Five things the environment minister must
do<http://toxicswatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/five-things-environment-minister-must.html>
Our
new Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has a reputation of sensitivity
towards ecology carved through his exemplary speech in the Rajya Sabha
wherein he had eloquently denounced the world's biggest and most
ecologically disastrous project of interlinking of India's rivers.
Armed with rigorous facts and figures, he noted, "India's track record in
resettlement and rehabilitation has been pathetic. This is a blot on our
collective conscience. With the type of track record that we have had, if we
embark on this fanciful scheme of river linking with 30 storage reservoirs
involving massive displacement of people, I think, it is going to be fraught
with grave consequences."
In one of his first responses sent to the 'Campaign for Environmental
Justice - India' on May 29 which hoped that there will be drastic change for
the better in the way this ministry is led, he said, "I don't know what I
can do but I will listen and try to make a difference."
Environmental researchers and activists are keeping their fingers crossed
because one of the very next few things the environment minister has
revealed is that "The prime minister has told me to clear this impression
that the environment ministry was a regulatory hurdle in the process of
economic growth."
Clearly, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and the prime
minister are not yet alive to the collapsing ecosystem.
The stark question is whether the CCEA will let the environment ministry
make the structural changes required in terms of reversing the current
policies which have resulted in manifest adverse impact on environmental
health or whether poisoning of our blood streams and amputation of river
basin system would continue to be deemed collateral damage.
The threat to the integrity of the natural systems is a threat to human
heath and such threats have become routine because of myopic industrial
agriculture, blind urban development, regressive transport systems and
criminal neglect of non-human species.
While legislative safeguards for environmental protection do seem to exist
on paper, the role of political class which is funded by corporations
illustrates homicidal ecological lawlessness that has led to rampant
industrial pollution, soil erosion, agricultural pollution and genetic
erosion of plant resources is quite crucial and merits more acknowledgment.
Be it blood contamination, congenital disorders, preventable but incurable
cancer or extinction of known and unknown living species on our planet, it
creates a compelling logic to re-examine the premises of the Industrial
Revolution and design a new one. In the developed world the model of
development is under interrogation because of environmental problems.
Between 1975 and 1995 the Indian economy grew 2.5 times, industrial
pollution went up four-fold, and vehicular pollution went up eight-fold.
This analysis seems factually correct but it has ended up internalising the
pollution and externalising the human cost of pollution. In such a context
health indicators of deteriorating environment is witnessed in terms of a
double burden of disease but the political class seems to have been rendered
spineless by the corporate empires.
A beginning seems to have been made with the appointment of a seemingly
sensible minister after a long while but environmental crisis merits more
than rhetoric or cosmetic solutions. If one were to identify five key areas
seeking immediate an urgent remedial attention, it would be:
1. Adopt mandatory emission cuts as a national, domestic and enforceable
objective even as we affirm the validity of 'principle of historical
responsibility' which is indisputable and incontrovertible. The current
stance which states, 'subjecting national aspirational efforts to an
international compliance regime may result in lower ambitions' is fine but
our ability to reach a certain emission reduction target under a national
plan as a national legal obligation would enhance India's negotiating
position. In fact National Action Plan for Climate Change should be
revisited to ensure visible and truly 'credible actions' within our own
framework. It is inconsequential for citizens whether some post-dated
international humanitarian law is being followed in letter or not, what is
of consequence is whether or not its governmental actions factor in the
spirit behind a law that will have ramifications not only for the present
generation but also for the future generations. Disassociation with carbon
trade is also a must because benefits from it are suspect.
2. Get the National Water Policy and National Environment Policy that was
drafted by the BJP-led NDA government besides the industrial policy
rewritten. The UPA government must disassociate itself from it because among
other things it entails agreeing with Tamil Nadu's irrational demand for
interlinking of rivers. As part of the same effort, overhauling the National
River Conservation Directorate to ensure a river basin approach is a must to
undo the unhealthy legacy of bulldozing rivers, flood plains, forests,
biodiversity, natural drainage etc in a manner as if citizens are
irrelevant. The National Council for Applied Economic Research has also made
recommendations for the setting up National Commission for Basin Management.
This is required also as a response to UN's Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change's fourth assessment report that states, "Glaciers in the
Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if
the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year
2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the
current rate. The River Basin Authority must be fashioned in manner that it
does not remain a rubber stamp or a paper tiger because if all industrial
projects are cleared by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, what role can
a effete body of the environment ministry do to undo the wrongs committed by
the CCEA. In fact if one undertakes an investigation of institutional
accountability for Bhopal gas leak disaster, it is quite likely that the
buck would stop at CCEA. The environment ministry must save itself from its
regressive influence.
3. Publish a database of environmental criminals and fugitives with their
photographs and profiles with the name of the companies which fall under the
64 heavily polluting industries under Red category (highly polluting
industries), 34 moderately polluting industries ('Orange' category) and 54
'marginally' polluting units ('Green' category). Also publish a list of
India's Most Wanted Environmental Criminals with wanted posters.
4. The environment ministry must get enhanced budgetary allocation for
rejuvenating the decaying institutional infrastructure including the Central
Pollution Control Board. One parliamentary report too calls for saving the
CPCB, the nodal body for regulating environmental norms. Currently,
environment clearance, compliance and monitoring are in a very sorry state.
It should be strengthened. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science
and Technology, Environment and Forests said the CPCB is being 'reduced to a
near-defunct body'. The 141-page report of the steering committee on the
environment and forests sector for the eleventh five year plan prepared by
Planning Commission deals with environment and development. It refers to
"The regulatory challenge" and states: "In the past some years, intensive
economic growth, which has increased economic wealth, has led to massive
pollution and degradation of the natural environment. One of the main
reasons for this is that the regulatory and institutional framework to
control pollution and degradation of natural resources is unable to keep
pace with the rapidly changing economic, social and environmental situation
in the country."
"The number of polluting activities -- and the quantum of pollution
generated -- has increased in the last several years. Furthermore, newer and
newer environmental challenges are thrown up -- from solid waste disposal,
to disposal and recycling of hazardous waste, to toxins like mercury,
dioxins and activities like ship-breaking to management of vehicular
pollution."
It is high time environmental regulation keeps pace with environmental
crimes even Interpol has a Pollution & Environment Crime Working group,
India also needs one.
5. Stopping transboundary movement of polluting technologies, hazardous
wastes, creating an inventory of hazardous chemicals and wastes besides
conducting an environmental health audit along with the ministry of health
to ascertain the body burden through investigation of industrial chemicals,
pollutants and pesticides in umbilical cord blood. In one such study in the
US, of the 287 chemicals detected in umbilical cord blood, 180 were known to
cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous
system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.
Absence of such studies in India does not mean that a similar situation does
not exist in India. Until and unless we diagnose the current unacknowledged
crisis, how will he regulatory bodies predict, prevent and provide remedy.
Currently, India is a victim of the unfolding Lawrence Summers Principle.
Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House's National Economic Council
for US President Barack Obama as a World Bank chief economist, sent a memo
to one of his subordinates justifying transfer of harmful chemicals from
developed countries to developing countries. Indian position on Basel
Convention, Rotterdam Convention and the recently adopted IMO Convention
reveals the same.
Our ecological space is a living entity but it is faced with the
cannibalistic propensities of illegitimately totalitarian scientism which is
married with political consensus. Its linear, piecemeal and closed
technological thinking fails to acknowledge that no unlimited development is
possible in the nature of things.
While a beginning can be made with the above steps, it must be realised that
the economic ideology that has led to the current global financial crisis is
the same ideology that is accountable for the ongoing ecological disorder of
lunatic ilk.
Therefore, nothing short of the death of old industrial policies of
pre-climate crisis era and rebirth of enlightened policy making that takes
into account intergenerational equity with regard to natural resources would
be sufficient.
Gopal Krishna
http://www.rediff.com///news/2009/jun/05guest-five-things-the-environment-minister-must-do.htm
Source: www.toxicswatch.blogspot.com
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Green Youth Movement" group.
To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
