NEW DELHI: While the west sees atmospheric brown clouds as a major climate change factor in global warming, India sees the charge that its "traditional" bio-fuels are the primary reason for the toxic haze as an attempt to put the developing world on the back foot over climate change
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There was no official reaction to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on the brown cloud formation but senior sources in the ministry of science and technology rejected the claim that carbon soot generated by bio-fuels burnt in India were a major contributor to global warming and that this was affecting the food yield in the region.
The Indian scientific community sees the brown cloud theory to be exaggerated as it feels the haze is pretty much a "normal" phenomenon in winters, and sometimes, in other non-monsoon months as well. The use of firewood, dung cakes and fossil fuels has not increased so significantly as to now pose any more of a climate change risk than has been the case till now.
"It is a way of getting at India and China. We say that the developed world is primarily responsible for global warming so the West has latched on to the brown cloud formation to target us on traditional fuels. But these fuels are not the only reason why brown clouds are formed," said an official familiar with the debate.
India has argued that brown clouds are not exclusive to India or China and are found in Africa, central Asia and South America as well. Also, in the case of India, suspended particles are washed from the atmosphere during monsoons unlike CO2, which once released does not dissipate for years.
Carbon soot combined with dust might have made the haze appear earlier but to argue that brown clouds were second only to CO2 in causing global warming was a skewed proposition.
Western research has tended to vigorously support the view that reduction of brown cloud formation would substantially delay the onset of "serious" climate change and that in specific regions the phenomenon can increase atmospheric heating by 50%.
There have been calls for India to "encourage" a shift from firewood and other bio-fuels to other energy sources, a move that is certain to be costly, besides disrupting age-old practices.
The haze was initially labelled Asian brown clouds and "Asian" was substituted by "atmospheric" after protests by countries like India. Since India has been at the forefront of the argument that it would not accept binding commitments on climate change and it was for the developed world to fund green technologies, the attack over the brown clouds was expected.
