US should respect key environmental tenet

The new US government includes Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a former Oklahoma Attorney General, who has a record for scepticism about the existence of climate change. Environmental groups in the US are outraged, but that doesn’t matter too much to most of us in India.

What matters is how Pruitt will interpret and make sense of one of the most key global environmental principles — common but differentiated responsibilities, which are applied to the climate change issue, and suggest that everyone is responsible to fight it but not in the same way, given their development trajectory and resources.

India has small per capita Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, and we have nearly 300 million poor people.

They need energy to fight poverty and get a chance at a decent life.

No matter what, this will mean emissions. But we don’t have a good enough chance if the world’s biggest political and economic power doesn’t buy into the idea of common but differentiated responsibilities.

If they refuse to reduce their emissions, or lead the developed world to do the same, countries like India, Himalayan countries, and small island nations will be the hardest hit, with freak weather events, droughts, and a collapse of agriculture, worsening the world’s challenges of migration and violence.

Pruitt may or may not agree with this scenario but as part of a new government, which has made positive overtures to India, he cannot afford to ignore what climate change means to us here. (The writer is director, Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group)