National security

Not too long ago I talked about the necessity of having a wider perspective when it came to assessing our national security. It was about energy security, habitat security, and water security and many other kinds of implied securities. I compared India against Israel and found us falling short, way short. It would have been shorter still had I not desisted from adding climate security to the list. Global warming is not something that strikes a chord with the readers here, not even as much as the other issues do.

But, the points of arguments elevating climate change to a national security issue in the August 17th edition editorial in the New York Times, I feel, are relevant to us. If one of the leading papers of the US can argue on the lines of climate security for that nation, a humble Indian blogger can surely do likewise about India’s climate security.

Politicians in a faction-ridden democracy like ours, or indeed even the USA, are not leaders in the traditional sense; they are more like managers. They tend to go with the flow more often than against the current, unless of course the flow has ceased. We are close to that situation as regards discussions on global warming; the response to my blogs on climate change is a fine metric.

The NYT editorial makes this point obliquely when it says that the politicians have to be motivated to act with a long-term perspective. Such a perspective demands hard choices with Excellable associated costs—“sacrifices in the here and now”—whereas with periodical elections, only short-termism carries a premium. Now, we understand why climate change argument will go on and on till, as they say, “the cows come home.”

Yet, in the US the corner seems to have been turned: “The House [of Representatives] has passed a climate bill that is not as strong as needed, but is a start.” The Senate may not be willing to follow the House’s lead, paying obeisance to its own political proclivities. How to go beyond political games of partisanship? The only recourse is to go straight to the people and the editorial is a way of doing that. And, so is this blog.

I know Rajendra Pachauri has gone on many stages and thumped more than a few rostrums arguing the case for urgent action on the climate front. I do not doubt his sincerity. However, in my opinion he is going about it the wrong way. He is delivering his addresses to whom we think as the policy makers but in reality, merely the managers of public opinion. Public opinion gets made independently of them. Who then are the real policy makers?

Let us take a clue from a column by Suzanne Goldenberg from The Guardian of August 14th, 2009. The US oil and gas lobby, and they have accomplices like manufacturing and farming alliances, is being implicated in stage managing a “a groundswell of public opinion” through lunchtime “energy citizen” rallies in 20 states. These 20 states, I believe, gives the biggest bang for the buck – “exert maximum pressure on Democrats in conservative areas.” Having tasted success at the town hall meetings on healthcare reform, the next target is climate change legislation. They are manufacturing “grassroots” movements, derisively called “astroturfing” (synthetic grass for playing fields) by the Greens.

If Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister for Environment & Forest, is strident in his meetings with other leaders on the environmental issue, I am sure there is a large crowd of corporate bigwigs behind him doing the pushing. They were angling for being let off the hook for their inaction on carbon emissions. Why else would he have even implied that “that there was no scientific consensus on global warming”? This is straight from the playbook of corporate America.

Yes, the developed countries, particularly the US, are discounting the “stock” problem while focusing on the “flow” problem. Their past sins are to be forgiven, they say. As indeed the noted Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati has said, this is an untenable position given that the laws of the US do not allow discounting for ignorance. I will let the master speak for himself: “…you have to pay for your past damage. In the U.S. legislation, that applies even if you were not aware at the time of pollution in terms of science that you were actually damaging the environment.” The Indian environmental delegation is hiding behind this logic of external genesis. They must be dragged out, kicking or screaming.

The capture of public space by corporate India is what Mr Pachauri should counter and counter he must by going over the heads of the policy managers who work in tandem with business interests who focus on the short-term. What is TERI doing with the Nobel Prize money? Why not spend the nearly million dollars (?) on thousands of the Indian and other developing countries’ versions of town hall meetings, a grassroots democratic effort, and definitely not “astroturfing”?

Now, Mr Pachauri must follow what the proponents of climate change legislation are doing in the US – warning that global warming poses a serious threat to national security. The US has co-opted the Pentagon, no less! The CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think tank, calls climate change a “threat multiplier” (these think tanks, whatever else they may or may not do, have a knack of coming up with catchy phrases!).

This warning must go out in Indian town hall meetings. Bring on the Indian Ministry of Defence. All the rabid security-mongers, the hawks, will jump on to the climate change bandwagon (just a taste – should sea levels rise, infiltration from Bangladesh will go through the roof). What corporate India does must be countered by our grassroots activists. What Mr Ramesh does must be countered by our Defence Minister A K Anthony. Our intransigence in global forums will become at least marginally reduced.

It is a matter of national security.

Raghuram Ekambaram