Global Warming and South Asia
As delegates were preparing to meet in Bali for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, there was a sobering reminder of the havoc global warming is already wreaking. Cyclone Sidr, accompanied by a tidal surge, killed 2,000 in Bangladesh initially, with fears that the death toll might eventually reach 10,000.

Simon Robinson notes that things could have been much worse; Cyclone Gorky, in 1991, killed 138,000. The Bangladeshi government has gotten much better at preparing for and cleaning up after such storms, but cyclones are likely to get harder to control. “Scientists believe that global warming will make cyclones in the region bigger and more frequent. That's bad news for Bangladesh, whose location and geography makes it not only particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change but also extremely hard to protect,” writes Robinson. (Time Asia, November 19, 2007).  

Chowdhury Sajjadul Karim, Bangladesh’s delegate to the Bali conference on climate change, said that low-lying low-income countries, especially Bangladesh, are the most susceptible to the effects of global warming and the least responsible for its occurrence. “We are on a high moral ground because our per capita emission of [greenhouse gases] is very low... So they owe us compensation as we are the prime victims of a crime we had no part in.” (The New Age, November 18, 2007).

Karim certainly has a case. Tarequl Islam Munna writes, “Of the ‘Top 10’ most exposed coastal cities in 2070, nine are in Asia.” They are: Kolkata, Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Bangkok, Rangoon, Miami and Haiphong (Vietnam). (The New Age, December 9, 2007).

But though rich countries have done most of the carbon-emitting so far, poor countries are likely to do most of it in the future. Addressing that issue is tricky. The 2007 United Nations Development Program report on climate change recommends that developing countries cut their carbon emissions 20 percent by 2050, a task which the report estimates could cost 1.6 percent GDP growth per year. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia finds that cost unacceptably high, and demands that the report’s benchmarks be changed to per capita figures, a move that would make the job of cutting carbon much easier for quickly-growing India. (The Business Standard, November 28, 2007).

And Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed a willingness to fight global warming, so long as India’s economic development is not compromised. “We need to find a solution that does not perpetuate poverty,” he said. (Outlook India,November 30, 2007).  

Other commentators, however, see the environmental consequences of climate change as themselves a hindrance to development. Supriya Bezbaruah notes of the dire predictions of climatologists; if carbon emissions were to remain unchecked, we would see “seas rising and submerging half of Bangladesh. Glaciers would melt, leading first to floods and then droughts as rivers run dry. There would be more dengue, more malaria, more diarrhea.” India “simply cannot afford” the dirty development model followed by the world’s rich countries. (The Hindustan Times, December 9, 2007).

Much of the debate over who should pay for global warming has focused on the carbon debt owed by the developed world to the developing. But, asks C.E. Karunakaran, “What carbon debt does the burgeoning middle class — the Germany within India — owe to the rural poor and how will it discharge it?” India “can no longer afford to maintain its present laid-back attitude.” (The Hindu, December 3, 2007).