KOLKATA: Prof Robert RM Verchick, who recently served in the Obama administration as deputy associate administrator for policy at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), strongly believes America made a "big mistake" when it withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement signed by 191 countries in 1997 that set binding obligations on the industrialized countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.
"America pulling out of the Kyoto protocol was not just a big mistake in terms of global relations and moral obligations, it was also a lost business opportunity," said Verchick, who holds the Gauthier-St Martin Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University, New Orleans, and helped develop climate adaptation policy for the EPA and served on President Barack Obama's Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.
His comments come at a time when at the ongoing climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar, the US and Europe are opposing the idea that rich countries should pay for loss and damage caused by events linked to climate change in vulnerable areas across the globe. The professor feels the US should own up to the moral responsibility and use the opportunity in Doha to trash out a workable agreement on climate change.
Addressing students at the School of Oceanographic Studies in Jadavpur University, Verchick said he, and many other Americans, feel that the US cannot not shy away from the fact that it is responsible for much of the climate change challenges that the world faces today.
"Developed countries are historically responsible for climate change. They have created the problem but have the money and technology to fix it. It is the developing countries that will find it most difficult to cope with the challenge. One must remember that while North will suffer losses in terms of physical infrastructure, it is lives that will be lost in the South," he said, adding that while the concept of polluter pays is fine, differentiated responsibility has to be accepted since India and China could not be the same amount as US or Europe to clean up the environment.
While China is today the highest emitter of carbon dioxide at 7.03 billion tonne, the US follows at 5.46 billion tonne and India is third highest emitter at 1.74 billion tonne. The EU as a bloc emits 4.18 billion tonne. But both China and India point out that its per capita emission of CO2 is 7.2 tonne per annum and 1.6 tonne per annum respectively, much lower than 17.3 tonne per annum of US, 16 tonne per annum of Australia and 14.9 tonne per annum of Canada.
Verchick, who is in India since August to examine how cities - particularly Kolkata, Delhi, Surat and Gorakhpur - are preparing for climate change, said the cities appeared to lack holistic laws and policies to tackle with climate change induced disasters.
"Here, I have seen that there is progress in places with strong communities or leadership. It is extremely important to institutionalize this and ensure that the government responds to climate change. Surat seems to be responding as is Ahmedabad with climate change boards and physical as well as social vulnerability studies," he said.
Verchick, whose research focuses on law and policy, particularly issues of regulatory design, social vulnerability, and management of uncertainty and risk, said Kolkata, which was in the extremely vulnerable zone, needed to take into account climate projections and not historic data when planning infrastructure like roads, bridges, highways and dams. "India cannot afford to see the money pumped into infrastructure go waste in 20 years," he said.
