National Model UN Conference
New York
Panel Discussion on 'Climate Change and the SDGs'
March 22, 2016
Remarks by Mr. Amit Narang, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations
Thank you Pauline for the introduction and thank you Pam for setting us up so well with that introduction.
I am delighted to be here among future multilateralists and to see so many young faces.
No matter if you are an idealist like Thomas Paine who said that 'My country is the world, and my religion is to do good' or a pessimist who thinks the United Nations is little more than 'a well meaning but never ending talk-show', you will agree that as citizens of a global village, multilateralism - to the extent that it means a collective effort to find solutions to common problems - is not an option, it is indispensable.
A multilateral context to the two issues that we have in front of us today - climate change and SDGs - is even more relevant even though a bit different for each.
On climate change, multilateralism has worked in fits and starts, whereas the SDGs are being widely recognized as a milestone in multilateralism.
I have been asked to speak on the relationship between climate change and SDGs and I am expected to talk about how climate change is central to the success of the SDGs.
But I am not going to do so.
The fact that climate change is an urgent global threat and that halting climate change is going to be central to the achievement of the SDGs is quite obvious. It is a point that should hardly need emphasizing.
What I am going to do is to try and help you situate the issue of climate change in the wider template of development. I want to stress to you how combating climate change must be seen in its wider developmental context, which is what the SDGs also seek to do.
I doing so, I also hope to speak to you about international cooperation on climate change itself and what kind of approaches will make us - as the international community - overcome this challenge.
And finally, I would like to speak to you about an issue that I believe straddles the twin objectives of promoting development and halting climate change.
Before concluding I will you a glimpse of what India is doing to both fast-track development as well as combat climate change.
So, turning first to the SDGs, let us examine for a moment the world we are trying to change through these goals. Yes, it is a climate-constrained world, a world that is increasingly at the tipping point of its planetary boundaries. But it is also a world with long-standing and complex development problems, solutions to which are critical.
Let us look at some numbers.
Some 1.3 billion people the world over - almost twice the combined population of Europe - live a life of poverty; some 805 million are chronically undernourished, i.e. they do not have enough to eat to lead a healthy life; 1.7 billion lack access to essential medicines; nearly 1 billion lack access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion to improved sanitation; and 1.6 billion lack access to adequate shelter and 100 million are homeless.
If these numbers are not stark enough, consider this. Research suggests that at least a third of human deaths annually, almost 18 million can be attributed to poverty related causes
.
It should be obvious therefore that addressing this 'development deficit' is the first and necessary condition if we have to achieve a sustainable world.
There can be no sustainable development with such alarming and widespread levels of poverty and hunger.
You cannot teach a starving man or woman the benefits of a low-carb Atkin's diet.
You cannot tell millions living in shanty towns along the coasts that building concrete homes for their families will lead to emissions.
You cannot tell a child studying in the dark or a woman cooking on wood and dung that providing modern energy to them will be bad for the planet.
In other words, the burden of sustainability cannot be put on the shoulders of the poor.
Eradicating poverty and hunger is a moral, political, economic, and ethical imperative and at the centre of the SDGs.
Ensuring a life of basic human dignity to everyone on this planet is the first step in addressing climate change.
This in turn can only be done if we enable robust inclusive economic growth in poorer countries, invest in infrastructure, create jobs, promote industrial development and foster innovation.
At the same time, we cannot address climate change if we fail to address the unsustainable consumption and lifestyles, particularly in the richer countries.
You will notice that all these imperatives that I just mentioned are included in the SDGs and combating climate change is one of the 17 goals. Climate change must therefore be seen as an intrinsic part of this complex web of actions.
Let me now turn briefly to the issue of climate change itself.
The travesty of climate change is that the poor end up suffering its worst impacts, even though they contributed the least in causing the problem.
There is, in other words, a stark 'climate inequality'.
Prime Minister Modi of India has called this the imperative of 'climate justice'.
Consider some facts.
Between 1850 and 2011, between themselves the rich countries contributed over 2/3rd of total global emissions. During this period, the US and EU both emitted 10 times more CO2 each than India.
Today, India is often referred to as the world's 3rd largest emitter. The reality however is that India has among the lowest per capita emissions in the world.
So low, that that on average an Indian emits 10 times less CO2 than an American and 4 times less than a French citizen.
Not only that, at around 2 tCO2e, Indian per capita emissions are also a mere 1/3rd of Chinese per capita emissions and in fact less than half the global average. With 17% of world population, India accounts for only 4.6% of world energy consumption and 4.49% of world electricity consumption.
I have provided a copy of 'Climate Justice 21' - facts that seek to capture this reality in numbers .
This does not of course mean the poorer countries will not or are not acting against climate change. Quite on the contrary!
In the run-up to the Paris Conference, a group of civil society organizations independently analyzed the climate pledges of over 160 countries, based on their 'fair shares' taking into account both their historical responsibility as well as their current capability to act.
This study found that the ambition of all major developed countries falls well short of their fair shares, with the contribution of United States and EU each representing about a 5th of their fair shares, and Japan a mere 10th of its fair share.
On the other hand, the majority of developing countries including India and China have made mitigation pledges that exceed or broadly meet their fair shares.
For global efforts to halt climate change to succeed therefore, our collective efforts must be sensitive to our different starting points, responsibilities and capabilities. In their effort, the poorer countries must have the space to address their 'development deficit'.
I would like to turn now to the one issue that straddles both climate change and development.
That issue is energy.
The way we produce and consume energy is critical to combat climate change. The global push for cleaner sources of energy is therefore just right and must be pursued even more vigorously.
But there is a more fundamental aspect to energy. It is the bedrock of all development and is a direct enabler of all other development goals.
What do you see in this picture?
You are right of course if you see a light bulb, given to us in the 19th century by Edison.
But for millions of people living in poor countries, this could also be called 'Revolution', 'Empowerment', 'Education', 'Opportunity', or 'Safety'.
As a matter of fact 1.3 billion people (18% of world's population) are without access to electricity.
This means 7 out of every 10 people in Africa and about 300 million in India.
Let me quote from a recent article in 'Foreign Affairs' magazine on what life without electricity means:
'Imagine life without electricity. With no lights, electric stove, or water pump, you must travel miles to fetch water and firewood, running a particular risk of attack if you are a girl or a woman. At home, you cook over a smoky stove or an open fire, raising your odds of getting lung and heart disease. If you are pregnant, you may die in the dark, giving birth at a clinic that lacks air conditioning and modern medical equipment. Without vaccines, which require refrigeration, your children remain vulnerable to deadly diseases. At night, they study by the light of a kerosene lamp, which causes burns when the fuel spills. Earning a living isn't easy, either. No electricity means no sewing machines or rice mills, no pumps for irrigating crops, and no way to keep drinks cold or keep a store open at night. Such is the plight of nearly half of the world's population'.
Development, in other words, is inextricably linked with use of energy.
Evidence is unequivocal that countries that have achieved a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.9 or more have per capita energy consumption of at least 2.5 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per year. The current per capita energy consumption in India is just one-quarter of it at 0.6 toe per year. In other words, with today's technologies and living standards, the energy consumption in India would need to increase by 4 times as India's HDI increases from the current value of 0.5 to a value of 0.9.
The key challenge is to enable this higher energy consumption at a cost that people are willing and able to pay, and with progressively lower carbon intensity.
Finally, is India up to this task?
What is India doing to uplift millions of its people from poverty while combating climate change at the same time?
India today has among the most ambitious programs for both energy access and expanding renewables.
Let me give you 3 examples.
India has close to 18,000 villages with no access to electricity.
Prime Minister Modi has decided that we will electrify all of these villages by mid-2018.
So far, close to 7000 have been electrified already. In the past 4 weeks, 337 villages across India were electrified.
India is also leading the world in distributing energy-efficient LED bulbs. Lighting sector accounts for about 20% of the total energy consumption in India. Currently, most of the lighting need in domestic and public lighting sector is met by inefficient, conventional, incandescent bulbs. The aim is to replace all of them with LEDs.
Till date, we have distributed 80 million LED bulbs. This has led to avoided emission of 23,000 tons of CO2 per day. [delp.in]
Due to this massive program, the cost of an LED has come down drastically, to about 1/3rd the global average.
Thirdly, India also has a very ambitious program for up scaling renewable energy.
India has also announced that it will add 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. 175 GW is almost equal to the total installed power generation of Germany and India proposes to add this capacity only in renewables in the next 7 years.
The 175 GW of renewables will save 326 million tons of CO2 emissions every year. This is roughly equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of France in 2012. It will also avoid burning over 300 million tonnes of coal.
You must remember that India is doing all this at a very low per capita income level. The price tag of this climate ambition is huge. Between now and 2030, it could be in the range of US$ 2.5 trillion.
Change is already visible on the ground.
Kochi international airport in Kerala India recently became the world's first solar airport. 30 more solar airports are on the way.
Railway stations are being solarized rapidly and there is a plan to solarize trains too.
We are also going to solarize over 55,000 petrol pumps all over the country; over 3000 are already solar.
To conclude, I have said the following 5 things to you:
First, the problem of climate change must be situated in the wider template of sustainable development with its overarching objective of ending poverty. Without ending poverty, hunger and deprivation, without ensuring a life of basic human dignity to every human being, we cannot meaningfully address climate change.
Second, to eradicate poverty, we need to look beyond quick-fixes and ad-hoc approaches. We need to take the holistic and long-term solution based approach of the SDGs based on ensuring robust inclusive economic growth, industrial development, job creation, investment in infrastructure and technological innovation.
Third, the richer countries need to step-up to the plate and urgently take steps to transition their societies towards sustainable lifestyles and consumption patterns.
Fourth, our approach to climate change must be one which balances the twin imperatives of development and sustainability. One that is able to distinguish between lifeline emissions and lifestyle emissions and ensure space for bridging the development-deficit.
And fifth, managing energy transition straddles both the climate and development question and for this reason it is important we do this right. This transition has to be two-pronged - moving towards a global cleaner energy pathway while ensuring basic access to energy to all.
Thank you and I'll be happy to take some questions.