DR R K PACHAURI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, TERI

• You’ve been busy with all these nightmare words—Wilma, Katrina, Rita, Pyar, flooded Bombay, flooded Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta; nine feet of rain in a day in one part of Bombay.

Well, we are undoubtedly facing the threat of climate change. I wouldn’t say that any of these events is directly related to human-induced climate change. But our Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has clearly projected that in the future, these so-called extreme events will increase in intensity as well as frequency.

• If you just look at the flooding of our cities, it’s evident that there’s a change in our rainfall pattern. We get fewer rainfall days, but more rain on those days, which our system can’t handle.

Absolutely. We also have to worry about the fact that our glaciers are melting very rapidly. So, on the one hand, you’re likely to see droughts, you’ll also see more frequent and more severe floods and, of course, these extreme precipitation events, similar to Mumbai.

• Nine feet in a day—no city could have handled it. Even Manhattan.

Undoubtedly. We’ve seen what happened with Hurricane Katrina; it is worrying. The whole problem of climate change was highlighted in 1896 by a Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius...What he said was that if you double the carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, you’re going to create much warmer temperatures. We know now that it’s not going to just be a linear increase. When you interfere with nature’s balance, there are all kinds of other problems that will arise. We could have singular events like the breakdown of the thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic that keeps Europe warm, which means Europe could become much colder.

• And this could happen sooner than we imagine. Because people always say it’ll happen 500 years from now.

We have increased the temperature of the earth by an average of 0.6 degrees in the 20th century, and our projections are that in the 21st century, the further increase that would take place is between 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Centigrade. This means, overall, we would have affected the climate of the earth by warming it by 2 degrees Centigrade. Which is pretty serious. Particularly for our agriculture.

• And this will be much worse than just the Maldives going under?

Absolutely. I would say that the impact would be felt in India and Bangladesh, in our coastal areas. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable and that has implications for us. We need to start worrying about these things and perhaps get the global community, including ourselves, to move on a different path.

• What do we do? Not all of us can live or work in environments such as the TERI campus at Gurgaon—you don’t use any grid power, everything is solar, you pump underground air which has a constant temperature, you recycle your water.

I think if we were to educate our architects, our builders and, more than anyone else, the public that the path that we are on, which has really been set by the developed countries, is not the path that we should be pursuing...Given our resource endowments, given the fact that our population is very large, we necessarily have to adopt a lifestyle that doesn’t give up the good things in life but ensures that our footprint on nature is much smaller than what’s been the case with the developed countries. I mean, a simple thing like this earth air tunnel—look at the Indian building tradition. If you go four metres below the earth, the temperature is uniform throughout the year. What we have in the TERI campus at Guragon is four 70-metre-long tunnels through which we blow air and that gives you cooling in summer and heating in winter. These are things which our ancestors utilised very well—in Rajasthan you had the tehkhana, which used to be the coolest room.

• Or in Kashmir you had the hamam room, which had hot water underneath.

Absolutely. We have blindly gone after constructing boxes that make a lot of sense in northern climates.

• You see these skyscrapers with glass all around them, which soaks in the 45-degree heat and then soaks up energy.

And then you see these shopping malls—I’m told there are over 300 of them under construction. They are huge energy guzzlers. If we used our intelligence, we certainly could make them much more environmentally friendly.

• The pity is they’ll be guzzling subsidised energy.

And they will also probably be stealing some energy, as we know happens.

• So what’s the solution? Post inspectors outside them?

Well, first, we have regulatory bodies which have been established to decide and take action on the pricing of energy. I think these bodies have to be strengthened. They have to be given the right level of expertise. We have to come up with a much more rational pricing system, one which includes time-of-day metering. A lot of these users are going to place a huge demand on energy during peak hours and therefore the cost of supplying in those peak hours is going to be much higher than the average.

• I was reading something you wrote where you say that even a small place like Cyprus has made it mandatory to put in solar water heating.

As a matter of fact, in Cyprus, in Israel, in several parts of the Caribbean and in many southern European locations, you can’t get the completion certificate for your house unless you’ve got a solar water heater fitted. Now, you can have an electrical back-up so that if you had three or four days of cloudy weather you wouldn’t have to bathe in cold water. But it makes a huge saving in terms of conventional energy consumption. And Delhi is ideally suited, most of this country is ideally suited for solar water heaing.

• Have you tried taking it up with people, say, in Delhi, at least? Because Delhi is a more aware city.

At every level of the government. I’ve said this to everyone, including the Urban Development Ministry to our state government. We have shown them the rationale for it but I’m afraid we seem somehow to be paralysed when it comes to taking action...They listen and that’s the end of it. There’s no action. I think it’s important that the public starts getting active on these issues and puts pressure.

• The public will do it, Dr Pachauri, if it sees an incentive. The people of south Delhi came out in strength, with candlelight processions, to protest against a 10 per cent power hike.

I felt happy not because they came out on this issue but because for the first time the community was taking action on something that affects all of us. I thought they would continue this momentum and that they would take an educated approach to what really should be done, but it seems to have died down. ...I would like to see the public getting really active in putting pressure on the government on some of these issues. But this means that they have to be educated that it’s in their long-term interests.

• So how much does an average household in Delhi, or Bombay for that matter, save if they put in solar water heating at Rs 70-80,000 cost on an average?

To put in very simple terms, you’ll get a payback for that investment in less than a year and a half.

• Are you frustrated by the slow pace at which people—forget the government—are adapting to these ideas?

I think part of it is also our fault. We really should be sensitising the public much more and far more effectively. I am delighted that the media is also taking an interest in these things. What does make me angry and cause me anguish is that despite the intellectual strength we have, we don’t focus on long-term issues at all. We have become so myopic. Where is this going to take us?

• You are an institution builder, you built TERI with a Rs 3 crore grant and I believe your assets are now nearly Rs 300 crore...In fact, Finance Minister P Chidambaram was telling me he wants you to go public, even as a non-profit company—you would be India’s first environmental company to go public. Why should I hear frustration in your voice?

Well, I suppose I need a safety valve somewhere. When I write, it gives me an opportunity to express my anger. It is frustrating—I’ll just give you one example. In the early ’80s, I was a member of the advisory board on energy under Mr K C Pant. We came up with a roadmap. More than 20 years have gone by and we’re still talking about the same things today. Take solar water heating. At that point of time, we said that there should be a means by which at least government buildings make a beginning, set an example of being users of sustainable energy. But nothing happened.

• On the other hand, all modern energy-saving techniques are built around subsidies, which is such a disaster. It breeds corruption and most people do it to get the subsidy.

I think that we have to get out of this subsidy-oriented approach. There has to be a market-oriented solution.

• So do you find any more purchase now with politicians, or is it the same?

To be quite honest, politicians, I find, do listen to you, but the rest of the system seems impervious to knowledge, to new ideas.

• Even the bureaucracy?

I don’t want to generalise, but 20-25 years ago, one found that people in the bureaucracy were far more sensitive to new ideas, willing to pick them up and do something. In the political leadership, Mr Rajiv Gandhi was so open to new ideas; we used to send him all kinds of submissions and he took action on all.

• Do you think that last year’s flooding, the disasters worldwide, will bring about a change? Even the tsunami, in a way—if the level of surface water rises half a metre, a tsunami like this could kill twenty times more people.

Absolutely. I raised this again and again...

• So do you now find any more purchase or is it the same? Bureaucrats also have children who will live in this environment.

I personally believe that you have to start educating children. They are far more sensitive and far more responsible in these matters than adults are. I think today children are also able to influence adult behaviour. That to me represents the only hope because we adults are so caught up in our own immediate gains.

• What are your big frustrations now?

Basically that we don’t seem to take into account the impact that our actions are having. Take the use of energy, something that we’re so wasteful in. There are so many areas where we can cut down on the use of energy without giving up the good things of life.

• What are five things we could start doing today without causing a parliamentary adjournment?

I would say that we really need an educational programme for schoolchildren whereby we give them information about what our lifestyle is doing to the environment. We need to sensitise people in terms of the financial benefits to them from, say, using compact fluorescent lamps, or installing solar water heaters. I think an information campaign in this area could start a movement; that would make a difference. We need to plant more trees.

• But there has been some improvement in that area.

Undoubtedly. There has been some improvement and that’s very heartening. But there’s so much we can do.

• And you would perhaps want the brightest person in the cabinet to be the Environment Minister, instead of it being the case where you just park an unhappy person looking for another job?

Well, you need people with commitment. That’s absolutely essential.

• One other group of people is our environmentalists—jholawallas, as we sometimes unfortunately call them. Some of these activists don’t want to be confused with technology and science; they now have this new weapon of mass destruction, the PIL. Does that bother you or do you think it’s alright?

No, I don’t think so. I feel this is an area where we need to work with the judiciary because, let’s face it, the judiciary is not supposed to have knowledge in these areas.

• But they’re doing great things, their hearts are in the right places.

They’re doing great things, I know, but they draw on people who don’t necessarily give them the right information, the right advice. Take this business of cleaning the air in Delhi—there were far less expensive approaches that we could have taken. Anyway, it was a step I think you learn about while taking.

• But it has had an effect on the air of Delhi.

It has. And several other steps that the Supreme Court has taken have made a major difference.

• So what can be done to educate the judiciary?

I think they should have short training programmes for judges.

• Do you sometimes find that activists end up complicating issues?

I’m afraid they do. You really need to mainstream the environment in economic policymaking. Therefore, you have to be aware of the economic choices that are available. You’ve got to bring that out in the analysis that you present for decision making. If you say stop everything, then you’re really creating a situation that is harmful.

• It’s like enforcing prohibition.

And you know what that does, what it did in the US, for example. I think it’s essential for environmentalists to at least look at the economic dimensions of what they are suggesting. And also the feasibility in very practical terms. Sometimes we get carried away.

• For example, the debate on big dams. If you say that we are going to get more rain but over fewer days, so there’ll be some days of massive rain, like Gujarat for four years, and then no rain. So what is the answer except reservoirs, dams?

In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has clearly said that in the same place you’ll have floods and droughts. We need to start looking at this whole business of storage of water. There are good dams and there are bad dams. You don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You don’t say no dams, no high dams at all. There are some that would have a minimal impact on the environment....Why stop that opportunity, which has benefits for a large number of people?

• You used to be the darling of the Americans, now that isn’t quite so. You used to be a great friend of Al Gore, but now I see you being used as a sort of shooting practice target.

Well, Al Gore was a good friend of mine but in the election for the chairman’s position at the IPCC, I beat his very dear friend, Bob Watson, who also, incidentally, is a very good friend of mine. Al Gore went ballistic; he wrote a piece in The New York Times. I had to refute that; it took me by surprise. I saw Al Gore last month and he seemed very conciliatory and very friendly.

• Do you find that in activism the cause and passion get the better of judgement and science?

I see this happening far too often. I’ve had arguments about it and I suppose I’m not very popular with some environmentalists. I think they harm the cause rather than help it. If you look at, say, joint forest management, there were those who felt that the State should have nothing to do with the community. But joint forest management is basically a partnership between the community and the forest department. You can’t keep one out and leave everything to the other. Then there’s the clean development mechanism, under the Framework Convention on Climate Change in the Kyoto Protocol. It allows a developed country to invest in a project over here and get credit for emissions that are reduced. There was an enormous furore over our advocacy of that. A lot of environmentalists called it immoral—how can you allow somebody to pay you for polluting somewhere else. But, you know, we’re looking for global solutions. If you can do the right thing over here, which helps us for our own local reasons, why not? And if you’re being paid for it. I think you have to be a bit pragmatic. You can’t make the best the enemy of the good.

• The big environmental activism issues in India are, say, the Narmada dam, Tehri, nuclear energy. Where do you see those debates going?

Well, I hope that there will be a more rational debate and that’s where I feel schoolchildren and the youth of this country need to be educated.

• Sometimes we in the media get the feeling that that’s also become a profession—activism.

Well, there’s a reason for that. We’ve had such a top-downwards approach when it comes to environmental actions; what you need is much greater involvement of the community. I see no reason why the state pollution control board should report to the government.

• It should be an autonomous body.

Yes, one that reports to a group of citizens.

• I wish some of them would see the innovations you’ve made. I believe you get your waste and sewage water cleaned in a patch of bamboo.

Well, you know, these plants are called fragmites. All the waste goes through this system and at the end all the chemicals are removed, all the sewage is removed and what you get is water that we’re using for irrigation. It’s a nature-friendly system and not expensive.