Finding an American scientist who disagrees with the postulate of what is called DAI – dangerous anthropogenic interference – is difficult. Of course, climate is variable, and there have been long periods of warming and cooling that mark the planet's history. But scientists can today show that over the past two centuries, human action has contributed immeasurably to the disruption of the planet's climate. The culprit here is our carbon-based society. At the 1992 UN conference on climate in Rio, all countries accepted the dangers of DAI, and pledged, in general terms, to do something about it. After discussions in Berlin and Geneva, the countries came to Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 to give some teeth to their pledge: the Annex I parties (industrialised countries plus countries with economies in transition) would reduce carbon emissions by various percentages. Developing countries would be exempt from these compulsory reductions, the principle being that the countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities". The United States, which spews the lion's share of carbon, balked. It was one thing to accept the principle, and another to take responsibility for it.
In the lead-up to Kyoto, the US Senate passed a unanimous resolution that asked the government to reject any agreement that committed the country to reduce carbon emissions unless the same strictures applied to the developing world. American policy under George W Bush's administration, 2001 to 2008, took this refusal as grounds on which to go still further: the Bush team rejected the science of climate change, and refused to commit to any reduction in carbon emissions. Even today, the basic assumption of US policy remains that nothing can come of any climate discussion unless the developing world (mainly Brazil, China and India) accepts cuts in carbon emissions that are as stringent as those to be imposed on the Group of Seven (and Russia). Such a posture makes it unlikely that anything positive will emerge when the countries meet in Copenhagen this December to thrash out another climate treaty.
In August, the administration of Barack Obama sent its main diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to India to push for some agreement on the principles of climate change. Such a move might have served as a launch pad for the US to attain subsequent concessions from China and Brazil. After a meeting in Gurgaon with the American team, however, India's minister for the environment, Jairam Ramesh, came out with all barrels blasting: "There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions. And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours." Ramesh is no radical, he does recognise the realities of geopolitical power and the unfortunate way in which the US has wielded that power in the climate-change debate. His position is one that is shared quite widely in India, not only within the Congress party but also by the communists and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Ramesh's remarks follow the positions staked out by his prime minister in the National Action Plan on Climate Change on 30 June 2008. There, Prime Minister Manhoman Singh laid out the eight "national missions" for India, including the solar mission, the mission for sustainable agriculture and the mission for enhanced energy efficiency. What drives Prime Minister Singh, Ramesh and the Congress position is not so much the dangers of climate change, but how best to protect the imperatives of economic growth when faced with US pressure to cut back on the engine of growth, which is carbon. "Our people have a right to economic growth and social development to discard the ignominy of widespread poverty," the prime minister said. "For this, we need rapid economic growth." The Chinese and Brazilians are making the same case. The fact is that per capita carbon emissions from these three countries are still dwarfed by those for the G7; and that measure puts the onus back on the Annex I countries rather than on those who have development on their minds.