement of labour and this is what Trump is griping about.

But the fact is that this phase of globalisation has only meant war between the old elite (middle-classes in the world of trade and consumerism) and the new elite. It has not been long enough or deep enough to destroy the foundations of the livelihoods of the vast majority of the poor engaged in farming. But it is getting there.

But this is where the real impact of globalisation will be felt. Global agricultural trade remains distorted and deeply contentious. The trade agreements targeted basics like procurement of foodgrains by governments to withstand scarcity and the offer of minimum support price to farmers.

Right now, the Indian government is making the right noises that it will stand by its farmers. But we will not be able to balance this highly imbalanced trade regime if we don’t recognise that employment is the real crisis.

It is time that this round of trade war should be on the need for livelihood opportunities. Global trade talks must discuss employment not just industry. It must value labour and not goods.

This is what is at the core of the insecurity in the world. It is not about trade or finance. It is about the biggest losers: us, the people and the planet.

The link to the original article follows:
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/

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