As delegates prepare for yet another Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, the question must be asked: "Who are the dreamers? Those who seek ways to live without ravaging Earth's natural assets, or the 'achievers' who believe mankind can survive, regardless of the damaged state of our forests, oceans, rivers and air?"
Like straw men, yesterday's climate skeptics have begun to fall before the literal and figurative hurricanes sweeping North and South. But this hardly means some kind of epiphany is about to strike the corridors of the powerful. They are likely to go down with their oil rigs and coal mines, before admitting: "We were wrong about carbon."
After witnessing a series of failed global negotiations, delegates to the DSDS should reflect deeply the stratagem to follow. But we should know that as we slowly ponder our imagined choices, the ecological ripples manifest around us are poised to become waves to engulf our composure.
Speaking from an Indian perspective, I know that some of India's most powerful politicians and planners are still hardcore closet skeptics. What they till recently articulated in public ("climate change is a G7 plot to keep India from developing") is only now muttered in closed circles. But it is within precisely these circles that real power lies. This is where energy and financial policies are decided. This is where calls are taken to proceed with or postpone climate action till after dubious (dirty) investments have been recovered.
So. What is to become of the children of the Ganges? For centuries we strived. We survived. The harshest plagues and conquerors' swords swept through us, yet we stood. For with us was the land. Its bounty our mantle of protection. Our ignorance perhaps created Eden. Technology that harsh unfeeling god had not arrived.
Technology! It might yet still serve us if we use it well. But that seems unlikely in a nation where people tend to blame god - not policy makers - for climate-triggered cyclones, floods, droughts, crop failures and diseases.
Meanwhile, we must confront the fact that Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever. Cyclones are driving sea water deep into coastal areas, contaminating sweet water sources and salinising lands where food once grew.
Dr. Pachauri never tires of reminding world leaders that: "Despite the massive increase in literature and knowledge on the human and economic implications of damage and degradation to the global commons, human society has been largely irresponsible in dealing with this challenge." He is right. Read the full report here.
Source: Bittu Sahgal, One World South Asia, New Delhi.
