Untitled Document

News clippings in the national dailies related to the sustainable development are listed here.

World Environment Congress
Times Foundations – Indiatimes. Wednesday February 22, 2006

World Environment Foundation presents
6 th World Congress on Environment Management
(Also presentation of Golden Peacock Awards)

Discuss business significance of climate change.
Strategy for Management of environmental governance.
To discuss initiative and strategies for clean water and waste water management.
To create awareness of the significance of developing partnerships amongst environmentalists, industrialists, policy makers and NGOs to develop cleaner environment solutions and reporting environmental impacts.
To empower individuals and households to adopt more sustainable consumption patterns.
To enhance business potential by providing common platform for industrialists, environmentalists, technology providers and financiers.
Highlighting the potential of eco-innovation for improving economic activity.
Networking between European and Asian stakeholders through PEACE Clubs and Partners In Action For Sustainability (PIAS).

What You Would Gain ?
How we can change our products and processes to enhance customer service, while radically reducing environmental impact and impact and improving quality of life ?
How environmental accounting can be applied to your business ?
How changes in production processes can minimize environmental impact ?
How sustainable solutions can uplift the living of poor ?
How TEEM (Total Eco Efficient Management) can enhance the natural capital and establish the true worth of the earth ?
How environmental objectives can be integrated in organizational strategic planning ?
How Eco Innovation is an opportunity to reverse the environmental damage ?
How ethics and values based on spirituality can guide corporate social responsibility ?
How to manage clean and waste water management ?

Public, Private, NGOs and Media partnership for sustainable development
Financial and Business Significance of Climate Change
Management of Environmental Governance
Clean Technologies for Sustainable Development
Water for life
SHE: Safety, Health and Environment

Enviro Mart
The international environmental exhibition, which will run concurrently with WCEM 2004 presents and excellent opportunity to network with a highly targeted audience.

NEW DELHI: A galaxy of leaders from governments, development organisations, community groups, business, academic and research institutions and international agencies say the world just isn't on track to meet the millennium development goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing poverty and hunger, improving lives and ensuring environmental sustainability.

A Delhi Declaration at the end of the three-day Delhi Sustainable Development Summit organised by TERI here on Saturday regretted the lack of progress in meeting these goals and integrating them into national development plans.

The eight goals range from halving extreme poverty and hunger to universal primary education, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, reducing child mortality and improving maternal hea-lth to ensure environmental sustainability. All by 2015.

He's a voice of hope amid a cacophony of naysayers. And though Jeffrey Sachs' optimism has often evoked scepticism, his bullishness on India is infectious.

STOI caught up with the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of 'The End of Poverty' at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

Do you share the euphoria about the Indian economy?

Three or four years back when I'd said that India would attain 8% growth, many were sceptical. Today, I feel vindicated. I also like what I see and I think this growth can be sustained.

What is the biggest challenge facing India?

Sustaining economic growth while meeting two specific needs. The first is making sure that growth reaches the whole population. India has the ability to do it. Second it should happens in an environmentally-sustainable manner.

Everywhere, governments are retreating from the marketplace. Is that the right approach?

Where is the question of retreating when in some areas, the government wasn't there at all? The private sector isn't going to service the poor so leaving it to the market won't serve the need.

How good has India's track record on reforms been?

Since the '90s, each government has gone forward. Some have zig-zagged, some have moved sideways but it's still forward though not decisively, of course.

But you are still optimistic...

As an outsider who comes to India every few years, I see a real change. Just look at the cities, the jobs that have been generated in the manufacturing and service sector.

But there are still some areas where people are desperately poor. Agriculture hasn't done well. The PM is right when he says that a second Green Revolution is needed but in poorer areas.

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 3: Petro giant British Petroleum (BP) is entering the Indian rural market with a dual-fuel chullah (cooking stove). It will run on both LPG and biomass in two different burners, offering flexibility to the consumers.

This hybrid application has been designed by Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and is now in the protototype testing stage. Apart from using zero-emission LPG, it aims to increase the efficiency of biomass burning by a factor of five.

Already present in India with their lubricant Castrol, this is their foray into a different segment of the market. Their target is 20 million chullahs by 2020.

‘‘We wanted to serve an under-served market,'' said Tony Meggs, Group Vice President (Technology), BP who has made his first visit to India for the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit organised by Teri. The company is try out innovating marketing strategies with local women as distributors. ‘‘We hope to make profits because of the volumes of a product like this,'' explained Megg.

According to him, companies shy away from entering these markets not because of quantity of investments but because of the time and energy it takes to make something like this work. They have spent 15 months with 12 employees trying to get this off the ground. He does not deny that they are looking at opportunities to expand into the Indian market in oil exploration, retailing and refineries.

As far as the availability of LPG is concerned, the company is expecting to supply LPG directly to consumers. They have already applied for a permit with the government. ‘‘We do not want a subsidy from the government except the permit that will help consumers gain access to LPG more easily,'' added Meggs.

"Indian cities have great potential," declared Frannie Léautier, Vice President of the World Bank Institute.

"They are able to concentrate idea, innovation, and investment in one location," she continued, "and have an unusual ability to recycle."

As the editor of a collaborative World Bank study, Léautier launched How Globalization Changes Cities and What Local Governments Can Do About It at the sixth conference of the three-day Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

According to Léautier, India's burgeoning urban populations are headed for a crisis. The ability for its cities to accommodate persistent migration from rural areas is becoming more and more compromised.

"If India is to grow in a sustainable way," spoke Léautier, "it is important how rural cities interface with urban cities."

India and many developing nations have been urbanising at an incredible rate. When cities are unable to accommodate their populations, their inhabitants suffer.

Health and education facilities become overburdened, and impoverished neighbourhoods suffer from inadequate energy and waste collection services.

Local governments can find innovative methods to deal with infrastructure challenges. Though India's knack at recycling is correlated with poverty, Léautier suggested that local governments can find "industry solutions to turn this into sustainable waste collection."

The inspiration behind the book came from colleague Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of Government Economic Service of the United Kingdom. Léautier described how she would meet with Sir Nicholas on Friday mornings and "complain that I had gone into management and was vegetating because I was not exercising my intellectual capabilities."

Out of this dialogue sprung the idea for amassing a detailed report on urban issues and the role globalisation is playing in how cities are managed.

Out of 412 cities studied, ten cities were from India. Among these were Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Lucknow.

NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik supported Léautier's emphasis on the responsibility of local governments and citizens to transform urban areas.

"Sustainability is not only about science and technology," declared Karnik, "we also need to look at social, economic, and cultural frameworks."

Karnik gave the example of the mixed-success of bio-gas plants in Gujarat. Though they were commercially successful, the plants harmed poor populations who lived on cattle dung and found their source of fuel disappearing.

Karnik warned that commercialisation and technology could create problems for those who are on the verge of destitution. "If India were to have the living standards of the US the globe would cease to exist," he said, "it is just not sustainable."

With due date for the UN Millennium Development Goals only ten years away, renowned leaders in policy-making have converged in New Delhi for the Summit to discuss alarming challenges to energy access, climate change, safe drinking water, and proper sanitation.

"We need to take a holistic view to the crisis and look at who gains and who loses by our decisions," Karnik reminded the panel.

Professor Jeffrey D Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute; Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric (USA); Professor Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program; and HE Ryutaro Hashimoto, former Prime Minister of Japan were among keynote speakers at the summit.

The Indian Express, 2 February 2006 - Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram today told a group of 60 CEOs and senior managers that the corporate world had not been focussing so far on the problems of the country. He said there was no (Public-Private Partnership) PPP model in areas with little commercial interest like water, sanitation and the energy needs of the poor.

"There are PPPs in building roads, airport modernisation and sea-ports. When it comes to water management and sanitation there is unfortunately no model as yet,'' he said.

He was speaking at a forum on Corporate Social Responsibility Imperitives and Opportunities: Water, Energy and Climate Change' organised by TERI and the World Business Council on the eve of the Sustainable Development Summit.

The government, Chidambaram said, had solicited the participation of the private sector in two areas-the National Rural Health Programme and the restoration of water bodies-on neither of which had there been any response.

"Water is key to rural India's sustainable development. I urge you to pay attention to the criticality of water shortage,'' he said, adding that sanitation was also linked to water. He pointed out that instances when the private sector did decide to take up the welfare of entire towns, like Jamshedpur and Neyveli, were an outstanding success.

India needs to tap the abundant gas available in Iran, Myanmar and Central Asia and should quickly overcome the political compulsions to meet its energy requirements, says RK Pachauri, director general of Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI). In an extensive conversation with M Rajendran, he also stressed the need for India to give a clarion call to the world on the issue of climatic change.

Excerpts:

Despite numerous policy interventions, gas based energy has not truly taken off in India. What is the reason?

I think there is a historical reason. A committee set up by the government in the 1980s had said that natural gas should not be used as a fuel, but only for high value applications and petrochemicals. That mindset went against the use of natural gas as a fuel. But, indications are that we will soon become a large importer of both coal and other fuel. So in order to diversify our sources of energy it is absolute ly essential that we use natural gas on a larger scale. There is lot of fuel in our neighbourhood like Iran, Myanmar and Central Asia. There has been some tardiness in our thinking and in the actions that we have to take. I can understand the political compulsion vis-a-vis Iran and India, but nations and leaders and governments that are able to think beyond the immediate generally catch the early worm.

Can nuclear energy become a future fuel solution for India? What are the impediments?

Nuclear energy can be one of the solutions if one can ensure enough raw material. We have limited uranium reserves and are still sometime away from the use of thorium which we have plenty of potential supplies of. Currently, nuclear energy constitutes less than three per cent of our total power capacity. We have to move aggressively for use of nuclear energy, but that would need India being accepted by the nuclear suppliers group. In this context, the US-India deal is significant. But India has to be recognised as a nuclear weapon state and accepted by the global community even though we have not signed the non proliferation treaty.

Currently, India's energy requirements are primarily met by thermal production. Is this not an unhealthy trend?

I agree, but with hydro confined to only some parts of the country and a few other constraints it has not taken off. In the past we have been insensitive to the environment problems, rehabilitation and social impact due to hydro projects. This led to a great deal of resistance being built up for hydro power projects. There is also an element of financial risk due to long gestation period, increase in time and cost of project due to geological surprises. My belief is that if private sector had been involved early perhaps there would have been some positive results. This would have to be supported by a strong regulatory mechanism that would have ensured speedy clearance and redressal of environment, forest and social aspects.

What about mini hydel projects as a solution in the Northeast and other hydro power potential states in India? What has been TERI's experience?

TERI has been involved with a project in Northeast to produce power on a local basis and dis tribute locally. It makes sense since the population there is highly dispersed. The problem in Northeast is that there has been lack of institutional capacity and capability. Uttaranchal is a good example where mini hydro projects have been successful.

There has been a lot of dependence on kerosene in India. What can be done to reduce this dependence with alternative energy sources?

We have recently brought out a paper with a detailed analysis. Kerosene subsidy should be targeted only for those who are below poverty line. This is essential since a large part of the kerosene that goes into the market is used for adulteration of petroleum products. Kerosene is primarily used for lighting in rural areas and this could be exchanged by use of subsidised photovoltaic solar lanterns. This technology is perfect and the products are durable. We need a major innovation in our system.

There has been sudden change in the climatic conditions across the world. Tata Energy Research Institute has been involved with the environment related projects. What role in you opinion India can play on this issue?

The world is not following the path of sustainable energy. It is important for a country like India to give a clarion call to the world to change the manner in which we have functioned with regard to protecting our environment.

The footprint of human activity on this planet has grown far larger than this earth can really tolerate.

This is manifested in the climate change. From the developing countries' point of view, it is necessary that we need to chart out a new path of sustainable development.

Our annual Delhi sustainable development summit is one such attempt. We are getting a galaxy of people drawn from various profession and organisation to this event.

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23: To bring focus to watershed schemes in rainfed areas, the government is pushing hard to get the National Authority for Sustainable Development of Rainfed Areas (NASDORA) off the ground.

The plan is to create a body of professionals that will manage the entire watershed programme that is funded by the Central government. At the moment the Centre's watershed development programme is spread across a number of ministries from the Ministry of Rural Development and Agriculture Ministry, to Water Resources Ministry and the Environment Ministry to the Planning Commission. This, according to officials, has hampered watershed programmes.

The authority will not only develop a perspective plan but also facilitate research on various dimensions of rainfed area development. Selected districts will also be chosen for upscaling of watershed development technologies.

According to the draft design, the authority will be managed by an apex board with around 10 members—with a competitively selected professional as a CEO, one representative each from the ministry of rural development and ministry of agriculture. The Apex Rainfed Areas Stakeholders Council, which the Prime Minister will chair, will provide guidance to the Apex board and review the performance. The authority will also set up a series of regional boards, that can cut across state boundaries, based on agro-ecological regions headed by CEOs and professionals. The regional boards in turn will set up district boards.

At the moment two-thirds of the country's cultivable areas fall in the rainfed zone, which include the arid districts of Rajasthan, semi-arid and sub-humid areas of central, eastern and north-eastern states. These areas, which were largely unaffected by the Green Revolution, suffer from water shortages due to inadequate water storage structures. The authority is supposed to focus on setting up irrigation facilities in these areas.

Also studies in these areas have shown that yields of rainfed crops have been falling and water tables have also been falling dangerously. Studies also show that poverty and distress are concentrated in these neglected rainfed areas but that there is scope for addressing the problems through phased watershed development.

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 23: Interlinkages between the economy and environment and challenges before the developing world in attaining Millennium Development Goals will be theme of Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS),which will be likely addressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

‘‘Rapid globalisation and its impact on the fast depleting limited resources, and poverty are some of the issues that will be taken up,'' said TERI Director General R K Pachuri at curtain raiser of the summit.

Pachauri admitted that though the progress in achieving the eight MDGs was a ‘‘mixed bag'', it was more on the disappointing side. ‘‘We have to achieve a lot more to make a change,'' he said.

The issues to be deliberated are: poverty and hunger, agriculture, water, sanitation and health, environmental threats and climate change and energy. A 'Delhi Declaration on Sustainable Developments' will be issued at the end of the deliberations.

It is time for trade unions and environmentalists to forge closer ties.

MORE THAN 25 Asian trade union trainers have been educated, under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), about health, safety, and environmental issues in the workplace. Trainers will use the knowledge they acquired to further strengthen local capacity to address occupational health, safety, and environmental issues. A major survey is under way to unravel the health and environmental impacts of nickel mining and smelting on the Pacific island of New Caledonia.

In Nigeria, a campaign has been launched to consign health hazardous, outdated, and obsolete chemicals to the history books. It should eventually benefit an estimated five million factory workers along with the wider West African environment. A joint Norwegian and Russian programme is educating and training staff at Russian factories in areas such as health and safety, and cleaner production techniques. Gains are expected to include healthier working conditions and reduced emissions. Meanwhile in Germany, a project is under way to make 300,000 apartments energy efficient under a renovation scheme. It should generate 200,000 jobs while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by two million tonnes.

The common thread running through these and numerous other pilot projects in both the developed and developing world is organised labour. Indeed, they underscore the growing enthusiasm of trade unions for sustainable development for the benefit of the workplace, communities living nearby, and the global environment as a whole. An enthusiasm was also evident in the United Nations Global Compact, the initiative of the Secretary-General, which has brought together a broad collation of private business and civil society.

A few decades ago, the relationship between environmentalists and the trade union movement was characterised as one of suspicion. Some in organised labour were concerned that environmental protection might jeopardise jobs by placing an undue burden on business and industry. Environmentalists suspected that trade unions were bent on defending the status quo of heavy, and in many cases, polluting industry.

Those days are gone and these cobwebs of suspicion have been blown away by the realities of a modern globalised world. Both sides now recognise the multiple benefits of reaching out in common cause. There are obvious areas of mutual self-interest, for example in reducing exposure of workers and their families to harmful and dangerous substances.

ILO estimates indicate that some 300,000 workers are killed each year as a result of exposure to chemical agents. This should and must be dramatically reduced. Other areas include a joint recognition that fighting environmental degradation is a win-win battle. Take climate change. Overcoming this most serious of threats will deliver not only a more stable and less wasteful world but one in which new, cleaner, and more sustainable jobs can be generated in areas such as renewable energy systems and cleaner fossil fuel generation.

Meanwhile, organised labour can be a powerful catalyst for change, persuading employers and companies to be more environmentally responsible and resource efficient. This should not only make firms more competitive — thus helping to maintain and boost employment prospects — but reduce the environmental footprint of such firms or sectors on forests, wildlife, water sources, and the ozone layer.

This blossoming relationship will come into sharp focus this month when 150 trade union leaders representing millions of workers meet at the headquarters of the UNEP between January 15 and 17. Together, under the umbrella of the first World Assembly on Labour and the Environment, we will chart a new and forward looking agenda aimed at taking organised labour and the global environment into a new sphere of cooperation. The ultimate goal behind all of our aims will be a new push towards realisation of the Millennium Development Goals covering poverty eradication, gender equality and environmental sustainability. We are determined to make this unique event more than a mere talking fest.

A multi-pronged action plan, to be known as the Workers' Initiative for a Lasting Legacy or WILL2006, is set to be agreed on in collaboration with UNEP, the ILO, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and the Sustainlabour Foundation. UNEP will also be looking to see how we can, in concrete terms, assist trade unions in replicating the more than 20 case studies scheduled to be presented at the Assembly. Other areas of mutual self-interest include education about the latest developments in international environmental law in areas such as the newly adopted chemicals treaties, for example the Persistent Organic Pollutant or Stockholm Convention.

Over recent years, UNEP has been reaching out to civil society — business and industry, traditional environment and sustainable development groups, indigenous peoples, and women. Forging closer ties with trade unions is long overdue. An estimated three billion people are classed as being in the global workforce. It is high time we made our manifest and mutual self-interests work. Work for the men and women on the factory and office floor and in the fields — and work for a cleaner, healthier and more dignified world for all.

(Klaus Toepfer is the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He was Germany's Environment Minister from 1987 to 1994. )

When four journalists, seven sociology masters, three Commonwealth scholars on sustainable development and eight litterateur come together with an IIT Kharagpur alumnus shep-herding them, theatre is the last thing you expect them to focus their collective expertise on. But Amitava Bhattacharya's banglanatak.com, a 65-member group of like-minded people who believe in the “power of theatre to reach out to the masses”, has already staged plays in more than 11,000 villages across 18 states in India, in just five years.

Bhattacharya wants to rid society of AIDS, illiteracy, resistance to polio immunisation programmes and other evils, with theatre as the weapon. “Our strategy is to physically reach out to the people— rural masses and slum dwellers, where other media is not able to reach and influence, and mobilise them.” Banglanatak works on contract basis with state governments and NGOs, and travels to villages to campaign against problems the clients want to get rid of. Bhattacharya then ropes in a local theatre group, gives it a script and holds stage shows. “In villages, theatre is an ideal substitute to TV. It is a powerful vehicle to spread a message.”

For instance, the pulse polio awareness campaign in Murshidabad in West Bengal. Says Madhura Dutta, a Common-wealth scholar in sustainable development involved with the group: “Locals were fiercely against the immunisation programme. We identified the areas from where the maximum resistance came from, prepared a script called ‘Polio Palabe' (polio will run away) and staged it. After the show, the feedback we got from the audience was very encouraging. It was a success. Theatre is an involved con-tact where the right words in the script makes all the difference.”

“Theatre is both a process and a project,” adds Bhattacharya. “It's a three-level tool—to raise awareness, to train, to conduct research. We are working on using theatre as a livelihood option as well. For instance, we are organising 30,000 shows in a year across 35 towns in Andhra Pradesh to address PSI, Hyderabad's STI Control Project. We have enrolled 14 theatre groups to stage as many as five shows a day across the state. This means a steady income to the performers for a year.”

Among other projects the group has done are campaigns on child labour in West Bengal, drug abuse for Kolkata Police, human trafficking in Goa and Eastern Himalaya, and alternative livelihood for the Ministry of Textiles. The power of the spoken word is its tool, the claps at the end of each show a measure of the idea making its impact.

What also counts is the right choice of words. Like Amitabh Bachchan's flawed Pulse Polio TV campaign. Says Bhattacharya: “The campaign's punchline was: ‘sirf do boond'. Many in the villages didn't go the booths after the first dose because they didn't know that you need to complete the cycle. What the campaign should have said was ‘sirf do boond, har baar'.”

MANGALORE: The Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, Suratkal, will organise a three-day national conference on the topic, `Synergic solutions for sustainable development, prescription for prosperity, at the institute from December 28, according to chairman of the executive committee of the conference M. N. Madhyastha.

It will discuss topics such as energy and environment management, environmental impact of natural disasters and human activity, urbanisation, wastewater treatment and reuse, a release issued by him said.

A billion people and perhaps as many problems. But we have the technology and the talent

I am delighted to participate in the interactive session of the India Empowered event. It was a delightful experience for me to study every day from August 14 2005, the writing on the subject, ‘Empowering India', from each one of you who have assembled here, with your rich experience in multiple fields. My greetings to the organising team of Indian Express , the writers in the India Empowered series and other participants.

My team studied over 160 articles and grouped them into 12 areas of presentation. It was indeed thought provoking and looked like a garland of ideas. This garland of ideas focuses, as I see it, on the need for an integrating system for the empowerment of nation and its people.

Out of the billion plus population in the country 70 per cent live in six hundred thousand villages. We need a societal transformation and sustainable development for our growth. These two aspects are realisable in a time bound manner only through a knowledge society, which alone will empower the entire nation. India has the potential to become a knowledge society. Electronic and knowledge connectivity is the key to realise this goal. Connecting a billion people throws up multiple challenges.

When the world was moving from the industrial to the information and knowledge era, we witnessed a changing pattern in the sectoral share of GDP and the number of people employed in each sector. Contribution of agriculture to India's GDP has reduced from 39 per cent to 22 per cent from 1979 to 2005. During the same period contribution of manufacturing sector has moved from 24 per cent to 27 per cent; contribution from the services sector has increased from 37 per cent to 51 per cent.

The percentage of people employed in agriculture has come down from 64 per cent to 54 per cent. Simultaneously, the percentage of people employed in manufacturing has gone up from 15 per cent to 19 per cent and in the service sector from 20 per cent to 27 per cent. This trend has to continue and by 2020 our employment pattern should aim at 44 per cent in agriculture, 21 per cent in manufacturing and 35 per cent in service sectors.

Instead of persons from the rural areas going to urban towns in search of jobs in manufacturing and services sectors, PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) facilitates creation of employment in the rural areas itself. PURA achieves this by providing physical, electronic and knowledge connectivities to a cluster of villages thereby leading to their economic connectivity and prosperity. The writer is president of India. http://presidentofindia.nic.in/

Bill Gates has joined the illustrious list of American businessmen philanthropists, from Rockefeller to Ford. With over 200 million USD to be given for the health sector alone and an expected over 1 billion USD investments in India, the scale behooves the richest man in the world. However, what is it that distinguishes the business of today from that of 50 years ago? Fundamentally, it is the recognition that business and, in fact, all activities of human development needs to be ‘sustainable'.

Take the case of vaccine immunisation, very basic to protecting children's lives from deadly diseases. Over 4.2 billion vaccinations are carried out in India alone, almost a third of the global figures. These are done routinely, several times a week, in over 5,00,000 places, covering several million in a few weeks. Each uses a plastic syringe, made up of a mixture of plastics and now used as single shot auto disable devices to prevent cross transmission of infection from one to another.

So far so good. But what happens to the syringes? They are burnt openly. Even well meaning agencies like UNICEF and WHO do this, unaware of the deadly toxins which are emitted, and which have long term health effects like cancer and endocrine disruption, on mothers and infants in particular. Only recently has India through its Reproductive and Child Health Programme mandated that these needles not be burnt but the metal sharps be removed, and the excellent quality plastic recycled. However where are the budgets to do this? Of the 200 million USD promised by the Gates Foundation for safe vaccination, is anyone going to ensure this ‘sustainability'?

Another example is of the industry Bill Gates leads worldwide. Does he know that most of the over 500 million old computers slated for disposal in the US and Europe, will head towards India, Africa and China? There these will be broken by hand, exposing poor workers to very caustic acid, cuts and burns and toxic emissions from the over 50 hazardous chemicals each computer has? Several million workers in India and Asia are exposed to these hazards even as the high growth globally connected Indian IT industry just looks on.

India is planning to double its computer penetration from 11 per thousand to 20 per thousand. But what will happen to the waste as computers are now changed like underwear, every three years as against five years earlier? Surely the industry of the future must not help build a world, which is toxic and unjust on its impacts on the poorest of the poor? Gates should give a clear message to the IT industry that the future can be sustainable only if we take action in the present.

We welcome Bill Gates in the true traditions of Indian hospitality, but we also want to remind him that the future patterns in India will impact the planet at a scale never before seen in human history. We need immunisation and computerisation, but we need cradle to grave approaches. We need both philanthropy and sustainable partnerships and development.

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 15: One of the items on the agenda of the Conference of Parties meet on climate change to be held in Montreal this month is the reform of the cumbersome mechanism by which Clean Development Mechanism Projects (CDMs) are approved. India might apprise the international community of what is wrong with the UN-approved scheme.

CDM is a process by which industrialised nations pay developing countries for adopting cleaner energy technologies and in turn earn what are called carbon credits. However, a study done by Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found that the UN-approved process for clearing CDMs are severely flawed.

They allege that developed countries buy cheap credits for reduction of carbon emission but like, many Indian companies, get huge financial benefits without fulfilling their part of the bargain, which is ensuring sustainable development.

CSE has questioned the validity of such projects. Its study found out that consultants are often not thorough when preparing the detailed project reports and alleges that international consultants have been known to have ‘‘copy-pasted an entire section of the report from one project to another''.

The CSE study further says, ‘‘for both Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) and SRF, the same questions are asked during consultations. The answers are also verbatim. Thus even if consultations were held, their record in the documents does not seem credible.'' The GFL project is already registered for CDM and the SRF project has requested for registration at the UNFCC.

More seriously, Sunita Narain, director, CSE, said, ‘‘Not only is the procedure suspect, there is also no evidence that these projects are leading to sustainable development.''

According to Environment and Forest Ministry officials, the issue of erring consultants will be taken up once CSE formally writes to them. ‘‘The overall procedure is tedious, but we consider India's CDM projects a big success. However, we will argue for its simplification,'' said S K Joshi, joint secretary in the ministry.

Quoting instances from Philippe Cullet's Intellectual Property Protection and Sustainable Development, D. Murali explains why it is essential for developing countries to protect traditional knowledge through legal means "in a world where everything is increasingly being commodified".

COMMENTING on the decision of the US Patent Office to revoke the turmeric patent on the basis of a challenge filed by CSIR, ( www.navdanya.org ) notes that Uncle Sam's patent system has its own weaknesses, allowing bio-piracy to be practised as a rule.

Ironically, though, the patent in question (No. 5,401,504 on `use of turmeric in wound healing') had been granted in 1995 to two Indian nationals, Suman K. Das and Hari Har P. Cohly, at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre.

It's in the Indian genes, one may argue, but what is sobering is the day's news about what the US Ambassador to India, Mr David C. Mulford, told members of the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata. "India must improve its IPR record to attract American investments in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and clinical research sectors," he said, on the subject of intellectual property rights (IPRs).

The turmeric case was that it was the first time that a patent based on the traditional knowledge of a developing country had been successfully challenged; the legal costs incurred by India in this case have been calculated by the Indian Government to be about at $10,000, informs ( www.iprcommission.org ) of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights. "The withdrawal of the turmeric patent is only the first step in reversing biopiracy.

Patents on Neem, Amla, Jar Amla, Anar, Salai, Dudhi, Gulmendhi, Bagbherenda, Karela, Rangoon-ki-bel, Erand, Vilayetishisham and Chamkura all need to be revoked," Navdanya proclaims indignantly.

IPR is a newsy topic, because you find the Indian Machine Tools Manufacturing Association ( http://imtma.org ) busy with a `path-breaking' seminar on leveraging IPR, focusing on patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, and so on, apart from deliberating on "IPR-enabled business strategies for achieving competitiveness and market success".

And, from across the globe, Bloomberg reports about a disturbing development in Brazil. There, the Government, saddled with a programme to supply AIDS/HIV drugs free to about 1,63,000 victims, has asserted that it can make the drug for 59 per cent less than what the fourth-largest US drug-maker Abbott Laboratories charges for the medicine.

In response, the company is understood to have delayed its plans to invest $27 million to remodel a plant in Brazil, and political lobbies are working hard to punish `the violation of Abbott's patent' by moving for a cancellation of `trade preferences for $2 billion of Brazilian exports'. When the bottom line becomes important for companies, there can be cruelty in the name of IPR, it seems.

For clarity, therefore, I turn to Philippe Cullet's Intellectual Property Protection and Sustainable Development , from LexisNexis ( www.lexisnexis.co.in ). IPRs have a number of socio-economic impacts, which require the adoption of a broader perspective, argues Cullet in the intro. The challenge is to ensure that one part of the polity does not benefit at the expense of the poor and the fulfilment of basic needs, he points out.

IPRs have long been considered as "one of the available incentives to drive economic development," and such thinking leads to a common delusion, such as what Mulford could have lapsed into: That IPRs could be implemented "with the same degree of success in all countries." No, says Cullet.

"Recent controversies over access to medicines in developing countries or concerning the protection of traditional knowledge have clearly brought out the special situation of developing countries and the need for differential measures which seek to foster not only economic development but also socially and environmentally sustainable development," he writes.

Two lines of enquiry that the author engages in are about the rapidly evolving framework, and challenges in India. But, first, what is sustainable development? It is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", according to the World Commission on Environment Development (Brundtland Report).

Then came the 27 principles constituting the common minimum on sustainable development, through the 1992 Rio Declaration adopted at the UN Conference on Environment and Development.

However, sustainable development law suffers from lack of unity and direction, points out Cullet. And there is no `international sustainable development organisation', apart from CSD, or Commission on Sustainable Development, that acts as a forum but lacks the mandate to coordinate activities.

The chapter on `access and benefit sharing' discusses the example of how the discovery of the anti-fatigue properties of a plant, Aarogyappacha, from the Western Ghats led to the development of a drug called Jeevani, and how 50 per cent of licence fee and royalty was offered to the Kani community, among whom traditional knowledge about the herb was a tribal secret.

There has been criticism about the experiment, and Cullet isn't too happy either. Because it takes as given the right of outsiders to access and use the knowledge of traditional knowledge-holders as long as some form of compensation is given to them. The alternative he suggests is "to start from the principle of prior informed consent and give traditional knowledge holders the right to determine according to democratic procedures whether they want to transfer the knowledge to outsiders, and on what terms".

Part III of the book is on `agriculture' where Cullet discusses genetic engineering, food security, life patents, plant breeders' rights, farmers' rights, sui generis plant variety protection and so on.

Only six countries, viz. Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, South Africa, and the US, planting only four crops — maize, soybean, canola and cotton — with either insect/herbicide resistance accounted for 99 per cent of the global area planted with transgenic crops in 2003, informs the author.

Genetic engineering in agriculture is shrouded in controversy mainly because the costs and benefits are not clear to all the players concerned, argues the author.

On the other `G', the Green Revolution, it may be surprising for many to know that a survey in the Philippines showed 70 per cent increase in yields in rice varieties obtained from the International Rice Research Institute, but the gains were more than offset by "a 50 per cent reduction in the sale price of rice and a 358 per cent increase in farm expenses due to chemical inputs", and so, the end result was a 52 per cent drop in farm income.

The discussion on `traditional knowledge protection' informs the reader about the development of biodiversity laws.

For instance, the Costa Rican Biodiversity Act "separates IPRs and community intellectual rights"; the Philippines have the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act that recognises the need for the state to provide assistance in developing local technologies, agriculture and medicine; and Peru's Collective Knowledge Law "endeavours to provide a framework that ensures fair conditions for indigenous peoples when their knowledge is used by outsiders".

Cullet explores `further options for traditional knowledge protection' including second-tier patenting, geographical indications, and documentation through registers.

The final part of the book is on such vital issues as biosafety and human rights, wherefrom one learns that the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the main international legal instrument governing the introduction of GM or genetically modified organisms (also known as living modified organisms) into the environment, lays down the procedure of `advanced informed agreement' for trade to be undertaken.

Cullet draws readers' attention to an anomaly: "On the one hand, should damage occur as a result of the introduction of a GM organism into the environment, the patent system does not provide any mechanism for liability and redress.

On the other hand, should farmers replant a patented transgenic seed without purchasing it, they would be deemed to have infringed the rights of the patent-holder." A case of interest in this sphere is Monsanto vs Schmeiser , that came up before the Canada Supreme Court, where the company argued that its patented seeds were used by the farmer who, in turn, said he didn't know how the seeds made their way into his field.

Schmeiser argued that he should be held to own the seeds in the same way that landowners own the progeny of animals reproducing on their land, but the court said that a farmer may own seeds spilled onto his land or seeds having germinated from pollen carried to his fields from elsewhere by insects, birds or the wind, but he did not have the right to use the patented gene or seed containing the patented gene or cell. A case that shows how real property rights and IPRs can get gridlocked.

A gloomy message that comes from the conclusion chapter is that "there is no confirmation that expanding the scope of protection of IPRs contributes to sustainable development". IPRs have undoubted potential to contribute to private investment, concedes Cullet, and that should make Mulford happy.

But there's a caveat: IP protection frameworks aren't capable of ensuring that the introduction of life patents contributes to "fostering research in orphan subsistence crops which are of prime importance to poor people in rural areas".

Thus, IPRs may be theoretically the best solution for the developed countries, but the developing ones "should concentrate on adopting domestic IPR legal frameworks which serve their needs".

Towards this end, protect traditional knowledge through legal means, urges the author, because that would be necessary "in a world where everything is increasingly being commodified". Essential read.

GLENEAGLES, JULY 7: India today made it clear that any action plan of G-8 industrialised nations will have to strike a “right balance” to protect the environment so that poverty is not perpetuated.

Speaking at the G-8 summit's “outreach” meeting with G-5 members of developing countries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said for the action plan to be effective, it should not pose standards diverse from reality.

Singh said it was imperative that protection of intellectual property rights be relaxed for new technologies and there should be an additional window to induct affordable technology, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters on the outcome of G-5 and G-8 outreach meetings.

The Prime Minister's observation evoked positive response from world leaders, particularly US President George W Bush, who said any environmental protection and sustainable development should “not neglect the imperatives of development.”

French President Jacques Chirac and leaders from South Africa, Canada, Mexico and China were appreciative of Singh's suggestion saying it was a “good approach.”

Earlier, G-5 countries comprising India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa adopted a detailed declaration on the concerns of developing countries and suggestions for moving forward on sustainable development.

The terror strikes managed to overshadowed the summit of the world's eight most industrialised nations, with the focus of the meet shifting from debt relief for Africa and climate change to terrorism.

The attacks occurred just as the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States began formal talks. Apart from India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa, referred to as the G5, are attending the summit as special invitees.

The scheduled release of a declaration and plan of action on climate change was postponed to tomorrow. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who left the summit for London following the attacks, will return to Gleneagles later.

Condemning the terror strike, participating leaders adopted a joint statement. ‘‘The G8 and G5 countries condemn the utterly barbaric attack and our deep sympathy and condolences go to the families of the victims,'' the statement said.

Affirming their intention of continuing with the summit, the statement said,‘‘We will not allow violence to change our society or our values nor will we allow it to stop the work of this summit.

‘‘Here, at this summit, the world's leaders are striving to combat world poverty and save and improve human life. The perpetrators of today's attack are intent on destroying human life,'' the statement said adding that the terrorists would not succeed. ‘‘Today's bombings will not weaken in any way our resolve to uphold the most deeply held principles of our societies and to defeat those who would impose their fanaticism and extremism.''

Biodiversity on this planet is shrinking faster than ever and over the past century, the extinction of species has reached unprecedented levels, or 1000 times their natural rates. Almost a quarter of the mammals, around a third of the amphibians, and 12 per cent of the bird species are facing extinction. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report titled "Ecosystems and Human Well-Being," backed by the United Nations and prepared by scientists from 90 countries, states that the damage wrought by humans on biological diversity over the last 50 years has been formidable. The demand placed on the ecosystems is bound to grow further in the coming decades with increasing population and the consequent rise in consumption of biological and physical resources. Some of the ecosystems have already reached their peak capacity to provide services. Human induced impacts on ecosystems have severely affected global climate while some 40 per cent of the agricultural land has been degraded in the past half-century. Nearly 60 per cent of the gifts of the natural world, dubbed "economic services", are either already degraded or are heading in that direction. And, the destruction of ecosystems is bound to continue with economic growth. One of the ways to stop this is to make people directly benefit by conserving the ecosystems. For instance, economic incentives for leaving the forests uncut are only now beginning to be devised. With human well-being so closely tied to ecosystems, the plundering and destruction should cease immediately.

The only solution for this malady is sustainable development, which implies preserving biodiversity for continued food security. For instance, the report points out that a hectare of mangrove left intact in a country like Thailand is worth more than $ 1000. The value drops to $ 200 when it is intensively farmed. But ever-growing demands on already degraded ecosystems seriously affect the prospects for sustainable development. The poor are particularly vulnerable. While the rich can access the benefits of ecosystems at a higher price, the marginalised population loses out. For the nearly 50 lowest-income countries located in the tropical and sub-tropical regions, with the population set to treble by 2050, increasing agricultural productivity becomes imperative. This will exert significant pressure on their ecosystems. Unfortunately, the human-induced climate change will see agricultural productivity of the tropics and sub-tropics compromised. This makes it necessary for the governments of the world to quickly understand the importance of spatial and temporal scales while dealing with the ecosystems. Any improved ecosystem management to enhance human well-being will call for a change in policies relating to rights and access to resources. While the imperative of development cannot be ignored, the need for giving the poor equitable and secure access to ecosystem services cannot be overlooked either.

PALPITATION is a condition in which a man becomes acutely aware of the working of his own heart. A normal, healthy person is hardly aware of this, and if he is, then he has a problem. The environment was taken for granted for centuries. It is only in the second half of the 20th century that man has started noticing symptoms of environmental palpitation, even occasional missed heart beats.

The crux of the environmental problem is one of inter-generational equity and sustainability in resource consumption.

Human life depends on resource consumption. In the environmental context, it means conversion of a resource from a usable to a non-usable form, temporarily, for long periods or permanently. Fortunately, much of this conversion process is reversible either by conscious human effort or by merely by letting nature take its course. The exponential rate of growth of the human population and resource consumption have left outstripped the rate of reversibility. Environmental management involves trade-off decisions using a tool called Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

It is a feasibility report, just like the technical or financial feasibility reports prepared for most projects before they are implemented. It is, of course, possible to do a post-project EIA for any project. In the case of the environment, the danger is that some of the consequences of a project may be irreversible and a post-mortem may not serve any preventive purpose (unless it is for a similar future project). While a post-project EIA could be part of a management information system for monitoring the actual effects for comparison with the expected, it cannot replace a pre-project EIA in terms of preventive value.

EIA's three aspects — environment, impact and analysis — need to be defined in operational terms.

Environment is a resource bundle. We have to confine ourselves to an identifiable, manageable system and its bundle of resources. The boundaries of such a system would depend on practical considerations such as available men, money and time, our main area of concern and the state of our technical knowledge of the working of the system. In a multi-purpose river project, the system to be studied could be the main project and its immediate neighbourhood, the entire river basin, the entire area expected to be benefited or damaged. If there is one thing we know for certain about the environment, it is its capacity for constantly springing surprises on man. The word `impact' refers to the probable impact of the project on the resources of the system studied. Environmental resources may be classified as basic (air, land, water, flora), developmental (ocean, minerals), and cultural (heritage such as monuments and natural wonders, aesthetic such as views, vistas, scenery, absence of noise and smell).

Any damage to basic resources would be life-threatening, to developmental resources would retard economic development and to cultural resources would deprive us of aesthetic and spiritual joys.

A resource could degenerate in three ways — depletion (oil, coal), degradation (air, water, soil, monuments) or displacement (soil, nutrients). In each type, we should know whether it is significantly irreversible and needs urgent preventive/corrective action. To this uncertainty, we should not add the certainty of known adverse effects resulting from a failure to do a proper EIA. If the resource involved is basic, it would be safer, and wiser, to assume that any unknown effect would be adverse unless proved otherwise. This is known as the `precautionary principle'.

Thus, an EIA's rationale is to prevent, wherever possible, irreversible damage to environmental resources. The mechanics of an EIA consists broadly of the following steps:

A convenient, easily understandable method of presenting the impact is through map overlay technique. Transparent maps are prepared, one for each environmental resource, and each level of intensity of adverse impact (from negligible to catastrophic) on the resource is allotted one colour. When all these transparent maps are overlaid, those parts of the system where the cumulative adverse impact is the maximum or covers many resources, will become visually obvious. It should also be possible to feed project parameters into a computerised system map and get a printout of an impact overlay map.

For each of the several possible locations for a project, an impact overlay map could me made and the best location selected so as to minimise the overall adverse environmental impact on the system.

Some of the general issues on which appropriate policies have to be adopted so as to be supportive of, and sensitise people to the need for, EIA:

Some of the problematic areas relating to EIA where decisions are not easy and have to be continuously upgraded based on feedback are:

Environmental management involves a conscious trade-off between the values of sensational and sustainable development. The choice has to be born of deliberation and not desperation or short-sightedness, and using all available tools of management including EIA. The fact that we are lagging behind the West in technology has the positive aspect that we can benefit from its mistakes. There may be limits to growth but not, hopefully, to learning. Let us not wait till we hear the thunder, and then vainly search for the lightning which has already struck.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed former president Bill Clinton as special envoy on tsunami reconstruction. Clinton will bring his legendary fund-raising and interpersonal skills to this important assignment. These are the kinds of talents needed to reinvent the UN.

But these talents will not be enough without new ideas that bring the United Nations into the modern age. Take the Asian tsunami as an example. Much of the world's discussion has focused on the location and control of a new early warning system. Though commendable, the efforts have failed to address one important point: human safety should be placed above appeals to national sovereignty.

The original outpouring of global empathy has degenerated into competition for control among nations and UN agencies over the proposed tsunami early warning system. Australia, Germany, Japan and the United States have all made unilateral proposals.

Furthermore, India, Indonesia and Thailand have failed to agree on the location of a regional centre for the system. In a defiant move to go it alone, Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said: ‘‘we do not care whether any country does or does not agree. We will do it ourselves even though it will mean that Thailand has to invest alone with our own money.''

The global community could benefit considerably from an effective system that promotes the sharing of knowledge and experiences from natural disasters, as suggested in Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development , a report of the UN Millennium Task Force on Science, Technology and Innovation presented to the UN Secretary General last month.

Building on national efforts to promote global welfare is a critical element in any disaster management system. But such national systems can only be beneficial if they are part of an international mechanism that focuses on advancing human safety and not simply promoting national interest.

Tourist destinations are likely to be given priority in the post-tsunami reconstruction. These regions should be subject to international safety audits as well as the pilot for a new natural disaster management system that places safety above national considerations. The tsunami has demonstrated that the safety of tourist destination areas is a global matter that needs to be managed as such. Indeed, the desire of industrialised countries to put up early warning systems is partly inspired by the need to protect their nationals abroad. But this can only be effectively achieved through international cooperation.

Such an approach will require nations to agree to new standards that puts safety above national sovereignty. The UN World Tourism Organisation could provide initial leadership in defining a new foundation for human safety in a globalised world. Part of the tsunami funds pledged by governments should be used to conduct such safety audits.

The idea of surrendering part of national sovereignty in exchange for human safety or security is not new. The world could learn from leadership provided by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in conducting security audits around the world.

In 2002 ICAO launched a Universal Security Audit Programme to strengthen global aviation security. The audits identify deficiencies and provide suggestions for their mitigation or resolution. Under the programme, developing countries receive technical assistance to help meet international safety standards.

Today ICAO conducts three to four such audits around the world and expects to complete the initial audit of its member states by 2007. ICAO's audits are mandatory. Disaster management systems could adopt similar approaches but on a voluntary basis.

For example, the reconstruction of tourist destination areas in the countries affected by the tsunami could benefit from such safety audits. This would also lay the foundation for sustainable reconstruction of the affected areas. Other areas of international significance could be added to the list upon agreement among governments and relevant non-state actors in an appropriate international forum.

A global early warning system will need to be integrated into the wide network of civilian communications systems that are flourishing as a result of advances in new and communications technologies. Doing so will demand greater international coordination and involvement of non-state actors such as environmental groups.

An early warning system without technical assistance to developing countries would only increase the available information but not necessarily enable nations and communities to reduce their vulnerability. An early warning system should therefore be part of a wider sustainable development strategy that includes the ability to cope with natural disasters.

The world needs to create a mosaic of disaster management systems that would integrate existing information and communications capabilities in military and civilian sectors. Doing so will go beyond the narrow interests of individual countries or United Nations agencies. Bill Clinton will have to bring to the United Nations more than just money and compromise: scientific knowledge is one of the building blocks for reinventing the UN.

Calestous Juma is professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. He is the lead author of Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development .

CHENNAI, JAN. 30. The leather industry and the Council for Leather Exports (CLE), a body sponsored by the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, recently made a presentation before the Central Planning Commission for the creation of a corpus to facilitate eco-sustainable development of the leather sector, the CLE executive director, S. Audiseshiah, said today.

As maintenance of effluent treatment plants was becoming expensive and as they required constant upgrading, the Commission's intervention was sought. The corpus scheme could be run on the lines of a public-private partnership programme, he told presspersons here.

Habib Hussain, chairman of the southern region of the CLE, said the State Government had set up a footwear complex through the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu in the SIPCOT industrial park at Irungattukottai, near Sriperumpudur. Giving details of this year's India International Leather Fair (IILF), which will be inaugurated on Monday, M. Rafeeque Ahmed, chairman of the CLE, said efforts were made to provide representation to member-countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. "We want to make this fair a South Asian exhibition in the years to come."

Expanding the nuclear energy capacity is not just an option but an imperative if India is serious about maintaining a sustainable trajectory of development, says Sudha Mahalingam.

Steam and smoke rise from cooling towers on the outskirts of Moscow in this file picture. President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill confirming Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the Kremlin said early this month, giving the final stamp of approval to the global climate pact that will come into force early next year. — AP Photo

WITH THE ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the Russian Duma last month and with Vladimir Putin giving his stamp of approval for the treaty (on November 5), the climate change debate has finally crossed the rubicon. The international treaty, adopted in 1997 at the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and spurned by the U.S., the biggest polluter, had hitherto lacked the critical mass that would trigger its implementation even though it had been ratified by 125 nations.

The Russian endorsement now ensures that 55 nations which together contribute to 55 per cent of global greenhouse emissions are now collectively serious about reducing them. Along with 29 other rich nations, Russia is now committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent from the 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. In other words, the Kyoto clock will soon start ticking away.

What does this entail for India? Nothing immediate for sure. But then, being a signatory, India, like other developing countries, will be required to eventually move away from polluting fossil fuels if it is not to find itself on the wrong side of international law. `Eventually' could be as early as 2012 when the Kyoto targets come up for review. In fact, there is concern among the rich nations that without subjecting the big three developing countries — China, India and Brazil — to firm emission reduction targets, Kyoto might not be very effective.

The pressure will soon begin to build on India and others to put in place measures that will contain their greenhouse gas emissions and perhaps even reduce them. That means India can no longer generously dip into its substantial domestic coal reserves which, at current levels of consumption, will last it over hundred years and save it the burden of cushioning exchange rate fluctuations to which imported fuels are subject.

In June this year, India submitted its National Communication to the UNFCC. This document, required to be submitted by every member of the treaty, contains a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gases from existing activities. Emission reduction targets will be set on the basis of these figures. Even at the time of submission, the data in the National Communication is already a decade old. It pertains to emission levels obtaining in 1994 which is taken as the base year. During the last decade, there has been a virtual explosion in the transportation sector especially in the developing countries and significant growth in carbon-intensive industrial activity all of which will have to be factored into any realistic and meaningful emission reduction measures.

According to India's National Communication, 794 Tg (teragram) of CO2, 18 Tg of CH4, 178 Gg (gigagram) of N2O were emitted by India `due to various anthropogenic activities.' Needless to say energy tops the list of these activities. Almost 83 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions came from what the documents calls `fuel comubustion.' It includes such activities as power generation, petroleum refining and transportation. Even within this category, power generation and petroleum refining have been identified as the biggest polluters, accounting for nearly half of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Transportation, on the other hand, accounted for just about 10 per cent of all carbon emissions in 1994 when the vehicle population was around 25 million. Since then, the number of vehicles on Indian roads had grown exponentially to over 55 million in 2001, but simultaneously, vehicular emission norms have been upgraded twice — in 1996 and in 2000 to keep emissions in check.

In 1994, industrial processes such as production of cement, aluminium, carbide, limestone and iron and steel etc accounted for about 12 per cent of carbon emissions.

Therefore, any measures that target reduction in carbon dioxide emissions are bound to be directed first at power generation. At present, coal accounts for about 61 per cent of installed generation capacity while the share of gas is around 11 per cent. The latter deploys combined cycle gas turbine technology where the turbines can use dual fuel — naphtha as well as gas.

Thus, 72 per cent of all power generation comes from fossil fuels — whether coal or hydrocarbons. Nuclear power, a clean source of energy, accounts for just under 2 per cent and the entire range of renewable technologies such as wind, geothermal and solar add up to just over a single percentage point in India's total electricity mix.

In order to move away from coal, it is imperative that the country takes a re-look at its energy options. Hydel contributes 24 per cent to the total installed capacity of around 112,000 megawatts. The Central Electricity Authority has identified a hydel potential of 15 gigawatts. However, big dams being controversial, what with the enormity of the resettlement problems, India may have to aggressively pursue mini and micro hydel projects. Even so, its dependence on thermal energy will continue.

While gas is a relatively clean fuel, its share will depend critically on the affordability factor. With global spot price of gas hovering upwards of $5 per MMBTU (thousand metric British thermal unit) even the U.S. that has not built a single nuclear power reactor in the last 25 years is now reviewing the nuclear energy option.

For India, expanding its nuclear energy capacity is not just an option, but an imperative if we are serious about maintaining a sustainable trajectory of development. One hopes that the prototype fast breeder reactor being built at Kalpakkam will spur it on to that trajectory.

The first rural science congress at Wardha shows how grassroot technologies can change a village

WARDHA : RURAL India is gradually finding the merits of self-help. And the first Rural Science Congress at Wardha showcased these home grown talents.

A month after the annual Indian Science Congress at Chandigarh, 100-odd groups of artisans and technologists came together to further the cause of the ‘‘poor man's science''. This meet was organised by Gandhian NGO Magan Sangrahalaya. The Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART), an agency of Rural Development Ministry, and Khadi and Village Commission (KVIC) participated through an exhibition of the ability of innovators to usher in sustainable development. The real agenda, however, was to unitedly influence the government in promoting ‘‘people-friendly'' and ‘‘participatory'' technologies.

‘‘We have realised that there is little space for us in the mainstream science congress, so we decided to launch a parallel one,'' says Vibha Gupta, who heads the Magan Sagrahalaya. Vibha's father late, Devendra Gupta, was behind Wardha's Centre of Science for Villages (CSV).

Aiming to salvage traditional science, Gandhian institutions at Wardha have been holding artisans' conclaves over the last few years and have been asking the governments to replace high-cost technologies with appropriate ones.

Already, there are the likes of T.J. David from Hyderabad who has designed nearly 150 low-cost technologies and instruments, some of which have also been patented. His instant ‘‘reverse-charge gravity-feed water filter'' has been installed at Hyderabad's B.C. Hostel.

Bhagwat Nandan from Bunker and Aruna Roy's Barefoot College in Rajasthan's Tilonia village narrates how even illiterates from villages have been operating computers with ease. Tilonia meets all its power needs, including that for its school, hospital and computers, from the 40 KWs it generates from its eight solar plant. It also has schemes of water conservation, community health and handicrafts.

Pune's Appropriate Rural Technology Institute has developed improved chulha and cookers to fuel from farm biomass. Vibhavari, an NGO from Devas, has already earned praise for its low-cost, people-oriented water conservation methods.

There are others pitching in with people-friendly technologies—the Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network, an Ahmedab- ad-based NGO, has been sharing information about such technologies in 75 countries over the past 15 years.

The Wardha conclave's effort is to ensure that the influence of grassroot technologies spreads. The future plan of action includes a meet with prominent scientists of the country in May. ‘‘We want to involve them in this endeavour,'' says Vibha. ‘‘We will also ask the Planning Commission to include these technologies in the education system as well as policy,'' she says, adding, ‘‘the Wardha congress has provided the headstart.''

Rural India is in urgent need of knowledge empowerment and the challenge before us now is to enlist technology as an ally in the movement for economic, social and gender equity. A national grid of virtual universities/colleges devoted to harnessing communication technologies and the vernacular press can play a critical role in triggering such a knowledge revolution. M.S. SWAMINATHAN on one such venture, the soon-to-be inaugurated MSSRF-Tata Virtual Academy for Food Security and Rural Prosperity, designed to serve as a resource centre for all such initiatives.

THE onset of the Industrial Revolution in Europe marked the beginning of a technological divide, leading to an increasing rich-poor divide both among and within nations. With explosive progress in many areas of technology, like information and communication, space, bio- and nano-technology, this gap is widening. The challenge now is to enlist technology as an ally in the movement for economic, social and gender equity. Therefore, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) chose the imparting of a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation to technology development and dissemination as its mandate when it started functioning in Chennai in 1989. In order to assist in the articulation of concepts, opportunities and operational strategies which can help to reach the unreached in knowledge, skill and technological empowerment, an annual inter-disciplinary dialogue is being organised since 1990, under the generic title, "New Technologies: Reaching the Unreached". The first in this series was related to bio-technology. The emphasis in these dialogues has been on the standardisation of delivery systems which can ensure social inclusion in terms of access to relevant technologies. The recommendations resulted in the organisation of bio-villages.

The dialogue in 1992 was on information technology, which gave birth to the information village project in the Union Territory of Pondicherry, with financial support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada. Since information, to be of value to rural women and men, should be location and time specific, the term knowledge centre was used to stress the need for converting generic into location specific information and for training local women and men in adding value to information. Value-added information is appropriately referred to as knowledge and "rural knowledge centres" can generate opportunities for educated youth in villages to find a career in knowledge management and dissemination. We should train at least a million rural knowledge managers during this decade.

The MSSRF's experience in bridging the digital divide in rural India has provided some basic guidelines such as the following for harnessing this powerful tool to cross social, gender, genetic and technological divides.

a. Lab to Lab: This will involve organising a consortium of scientific institutions and data providers.

b. Lab to Land: This will involve symbiotic linkages between the providers of information and the users, so that the information disseminated is relevant to the life and work of rural families.

c. Land to Lab: There is considerable traditional knowledge and wisdom among rural and tribal families concerning the sustainable management of natural resources, particularly water. Therefore, technical experts should not only learn from traditional knowledge and experience, but also take steps to conserve for posterity dying wisdom and dying crops.

d. Land to Land: There is much scope for lateral learning among rural families; such learning has high credibility because the knowledge coming from a fellow farm woman or man would have been subjected to an impact analysis from the point of view of its economic and social relevance to the population.

Rural knowledge centres based on an integrated application of new communication technologies, like the internet and cable TV as well as conventional ones like community radio and the local language press, can become effective instruments for harnessing the power of partnership among professionals, political leaders and public policy makers, the general public and rural families. Such partnerships alone can help to bridge the growing divide between scientific know-how and field level do-how.

Based on the above, "learning" by MSSRF scientists, the application of ICT techniques to meet food and water security as well as livelihood needs of rural families are being intensified and extended through a virtual academy for food security and rural prosperity (abbreviated as VARP) with support from the Tata Social Welfare Trust and a range of data generators. Agriculture, comprising crop and animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, agro-processing and agri-business is the backbone of the livelihood security system of rural areas, where more than 70 per cent of our population lives. A considerable proportion of this population has no assets like land, livestock, fishpond or any commercially viable skill. The poor are also often illiterate, a majority of them being women. Therefore the academy will lay emphasis on fostering sustainable livelihood options both in the farm and non-farm sectors. It will be on promoting job-led economic growth in villages. In addition, the five foundations of sustainable development identified at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held at Johannesburg in 2002, viz. , water, energy, health, agriculture, bio-diversity and ecosystem management (WEHAB) will receive particular attention. Rural and tribal women and men who constitute the knowledge management corps will be the fellows of VARP.

Water quantity and quality will be the most serious constraints to agricultural advancement in the coming years. Hence, all aspects of water conservation and sustainable and equitable use will be dealt with in the programmes of the virtual academy in detail.

Community water banks and rural "low water demonstration parks" will be promoted. The water parks will be based on attention to the following three major components.

• Rainwater harvesting and the conjunctive and efficient use of rain, surface and ground water as well as treated effluents, and in coastal areas, sea water.

• Cultivation of high value but low water requiring crops like pulses and oilseeds.

• In addition to water, weather information will receive priority. We have considerable capacity in short, medium and long range weather forecasting. Such information will have to be converted into a functional meteorological package. Functional meteorology, like functional genomics, places emphasis on the action to be taken on the basis of meteorological forecasts.

During the last few years, I have been pleading for harnessing modern information and communication technologies through structured organisations like virtual universities/colleges in order to leapfrog in our quest for bridging the digital divide.

As a result, the following virtual universities have either already come into existence or are in advanced stages of development.

2.Virtual University for the Semi-Arid Tropics set up by the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad.

I hope many more initiatives of this kind will soon come up, so that, along with the Indira Gandhi National Open University, we can organise a national grid of institutional structures which can help to reach the unreached in terms of knowledge and skill empowerment. The MSSRF's experience also shows that bridging the digital divide is a powerful method of bridging the gender divide in rural India. We find that the self-esteem of poor women managing computer-aided knowledge centres has gone up speedily and significantly. This is another reason why we should accelerate our efforts to achieve technological leapfrogging in the field of ICT.

The experience now being gained in the country in the area of fostering a self-help revolution based on micro-enterprises supported by micro-credit offers an excellent opportunity for initiating community owned and managed rural knowledge centres which can be linked together in the form of a virtual academy using a hub and spoke model of organisation. Sustainable self-help groups require reliable and remunerative market linkages. The knowledge centres are in a position to foster such producer-purchaser linkages.

Rural India is in urgent need of knowledge empowerment in areas like genetic literacy (genetically modified organisms and new technologies), quality ( codex alimentarius standards and sanitary and phytosanitary measures) and legal literacy (implications of the Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Act, Biodiversity Act, Intellectual Property Rights, etc.,).

A national grid of virtual universities/colleges devoted to harnessing in an integrated manner the internet, cable TV, community radio and the vernacular press for reaching every woman and man in our villages can play a critical role in triggering a knowledge revolution in rural India.

To achieve this goal, however, the virtual universities should be structured as 21st Century organisations designed to link professionals with everyone in rural and tribal areas, whether man or woman, and irrespective of level of literacy and extent of ownership of assets. The MSSRF — Tata Virtual Academy for Food Security and Rural Prosperity is designed to serve as a resource centre for all such initiatives.

India is a land of small holdings. A small farm is ideal for sustainable intensification through eco-agriculture. A small farmer however suffers from many handicaps including access to technology, credit and remunerative markets. It is only by helping such farmers to overcome their handicaps, that small farms can become instruments for an ever-green revolution, characterised by enhancement of productivity in perpetuity, without associated ecological harm.

The smaller the farm, the greater is the need for marketable surplus to derive some cash income. Our farm families can face the challenges of the new global trade regime only by achieving revolutionary progress in the areas of productivity, quality, diversity and value-addition.

They have amply demonstrated through the green revolution that they are ready to help the country, if empowered.

The most important step to take in bringing about such empowerment is the initiation of a knowledge revolution in rural India through the effective and meaningful use of modern information and communication technologies.

IT WAS unavoidable that the World Bank (WB) should find itself at the centre of controversies over development vis-a-vis environment. After all, it has been the largest global agency to fund projects, especially in developing countries. Big projects were attractive to WB management in an era when loan disbursements and fulfilling loan targets were more valuable than performance. Developing countries, in turn, were equally attracted, as WB projects were big, visible and appealed to their constituents as signs of progress. By 1970s the mood had begun to change due to the efforts of environmental groups in the U.S. and Europe.

The WB was pumping money into projects in tropical rainforests, building roads, dams and extractive industries without realising their impact on fragile ecosystems. Local activists documented the destruction of forests, bio-diversity and their effects on the poor in countries ranging from Brazil to Indonesia, India and the Philippines. The WB management could no longer afford to ignore these critics.

By late Eighties and early Nineties the WB began to take environmental issues more seriously, but the dominant technocratic culture was slow to change. It imbibed the economic philosophy of Lawrence Summers: nature is basically a reservoir of raw materials to be used in creating growth and there are no limits to growth; environmental issues are transitional and growth can resolve them along the way.

In 1992 the WB produced a World Development Report with development and environment as its themes. It was the year of the Rio Conference and, yet, the WDR was not informed of the moral ardour attached to the Rio Agenda 21 or the commitments made by member countries. The WDR 1992 focussed mostly on certain `win-win' scenarios such as those based on the reduction of ecologically damaging subsidies. There were warnings about `either-or' choices between growth and environmental quality. The analysis had neo-classical trappings but missed the interactive nature of the relationships between environment (or sustainability) and economic growth and their links interwoven with the State, societal structures, cultures, and market.

In the following years (1993 to 1997) the debate in WDRs shifted to State versus market. From a brave beginning emphasising the pre-eminence of the market, the shift was to the stand that markets needed the State. The WDR 2002 (Building institutions for markets) emphasised the need to build institutions, innovate institutions and connect institutions. It was announced that the WDR 2003 would focus on issues not covered so far such as development of human, natural and environmental capital as well as social cohesion and social stability. As it happened, the WDR 2003 titled `Sustainable development in a dynamic world: Transforming institutions, growth and quality of life' was released to coincide with the UN summit on sustainable development.

It is not surprising that the WDR 2003 went unnoticed amidst all the disappointment over the achievements of the UN Summit itself. The report does not deal directly or convincingly with environmental issues. It talks repeatedly about depletion of natural resources — fisheries, forest and the like. It places faith in the market to raise productivity in resolving the long run shortages. It fails to recognise the sources of ecological degradation, destruction of bio-diversity and related issues of special concern to developing countries. It does not mention anywhere, even as a footnote, the role of transnational corporations in bringing these about, nor of the need to evolve global mechanisms to control them.

On the contrary, it leans heavily on them and implores the developing countries to create an atmosphere conducive to foreign investment. The mantra all the way is to blame weak policies, weak institutions and weak administrations. It talks of vested interests preventing adoption of good policies. It does not spell out those interests. It has a cold, ostensibly rigorous, amoral, apolitical and sanitised approach to social issues and fails to grapple with them or come forward with solutions. Below the surface, there is an eminently Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) bias. There is an attempt to divide the developing world into two camps: one with sound institutions and others not having them. While the former is worthy of aid and investment the latter should wither away as carcasses. This is a dangerous divide and has become a part of OECD aid philosophy.

By now, many are familiar with the World Bank literature and the lingo used. If we pierce through the verbiage in WDR 2003, it is evident that what the report pleads for is a masked version of the so-called second-generation reforms. Grudgingly the report concedes, "For the assets most at risk — the natural and social — markets cannot provide the basic co-ordinating functions of sensing problems, balancing interests, and executing policies and solutions. ... This co-ordination reveals the need for institutions that are capable of organising dispersed interests, confronting vested interests, and ensuring credible commitments in execution". (p.184) Though it recognises the centrality of co-ordinating institutions, the report shies away from suggesting specific policies or organisational designs (P.2 and 183).

The WDR 2003 has formally shifted away from neo-classical theory in suggesting the complementarity of natural, human, intellectual, social and capital assets and the necessity of their equitable and just distribution to ensure growth. It also suggests that markets cannot provide environmental and social assets, which are traditionally undervalued or under-provided and treated as if they were infinitely renewable. Yet, its long-term development framework is reliance on productivity growth through the market. (Summers peeping through a mountain of verbiage on social capital and institutional networks!)

As the Environment Group, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, describes it, "The report appears with unacknowledged inconsistencies and contradictions. ... many of these confusions arise because the report is underscored by a technocratic and managerial worldview which adheres to the notion that sustainable development within a dynamic economy can be achieved if we `get the institutions right,' but without too much attention to power and political economy". The report fails to take note of the role and nature of institutions and how they develop over time in different regions and cultures. Basically, it works within the framework of social capital theories developed by Robert Putnam, Coleman, which lack universal validity. Group formations take different shapes and structures in other cultures. These clans or tribes, as anthropologists and sociologists would readily identify, grow in national soils and are conditioned by concerns such as economic and ecological security.

The report cannot make sense out of groups like Bishnois of Rajasthan or the camel-herding tribes of Saudi Arabia (alas gradually getting extinct under pressures of oil wealth) which value tree/camel wealth more than human welfare. Herman Daly, one of the respected academicians specialising in environmental areas, draws attention to the difference between `globalisation' and `internationalisation' and to the risk of dis-integration attached to globalisation. He wonders, "It is hard to imagine how nations can be expected to pursue policies for sustainable development, or anything else, when their economic borders have been erased". So what is the price of development? And who sets the agenda and who pays?

The slogan for this year's Environmental Day is `Give Earth A Chance'. Rhetorically, there still seems to be concern for the health of Planet Earth in Kerala, but practically it has been given the go by. If the present conditions persist, it may not be long before Kerala develops deserts, feels LEELA MENON

AS YET another World Environment Day dawns what the environmental gurus witness is a clichéd refocus on environmental flaws, which have remained not only uncorrected, but worsened. The degradation of air and water, deforestation leading to desertification and laterisation, looming water shortage, vanishing forest cover, flora and fauna, including migratory birds, shrinking backwaters, polluted seas and reduction in fish wealth mark the environmental scene today.

The slogan on Environmental Day this year is `Give Earth A Chance'. It is a heartrending cry for help that resonates in a million hearts across the globe but fails to find an echo in materialistic, ego-centric money- at any-cost, anti-environmental lobby, sowing destruction and robbing the next generation of their future.`` Kerala cannot even have another chance, it is beyond redemption'', grieves Dr.U K Gopalan, (UKG) the recent winner of Bhoomi Mitra Award and a committed scientist-turned-environmentalist.

The Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992 was a fallout of the realisation in 1972 that ecological and environmental degradation threatens the very existence of human beings and all life forms on earth. The World Conservation Strategy, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the World Commission on Environment and Development, which brought out the report on Our Common Future, stressing sustainable development in harmony with man and nature have all been reduced to so much verbiage, at least in Kerala. The land of rivers and eternal monsoons is currently drinking water out of tankers, the cool mist-laden breeze which once blew from the thick evergreen forests has turned hot. Winter in Kerala is a memory.

The Rio Declaration, endorsed by 100 countries, spelt out guidelines for sustainable development with a global consensus on management, conservation and development of all types of forests, biodiversity, and re-negotiation to combat desertification. Since then there was Kyoto protocol, biosafety protocol et al. The Framework of Climate Convention directly attributed climate change to human activity that alters the composition of global atmosphere and stressed the need for stabilisation of greenhouse concentrations in the atmosphere. Forests were cited as embodying complex and unique ecological processes, which meet human needs and environmental values. A Law of the Sea was also framed to protect marine environment, to control pollution, conservation and exploitation of marine species.

What is the current scenario? Record rise in global warming, reduction in food production, forest fires, increased vehicle pollution, threat to two-third of the coral reef in India, destruction of 90,000 life species, vanishing of monsoon forests, soil erosion destroying 37 per cent of the billion hectare farmlands in the world, increase in per capita consumption of soil at 20 tonnes each etc. All attributed to increase in population. ``There is no concept about our common future,'' says noted environmentalist Prof. M K Prasad.

``Kerala is a testimony to this environmental rampage, currently ongoing at Mathikettan and Pooyamkutty, leading to desertification. And resulting in landslides as in Amboori in Thiruvananthapuram which wiped out families. We have no pure air to breathe, no good water to drink. All types of pollution is on the increase and the disaster graph is peaking, `'warns Dr Gopalan. ``The current water scarcity we experience is directly due to the deforestation and consequent desertification. Kerala does not even have 10 per cent of the 33 per cent forest cover it had.. Actual forest could be just five per cent, Mr Gopalan says, adding that the rest is on paper.

Of course, Kochi is paying the price for development into the commercial capital of Kerala. Effluent from the various factories have polluted our rivers, the backwaters and the seas and despite such vehement protests by locals as in the case of the Carbon Factory at Ambalamugal, factories continue to ignore effluent treatment, directly releasing effluent into the rivers or the air.. Atmospheric pollution is so acute that Kochi has acquired the name of Asthma City.

Smog enfolds the city and eusnophils is a constant presence in the blood of its inhabitants. ``We had even discovered radio activity in the water due to the effluent released by a factory in Eloor leading to fish death,'' Mr Gopalan remembers. In fact, every monsoon sees the slaughter of fish in river due to deliberate release of untreated effluents. Backwaters and rivers are vulnerable, to not only effluent pollution but also oil pollution, through the excessive use of motor-driven boats, and the contribution of the Oil Refinery. ``Whenever oil is handled there is likely to be pollution of water bodies,'' says Mr Gopalan.

The backwaters itself is vanishing due to encroachment. The Vembanad Lake has been reduced to one-third of its size, with 65 per cent reclaimed by people. Only 23 per cent of the backwaters remain in Kerala and part of this is under bunds and barriers. Fish species get extinct in bunds, as there is no way for them to come out to breed. Mangroves have shrunk from 70,000 ha to just one per cent now. It is only now that the Forest Minister has become aware of the need for conserving mangroves, which is a repository of fish and birds. Many traditional fish varieties have become extinct in Kerala now.

Salim Ali had raved about the avian wealth of Kerala. Were he to visit Kerala now he would be in tears, for many species of our birds have become extinct due to environmental degradation and pollution. Even the Mangalavanam off Kochi is a testimony to it, with migratory birds avoiding the once avian heaven. Even the famous teals in Pathiramanal, in Alapuzha is just a memory now. The migratory birds form a prestigious part of the alcoholics' menu in Kerala.

The astronomical increase in the number of vehicles on Kochi roads are not only breeding traffic jams and accidents, they are also contributing considerably to the already vitiated atmospheric pollution. Sixty per cent of atmospheric pollution is said to be due to lead pollution. Mindless horning is also responsible for the increasing noise pollution in Kerala. Rhetorically, concern for the health of Planet Earth exists. Practically it is given the go by. A review of the Agenda-21 and other international agreements show that the goal of sustainable development is still elusive, partly due to lack of political will.

Principles of good governance such as accountability, stakeholder involvement and transparency should be enforced. ``Natural resources management must be undertaken with an ecosystem approach,'' says Prasad. But unless the people change their attitude to the Earth and ensure a healthy environment, without polluting it, Earth will not have another chance.

MANAGEMENT literature on corporate power and responsibility is growing. Commensurate with this is the increase in media and public awareness on such issues. Business and Sustainable Development (edited by Richard Starkey and Richard Welford, Earthscam, 2001) provides a representative and stimulating selection of readings from business, academia, consultancy and NGOs. It provides some sobering statistics:

*Of the world's 100 largest economies, 51 are corporations. Only 49 are countries. The economy of Mitsubishi is larger than that of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country.

*The combined sales of the world's top 200 corporations are equal to 28 per cent of the world's GDP.

*These 200 corporations employ only 18.8 million people, less than a third of 1 per cent of the world's people. Stuart L. Hart points out the root of the problem -- explosive population growth and rapid economic development of the emerging economies -- and that these political and social issues go beyond any corporation's mandate. He appreciates at the same time that ``corporations are the only organisations with the resources, technology, global reach and, ultimately, the motivation to achieve sustainability'.

John Elkington looks at ways in which the environmental agenda for business is now becoming broader, based on sustainable development. This process is likely to pose a new challenge at board level, requiring companies to focus increasingly on the ``triple bottomline'', that is, their ability to deliver profit, to contribute to the preservation of the environment and to act in accordance with the demands of social justice. There are, however, different shades of views.

In a recent article in The Guardian, Roger Cowe quotes Chris Tuppen, BT's social and environmental programmes manager's view that profit is still the key element in the bottomline, even if social and environmental issues have crept on to ``triple bottomline''. In the same article, he also quotes Professor David Owen of Sheffield University questioning whether global corporates can ever be held to account by outsiders who will never match their power.

Forest Reinhardt's prescription is that businessmen should face environmental issues as they face business decisions. Much of the business and environment literature ignores this basic point. The truth is environmental problems do not automatically create opportunities for making money. At the same time, the opposite that it never pays for a company to improve its investment in environmental issues is also incorrect. Businessmen should, therefore, face environmental issues in the same way they take investment decisions. Managers should ask themselves: ``Under what circumstances, do particular kinds of environmental investments deliver better results to shareholders?'' Titus Moser and Damian Miller provide an overview of the debate on MNC corporations contributing to sustainable development in less developed countries. On the one side are ``those that question whether MNCs can ever serve as agents of sustainable development. On the other are those who argue that MNCs' international expertise in project implementation, access to the latest technologies and considerable financial resources provide them with a unique capacity to behave in an environmentally and socially responsible manner''.

This view was reflected in the Reith Lecture by Sir John Browne of BP, published by The Times recently, where he points out that technological advances and the global economy are providing the means to deliver progress in sustainable development. He says: ``Let me give a few examples from the experience of the company I work for. We are progressively extending our knowledge of how to reduce emissions. Ten or 20 years ago, the oil industry was symbolised by the flares which shone above our platforms. My company's aim is to eliminate this practice during the next three years. Or, again, the transfer of crude oil from pipeline to tankers...caused emissions of as much as 80 tonnes per day. Now, thanks to technical advances, we have a facility which captures all these emissions. And that technology will spread around the world, as more will through the clean development mechanisms of the Kyoto Agreement.''

The contemporary debate on how to promote more sustainable business practice among MNCs in LDCs has been dominated by individual cases. Moser and Miller show that four common themes, the four `R's, transcend these cases: Responsibility for sustainable development, repositories for power for sustainable development, representation for sustainable development and reorganisation for sustainable development.

They show that each of these themes encapsulates some of the major challenges facing the MNCs and other stakeholders in pursuit of sustainable development in LDCs. They suggest a number of possible solutions -- external and internal -- to the MNCs in an effort to advance the debate and support the objective of more sustainable business practices in the developing world.

David Korten argues that ``historically, the exercise of the State's regulatory powers was the primary restraint on the expansion of corporate power. Together, the process of deregulation and globalisation have effectively relieved that constraint by placing the power of global corporations and finance beyond the reach of the state. Business has now become the dominant institution, and Korten argues that in a healthy democratic society, the dominant institution should be both responsible for and accountable to the whole. However, business is neither responsible nor accountable, a state of affairs that, among other things, has resulted in the destruction of the natural environment and marginalisation of people, communities and cultures.

For Korten, corporations have both a positive and a negative side, and the question for him is how to ``exorcise the dark side without destroying the essential and beneficial wealth creation face of the business sector.'' Korten stresses that accounting should be grounded in a coherent theory of the market and the corporation, something he argues that is not true of most social accounting issues. He calls the system he has proposed `market efficiency audit' (MEA), which is a clear and specific measure of a corporation's externalised costs. This, he argues, is something the public has a right to know and needs to know if it is to be able to make properly informed decisions.

Sharon Beder examines ``the way that corporations have used their financial resources and power to counter gains made by environmentalists, to reshape public opinion and to persuade politicians against increased environmental regulation''. She argues that this corporate activism has led to a failure of democracy, with government action on the environment consistently failing to live up to what the majority of the people want. Beder firmly believes that the environmental movement needs to counter effectively the power of the corporation. Carl Frankel sees corporations as 'complex, multifaceted entities which give off mixed messages'.

A company can make positive environmental commitments and carry out positive environmental initiatives while, at the same time, acting in ways that can be environmentally questionable or downright obstructive of environmental progress. Frankel lists two types of mixed messages: First is the 'good old corporation' which proclaims its environmental commitment in public while feverishly lobbying to weaken environmental legislation in private. The second type is, where a company's action appears favourable from one standpoint but less so from another, and is more subtle. Frankel gives some interesting instances.

David Murphy and Jem Bendell look at the relationship between business and non-governmental organisations, especially at the influence NGOs exert on corporate behaviour. They suggest that we are seeing the emergence of 'civil regulation' -- the ability of civil society to set standards for business behaviour by acting on markets. They argue that the rise of consumerism in the latter part of the 20th Century saw the emergence of consumers as political actors, and they see NGOs as an organisational expression of this 'consumer politics'.

Consumer politics is a form of politics that gains its power through controlling access to customers: As the authors put it, ``corporate boycotts and direct action protests are the confrontational outcomes of consumer politics and business -- NGO partnerships are the cooperative tools of consumer politics. While acknowledging the limitations of civil regulation and the decreased ability of governments to regulate corporations effectively, they argue that civil regulation, in combination with regulation by intergovernmental bodies and governments, can provide an increasingly effective means of controlling business behaviour and 'tip the market in favour of responsible business.

Recently, The Guardian and The Observer carried a debate on corporate social responsibility as a prelude to their one-day workshop. Will Hutton observes that corporate social responsibility is more than just good public relations, a redefinition of the company's role; in short, corporate social responsibility must be exercised as much in their own interest as in those of the wider society. He controverted Martin Wolf's (of Financial Times) thesis that ``companies should be in the business of making profits, not saving the planet.''

Hutton says: ``Wolf is wrong. Companies are not being invited to save the planet or adopt the mantras of the anti-capitalist protestors. Rather, they are being asked to accept more responsibility for the consequences of their actions that they would otherwise casually displace on to the society.'' Every major global branded MNC is exploring these issues and the need to win back trust. Hutton has also contributed a chapter for these readings. He writes that ``the corporate sector has good reason to show concern for its social, ethical and environmental performance and there is the more hard-bitten view that social and ethical responsibility is good for business.'' He adds: ``Anyone working with the business community will have been impressed by the commitment of many people working within this community to improving the social and environmental footprint of the companies in which they work.''

We are moving into the second phase of economic reforms. Corporations have come to stay. There is need for the government and offer agencies to improve their skills to deal with the MNCs, as the Enron experience shows. The current phenomenon of mergers and greater liberalisation of the rules on the inflow of foreign capital in more sectors will increase competition further. In this situation, there is need for wider media and public attention to be paid to the performance of corporations.

CAPE TOWN, MARCH 3. The head of the United Nations Environment Programme feels ``the ecological aggression of developed countries against developing countries'' is unfair. Dr. Klaus Toepfer, speaking exclusively to The Hindu at the end of the three-day forum meeting of the World Commission on Dams said this was so because the consumption patterns of the developed world had not changed. He was speaking in the context of global climate change and decreasing biodiversity.

Expressing concern over the increasing gap between the rich and poor with more people living in absolute poverty conditions, Dr. Toepfer said the most important aspect of ``sustainable development'' remained development.``The developed world must avoid asking developing countries to pay for environmental deterioration.''

Dr. Toepfer's organisation had offered to assist in the follow-up on the extensive and detailed WCD report - Dams and Development: A new framework for decision-making. ``If we can't link the WCD process with the overall debate on sustainable development, we'll be missing a chance,'' he said. The timing of the report was significant as the ninth meeting of the Council for Sustainable Development, the follow-up mechanism to the Rio conference on Environment and Development, was addressing the issue of energy. In this context, it was essential to discuss some of the findings of the report.

``The issue of dams has been misunderstood as an isolated topic,'' said Dr. Toepfer, ``at the end of the day, people want water and energy. Let's get the best option. We should not just think of supply-side solutions.''

South Africa will host the World Summit on Sustainable Development or Rio Plus Ten next year. And the UNEP chief, who will be organising it, said it was important to remember that in 1992, when the U.N. conference on Environment and Development was held, the world was just coming out of the era of bipolarism. Today, we are at the centre of a globalised world. ``We now have to add to environment and development, the question of globalisation. How can we make this work for the poor, for the environment?''

It had to be done ``without paying the high price of losing identity.'' Dr. Toepfer said people in many parts of the world were increasingly equating globalisation with uniformity. ``We have learnt from nature that diversity means strength while monocultures are destructive.''

Dr. Toepfer hoped the Rio Plus Ten conference would not become just a "super environment summit'' but could concretely establish that "environmental protection is a precondition to stable economic development.''