Articles by Dr. Shiva

Globalisation, Equity and Climate Change

by Dr. Vandana Shiva
30th November, 2007

On 27th of November, 2007, the United Nations Development Programme released its Human Development Report titled "Fighting Climate Change : Human Solidarity in a Divided World". Montek Singh Ahuluwalia, Vice Chairman of India's Planning Commission was asked to release the report. While releasing the report he rejected it.

The UNDP's report, issued just before Bali, has prescribed a 50 percent reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2050 compared to the 1990 levels. To achieve this, it suggests that developed countries should cut their emissions by 80% by 2050, of which 20% - 30% cuts should happen by 2020 itself. For the high emitters among developing countries such as India, the UNDP recommends no cuts upto 2020, and then 20% reduction by 2050.

Montek Singh Ahuluwalia, a market fundamentalism who throws equity to the winds while making his neoliberal policies for India, used the big leaf of equity to reject the UNDP report.

As he stated "Any reduction strategy based solely on total global emissions, and no differentiating on the basis of per capital emissions by countries, is fundamentally flawed and goes against the tenets of equality".

It would be helpful for citizens of India, especially the poor and the marginal, if the head of the planning commission did his planning on the basis of equity rather than corporate profits. If he supported equal per capita access to water, instead of water privatization. If he supported equal access to livelihoods in retail for hawkers and shop keepers, instead of promoting corporate retail. If he protected India's small farmers instead of promoting the corporatisation of our agriculture. If he defended the equal per capital access to food instead of allowing two thirds of Indian children to slip into malnutrition by promoting commodification and speculative trade in food.

Mr. Ahluwalia who has long worked for IMF and World Bank in Washington, has privatized and corporatised every sector, deepening the economic divide within India after taking over as head of our Planning Commission. As an economic planner, Mr. Ahluwalia has made every decision that promotes inequality.

His paying lip service to equality in the context of climate change is rooted more in protecting his corporate friends than in protecting the profits of the rights of the poor in India.

This is "equity schizophrenia", through which corporate globalisers destroy equity to concentrate wealth and resources, in the hands of a wealthy few, yet they want the poor, whom they have dispossessed of their livelihoods and land to share the responsibility for pollution, which the poor did not cause. This is hypercapitalism of wealth and resource and socialism of pollution. The poor loose their "goods" to the rich and inherit the "bads" of the rich. They thus loose twice over.

It would be wrong to put the emissions from the burning of Borneo's forests as a per capita contribution of all Indonesians including the peasants and indigenous communities who are being uprooted for palm oil plantations. It is the corporations that are responsible for converting tropical rainforests into palm oil plantations. The responsibility needs to be clearly assigned to the Salims and the Kuoks, the ADM's and the Cargill's, the Unilevers and the Nestles. The solution to increased emissions due to deforestation for palm oil plantations does not lie in diffusing emission figures by dividing them by Indonesia's population. The solution is to stop the polluters from polluting. The Greenpeace Report "How the Palm Oil Industry is Cooking the Climate" has identified the polluters, their share of pollution, and the steps they need to take to stop the pollution of the atmosphere that is leading to climate change. Cargill is the backseat driver for palm oil growth on all fronts. Proctor and Gamble, Kraft and Nestle, Unilever promote deforestation by using palm oil in their products. The suppliers to the trade are -

Sinar Mas with total area of 1.65 million ha of palm oil plantations and exports of 400,000 tonnes of palm oil.

ADM - Kuok - Wilmar with 493,000 ha of plantations and 1 million tones of exports.

Astra Agro with 291,000 ha of plantations and 15250 tonnes of exports.

Salim group, 230,000 ha of concessions and 12000 tonnes of exports through Cargill.

Duta Palm with 200,000 ha of plantations and export through Cargill and ADM-Kirok-Wilmar.

Muslim Mas with 60,000 ha and export of 14500 tonnes of palm oil exports through Cargill.

The ordinary Indonesian is not responsible for the forest and peat fires, which are contributing, to 11% of emissions. Giant corporations are. When the source of pollution is known, equity demands that the polluter pays. Equity does not translate into transferring pollution responsibility to non-polluters.

Greenpeace has identified how big emissions can be cut.

Cut one : Cut global deforestation (annual emissions savings - utp 2 Gt Co2)
Cut Two : Stop Indonesian peat land fires, establish a moratorium on peatland conversion (annual emissions savings - 1.3 Gt Co2)
Cut Three : Rehabilitate Indonesia's degraded peatlands (annual emissions savings 0.5 Gt Co2)

Total Cuts : Potential annual emissions
Savings : Up to 3.8 Gt Co2 which equates to nearly 8% of current annual CHG

In India too, the big polluters are clearly identifiable. Mukesh Ambani who owns Reliance became the richest man in the world when his companies shares jumped dramatically recently. In the decade of liberalization Reliance turnover went from Rs. 20 billion to Rs. 230 billion. Today the market capitalization of Reliance Industries is at Rs. 3.8 trillion. Reliance industry owns what will be the world's largest refinery. The 27 mlllion tonne per annum refinery will rise enough concrete to build many towers like Canada's CNN tower, it will require laying 5200 km of pipes equal to the length of the Ganges and use cables long enough to stretch across the earth's diameter. He controls oil and gas since it was privatized. Reliance is prosperity for carbon resources across an area of 4,25,000 sq. km, almost the size of Iraq. He controls the electricity supply in major cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. He has entered retail. And is the biggest grabber of land through Special Economic Zones in Gurgaon Jhajjar, Raigad, Navi Mumbai and Jamnagar. Each of these economic sectors is a major source of emissions and inequity. The SEZ's have led to major uprooting of rural communities, who have resisted the land grab. The increased emissions which will come from replacing green areas and farmlands with concrete jungles and luxury housing cannot with any justification be assigned as a share of those whom Reliance displaces. Mukesh Ambani is building a Rs. 6 billion 30 floor home in Mumbai. He gave his wife a Rs. 1 billion aircraft on her birthday. The Ambani's do not live in India. They live in a country, which Robert Frank has named "Richistan". Ambani's wealth is Ambani's, it is not shared by the people of India, though it might have been built by appropriating the people's share of wealth. We cannot have the privatization and concentration of wealth and the socialization of pollution. Reliance's emissions are Reliance's emissions. And they need to be cut so that the planet is not pushed to climate catastrophe.

While the poor in India are not partners in Reliance's pollution, global corporations are. It has partnerships with Dupont and global oil giants like Chevron. A large share of investments in Reliance comes from global financial institutions.

In times of globalisation, global corporations are the main economic players, not countries and global corporation out source their pollution to the developing world to save costs and maximize profits. Equity demands that the pollution created by corporations is their responsibility and liability, no matter where they create it. Transferring their pollution burden to the poor of the South is not equity, it is injustice.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia's definition of "equality" which transfers the burden and responsibility of pollution from polluters like Reliance to the poor, who are victims of an inequitable, violent and non-sustainable development, rests, in effect, on a double inequality. The first inequality is the unjust appropriation of land and other vital resources. The second inequality is the unjust transfer of responsibility for pollution which people have not contributed to. This double inequality disguised as equality would be dishonest at any time. It becomes criminal when it becomes a license for irresponsible corporations, and their friends in the corporate state, to push the entire planet to climate catastrophe.

We need to revisit the concept of equity and return integrity to it. Equity with integrity implies two levels of honesty and coherence. Firstly, equity should govern economic policies and actions and not become an excuse for creators of economic inequality to avoid their clear social, economic and ecological responsibility. Secondly, equity at global level should be derived from equity at local and national levels. Those who are dispossessing the poor at home and polarizing society have no moral right to use "equity" on global platforms to continue to predate on the poor and the planet. What protects the poor, protects the planet. What hurts the poor, hurts the planet. The laws of equity and laws of ecology have coherence.

Climate solutions will begin when the rights of the poor to their land and water, their food and biodiversity are defended. This is the agenda for ecological equity and economic equity. It is the agenda for climate justice and for earth democracy.