Expert Appraisal Committee of Environment Ministry Applies its Expertise to Determine Civil Action Groups are Anti-Development

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change of Government of India has a very important responsibility. Under the EIA Notification 2006, it examines various projects and recommends to the Ministry whether these should be granted environmental clearance or not. There are different EACs for different categories of projects. One of the EACs is for River Valley and Hydroelectric projects (RVH).

The EAC for RVH has recently been reconstituted for a three year term, and in its first meeting held on 30^th Dec 2016, has applied its “expertise” to a rather strange aspect – categorising the submissions it receives from various NGOs, civil society organisations and project affected communities, and has opined that these are anti-development. Moreover, in a touching display of sensitivity, the EAC has also felt that these representations have financial implications for the project developer in particular, and the nation in general. 

Based on this “finding” the EAC-RVH  has now decided that it will “not take any cognizance of such representations received from the any Civil Action Group during final appraisal.” (See Minutes of the 1^st Meeting of EAC-RVH here)

A hydropower project under construction in the Himalayas. File photo, for representation purpose only.

 

In support of its decision, the EAC has put forth a weak justification couched as legal reasoning. It records in the Minutes:

“The EC process has four distinct steps. Screening; Scoping; Public Consultations; and Appraisal. The Step-3, “Public Consultations” has two parts. A public hearing at the project site is held for ascertaining concerns of the project affected persons and obtaining responses in writing from public at large. Procedure has been prescribed for conducting public consultations, and it has to be followed strictly.

“b) The stage of Appraisal starts only after the stage of “Public Consultations” has been completed. Therefore, once a project comes before the EAC, it has crossed the stage of “Public Consultations”, and the EAC should not go back in time, and should not reopen it, by entertaining unsubstantiated representations received from the people. The environmental rules allow, for inputs from the public, for which an opportunity is provided by way of “Public Consultations”. Any stakeholder, who wishes to make a representation, has to do so at the time of “Public Consultations” stage.”

However, this justification is a specious reasoning, and does not hold water. There are several reasons for this.

1.       The law, including the EIA notification does not bar the EAC from accepting any representations or inputs at any stage. The public consultation stage is one stage where seeking public inputs is mandatory, but it does not exclude the space for other inputs if felt necessary. There are several instances when the  public consultation  as structured today does not provide opportunity for public input to the environmental clearance process.

2.       There are issues considered by the EAC where there is no place for public consultations. For example, the EAC is considering and approving detailed Basin Studies for many river basins. These basin studies are to form the basis for giving clearance to projects within the basins. However, there is no public consultation phase when preparing these basin studies. So how can the public give their inputs if not send them to the EAC?

3.       In several cases, the process after public consultations is also long drawn and new facts, new developments are emerging. Under such circumstances, how can EAC refuse to look at comments on such new developments?

In fact, in many projects, developers themselves come back to the EAC to request amendment to the clearance due to some changes in project parameters, external situation etc. In such cases, there should be an opportunity for the people to give their comments on the new developments. 

Another situation is when the project developer comes back to the EAC to seek extension of the clearance which has lapsed due project not moving ahead for many years. In such cases, how can the comments made many years back at the public consultations stage be considered sufficient to satisfy the requirements of public inputs?

If the EAC feels that  the public consultation is the only lawful mechanism for public inputs, then all such projects should be sent back for the public consultation stage.

4.       It is very well-known and widely acknowledged that the public consultation process, and particularly the public hearing process are often not conducted as per the spirit and the word of the law. Problems include Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports not being made available in advance, particularly in local languages, hearings not held in all affected areas, and people not being allowed to participate in public hearings with the use of money and muscle power.

For example, some of the most severely affected areas by river valley projects are the areas downstream of dams. But public hearings are not held in the downstream areas, which can often be far off from “project site” which is narrowly defined to mean the place where dam construction takes place.

5.       More important, the legal process requires that the points made in the public consultations are to be given responses by the project developer, and the EAC has to apply its mind to these replies and see if the project promoter has addressed all the concerns. However there is little evidence that this is happening. The minutes of the meetings do not show such application of mind. On the contrary, it appears that claims of project developer that they have considered all the points raised in public consultations are taken at the face value. The EAC itself does not seem to following the dictum it wants to impose on the civil action groups, that is, legal procedure “has to be followed strictly”.

An issue missed by the new EAC is that in many cases, it’s the civil action groups which have brought out information which the project proponent or the EIA had not revealed or the EAC itself could not find. There are instances of mistakes in EIAs, cases of blatant plagiarism, ignoring important facts and so on.  It’s indeed sad that the EAC wants to shut out such inputs, which can complement and strengthen its work.

May be the real reason lies in the attitude of the EAC. This is reveal by its categorisation of “many such kinds of representations” as “anti-development”. How has the EAC come to this conclusion? It seems to claim expertise, and monopoly, on what should be called “development”.

Moreover, the EAC stating that such representations 

“have an anti-development attitude so that the projects are kept on hold or delayed. This has financial implications to the developers in particular and to the nation in general.”

also has no logic. No representation by itself has any power to hold up or delay any project, unless the EAC or any other empowered body takes action based on the representation. Presumably, the EAC would hold up a project based on some representation only if it found the representation to have some serious points. To say that anti-development representations will delay projects is to actually say that the EAC will be swayed by such representations even if they don’t have strong enough grounds. So is the EAC admitting a lack of confidence in itself? 

Last but not the least, the issue of such representations having financial implications for the project developer and the nation is nothing but the old thinking which looks at environmental considerations as obstacles to “development” (narrowly defined), and which believes that giving due consideration to environmental concerns means delays and increased costs for infrastructure projects, and hence these concerns should be played down or ignored.

The fact that a body that is supposed to represent the environmental perspective displays such an attitude is the biggest critique of the EAC and the environmental clearance process that it is a part of.

Full Report of MoEF’s Committee to Review Environmental Laws Confirms Initial Apprehensions: Recipe for Dilution of Environmental Protection Regime

Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recently made public the report of the “High-Level Committee constituted for review of Environment and Forests Laws” (the TSR Subramanian Committee). The full report confirms and strengthens the initial apprehensions that had been built up from a reading of the leaked executive summary.

A reading of the full report shows that its recommendations are a sure recipe for serious dilution of environmental protection regime in the country, which is not too effective in any case; and that its recommendations seem to have ignored the lessons and experience of last few decades since the operation of the Environment Protection Act and other laws.

Our initial concerns, based on the leaked executive summary, articulated here remain valid. We give below some additional issues based on the full report (Report from here on). Note that concerns articulated earlier are not repeated here.

Some Useful Analysis and Recommendations

The Report has correctly analysed the key problems with the current environmental protection regime. Some of these are:

“The lasting impression has remained that the Acts and the appurtenant legal instruments have really served only the purpose of a venal administration, at the Centre and the States, to meet rent-seeking propensity at all levels. This impression has been further strengthened by waves of large scale ‘clearances’, coupled with major delays in approvals in individual cases. It should also be added that our businessmen and entrepreneurs are not all imbued in the principles of rectitude – most are not reluctant, indeed actively seek short-cuts, and are happy to collaboratively pay a ‘price’ to get their projects going…”

“The Executive, as pointed out has not covered itself with glory – indeed it has invited the attention of the judicial branch through lack of basic care.”

“The Committee notes the tardy implementation of even the current penal provisions, which is by itself a catastrophe.”

“The principal aim of Environmental Laws should be to ensure enhancement of environmental quality parameters and maintenance of ecological balance.”

“While India has a strong environmental policy and legislative framework, much of the problem relates to weak implementation of the various acts and the rules there under.”

“… whereas most projects sooner or later obtain approval; one analysis indeed indicated that the percentage of approved projects works out to 99.1% – clearly the focus is not on substance.”

Unfortunately, in spite of the correct identification of the problems, the Committee’s  recommendations do not address these problems, particularly the issue that “the focus is not on substance”. Instead, their recommendations are mainly focussed on expediting clearances, and are likely to result in a go-by to basic environmental principles.

There are some useful recommendations that can potentially enhance environmental conservation. The few such recommendations in the Report are (1) Suggestion to include noise pollution as an offence in EP Act. (2) Creation of a geo-referenced database of environmental parameters for the entire country, including parameters like topography, hydrology, forest cover, bio-diversity, pollution etc. (However, the utility of this is limited by making it accessible as a paid service which common people, civil society groups are not likely to afford) (3) Some of the suggestions in the Wildlife Protection Act.

However, the impact of these few useful suggestions also may be  lost as the overarching framework within which they are recommended to be placed is highly problematic.

Let us look at few of these issues now.

Nothing New in NEMA/SEMA, May Worsen the Clearance Process

Section 7.8 of the Report recommends the formation of the NEMA and SEMA for clearing various projects. It says:

“It is proposed to create agencies, viz. National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) at national level and State Environment Management Authority (SEMA) for each State as the pivotal authorities to process applications for composite environmental clearance (one window), for category A cases through NEMA and for category B projects through SEMA. These would be standing technical organizations, manned with professionals, supported by appropriate technology, which will have the primary responsibility for processing all environmental clearance applications, in a strictly time-bound manner”.

However, a detailed reading shows that there is little to distinguish the NEMA and SEMA from the current structure of the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) at central level and the State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC) at the state level, except for the fact that the members of NEMA and SEMA are expected to be full time. While this would be a welcome step, the basic character of the NEMA remains that of the EAC and hence this change may not have the desired impact.

The most serious problem with the NEMA is that its Chair is required to be a:

 

“Person with administrative experience and of the rank of an Additional Secretary to the government or above or persons with unblemished record of service under any government of not less than twenty five years in the field of pollution control or environmental management.”

 

First of all, this recommendation limits the selection of Chair to those who have been in the government, thus excluding many capable, knowledgeable, respected and independent people from outside the government.

 

Second, this allows bureaucrats and government officers with no experience in environment to be chairperson of NEMA and it is likely that this will become the norm. Such an apprehension is not misplaced at all. In the EACs, most of the Chairpersons appointed have had no background in environment; rather they have been heading departments or ministries that are involved in building dams, mines etc. There is no reason to believe that this will change in the case of the NEMA.

 

The absence of a Chair with strong environmental background, knowledge and concerns has been seen as one of the main reasons why the EAC has failed to deliver on ensuring environmental protection and the Committee should have recommend environmental experience and knowledge as a prerequisite for the Chair of NEMA and SEMA.

In a recent Order[1], the National Green Tribunal has taken cognisance of this issue and has noted:

 

“Thus, we are of the considered view that it will neither be permissible nor in the interest of the environment, or any of the stakeholders, to appoint persons from only administrative or management field, without having specific experience in the field of environment”.

 

Further, it directed that:

 

“We direct MoEF not to appoint experts as members/Chairperson of the EAC/SEAC under these head [“public administration or management “] unless the said experts in the above field is/are directly relatable to the various fields of environmental jurisprudence.”

 

Thus, the NGT has clearly ruled - something that should also be obvious from basic principles – that any member, and particularly the Chair of the EAC (and now the NEMA) must primarily be an expert in the field of environment.

 

Second, the NEMA has a vastly expanded set of responsibilities that go beyond project clearances, so making the NEMA Board full time would only be a limited improvement over the EAC.  In particular, NEMA  has to “Monitor the compliance of specifications and enforce all the conditions of project clearances.” This is very important, for as the TSR Committee itself notes, the main problem with the environmental regime in India is lack of compliance and implementation. However, there is nothing in the Report that indicates how the NEMA is going to manage this monitoring, which will require a large staff. Most of the Report’s recommendations for monitoring are in terms of using modern technology – which is welcome and must be done – but it is not going to be a silver bullet. The Report seems to believe in a technological fix.

 

The real issue with the monitoring and compliance is, of course, that the establishment does not have the political will to take action against the offenders, against projects and promoters who are often in nexus with the political and bureaucratic establishment, or where other considerations like bribes prevail. Clearly, a NEMA headed by a member of the same bureaucracy is unlikely to rise above these reasons and suddenly transform itself into an organisation that can take strong action.

 

The Report notes that among the principles it tried to follow is that of “providing adequate teeth to regulators to check the violations.” Unfortunately, lack of teeth was never the problem – current laws provide ample scope for taking strict actions – but rather the willingness to bite. None of the recommendations have the intent of creating this political will to take strict action. Nor do any of the recommendations go to make the bureaucracy more accountable. On the contrary, by diluting provision like the NGT, the Report has decreased the accountability.

Last, but not the least, there is a recommendation that :

“The Union Government shall have the powers to give directions to NEMA and SEMA in the matters of project clearances. All such directions shall be binding on NEMA and SEMA”.

 

The intent of this is not clear, but the results are likely to be further enhanced control of the Government on the NEMA.

 Dilution of Public Hearing Process

 The most serious problem of omission with the Report is that it has no recommendations to address what is probably the biggest lacunae in the current environmental regime, that is, virtually no scope for the participation of local communities and civil society in appraisal, decision-making and monitoring.

 At the same time, the Report has chosen to recommend a number of dilutions in the one limited space available for the same, that is, the public hearing that takes place as a part of the environmental clearance process.

First of all, it recommends that “only environmental, rehabilitation and resettlement issues are captured in the public hearing.” This means that the local communities have no scope to raise issues questioning any other part of the project or the project itself.

 

Equally serious, it recommends that “A mechanism should be put in place to ensure that only genuine local participation is permitted.” This is a clear attempt to shut out civil society and public interest groups from the public hearing process and in turn deprive the local communities of inputs that can empower them. It should be noted that many of the projects are complex technological interventions, the EIAs are complicated documents (often available only in English), and so the local communities need support to understand the EIA and other impacts of the project. It is ironic that projects are promoted mostly by outsiders, the EIAs are done by outsiders / consultants, but it is now expected that now only “local” people would participate in the public hearing. This is a clear attempt to weaken challenges to grossly destructive projects by isolating local communities from external support and thus disempowering them.

Further, the Report says that public hearings can be dispensed with “in the matters of projects of strategic importance and national importance.” This offers a very easy escape route for exempting projects, particularly since national importance is not defined, and virtually every major project could be considered nationally important. For example, the Polavaram dam and irrigation project has been declared a national project; this could well mean that it is of national importance. Then, even such a controversial project, facing serious challenge from local people, could be exempt from public hearings.

Several other dilutions are also proposed for public hearings.

Other Concerns

 For the record, the concerns dealt with in our earlier comments are:

 

Report finds legal framework robust, yet recommends changing it drastically

Winding up or Dilution of National Green Tribunal on Cards

(Details were not clear in the Executive Summary. It is now clear that the NGT will remain, but its powers of review will be limited to “judicial review of administrative actions” as against reviewing the core of the environmental aspects on merits that an expert Tribunal can.)

Utmost Good Faith Mechanism

Delinking Compensatory Forestation from Project

No Provision for Participation

 

In Sum

 In sum, while the Report correctly identifies many of the significant problems in the current environmental regime, the recommendations provided by it hardly address these reasons. On the contrary, if accepted, they will go towards creating a system that is bureaucratic, with little accountability and geared mainly towards “expediting” clearances, with little to ensure that the environmental principles are maintained and enshrined in projects and developmental activities.

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[1] Order of the National Green Tribunal, Principal Bench in the matter of  APPLICATION NO. 116 (THC) OF 2013, Kalpavriksh and Ors. Vs Union of India and Ors., dated 17^th July 2014.

Recipe for Dilution of Environmental Protection Regime: Report of MoEF’s Committee to Review Environmental Laws

The “High-Level Committee constituted for review of Environment and Forests Laws” (the TSR Subramanian Committee) has recently submitted its report to the MoEF. Preliminary information about its report indicate that its recommendations are a sure recipe for serious dilution of environmental protection regime in the country, which is not too effective in any case; and that its recommendations seem to have ignored the lessons and experience of last few decades since the operation of the Environment Protection Act and other laws.



Laws based on the Committee's Report are unlikely to ensure environmental protection

The note below presents some comments on the recommendations of the TSR Committee Report. It should be noted that comments are limited only to some recommendations. Second, as of now, only the executive summary (ES) of the report is available in the public domain, so the comments are based on the ES only. Some of the comments could be revisited when the detailed report is made public.

Report finds legal framework robust, yet recommends changing it drastically

The Committee was set up to review six environment related legislations, and suggest amendments to them. However, what the Committee found was that

“While India has a strong environmental policy and legislative framework, much of the problem related to weak implementation of the various acts and the rules there under.”

Clearly, if we already have a strong environmental legal and policy regime, then the recommendations should have pretty much left it alone. As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Yet, the Committee has suggested sweeping changes in the laws.  Most of the changes appear to weaken environmental protection, which then seems to be very purpose. Why else should the committee recommend sweeping changes in the laws when it itself found the regime to be robust?

In fact, it should have focussed mainly on suggesting ways to make implementation stronger.

Ironically many of the changes suggested are likely to decrease accountability, weakening implementation further, or allowing weak implementation to continue.

Winding up or Dilution of National Green Tribunal on Cards

The recommendation of the Committee to have an “appellate mechanism against the decision of the NEMA [National Environmental Management Authority] and SEMA [State Environmental Management Authority]” appears to be aimed at doing away with the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

This is ironic in context of the Committee’s finding that implementation is the key issue; as the NGT has been the main, one can even say the only mechanism that has brought in some semblance of accountability to the environmental protection regime. In spite of this, or may  be because of this, there has been a clamour against the  NGT and a dilution has been talked about a lot. The Committee seems to have gone along with this clamour.

Apparently, the reason to bring in an Appellate mechanism is that the first forum of appeal should not be a judicial one. However, the Committee report is silent on whether the NGT would still remain and be the second level of appeal.

In any case, if such a new Appellate mechanism is brought it, the least of provisions should be that the Environmental or Forest Clearance (or other decisions) of NEMA/SEMA that are being challenged should automatically be suspended once the appeal is made. Otherwise, the appeal would drag on for months if not years, and the work on the project would continue. After that, any appeal at the higher levels is likely to be doomed from the very start as the project would be a fait accompli. Of course, the Committee recommends that every appeal has to be disposed-off in three months, but experience of such mechanisms shows that this is likely to be breached more than honoured.

Utmost Good Faith Mechanism

A measure most disconnected with  the Indian situation is the  recommendation of legislating a concept of “Utmost Good Faith”. As the Summary notes:

“A new concept of ‘utmost good faith’ has been inducted, through a new legislation, to ensure that the applicant for clearance is responsible for legally for his statements, but would be severely penalised, as prescribed, for any deliberate falsehood.’

This is supposed to ease implementation by significantly reducing inspector raj.

However, this exhibits a complete disregard for the Indian situation. The real question  is not whether industries or corporates will not exhibit good faith – the real issue is whether the Indian state will be able to (or will want  to) take strict action.

The problem is that the Indian political, bureaucratic and technocratic establishment has no political will or intention to take strict action and penalise offenders, often in lieu of extra-legal considerations.

Of course, this is very easy for the Government to contradict, if they want. All they have to do is to show such action – for which there is ample scope even within today’s legal regime. Indeed, such a demonstration of the Government’s ability to act strictly need not wait any new legislation, and rather, must form a prerequisite for even thinking of any new legislation of ‘utmost good faith’.

Delinking Compensatory Forestation from Project

One of the important recommendations of the Committee is

“…delinking the project proponent from Compensatory Afforestation obligations  after he fulfils the  necessary financial commitments…”

Ethics demands that the responsibility and accountability to carry out environmental compensatory measures must lie with the one who is responsible for destroying it – in this case, the project promoter. And if he is not able to ensure compensation, then he should not be allowed to destroy.

It is true that even today, the project proponent pays the money to the afforestation fund, and the responsibility for carrying out afforestation is that of the government forest departments. But the final responsibility remains that of the project proponent. The proponents have a grievance that they are being made responsible  for afforestation but they don’t have any control on it, and this certainly has some merit. But the solution cannot be in delinking the project completely from the afforestation, for then one is likely to defeat the very purpose of environmental regeneration and it also goes against the principle that responsibility for ensuring compensatory measures must lie with the one who is responsible for destroying it

There is also a practical consideration. Experience of last several decades has shown that the main motivation for carrying out the afforestation (and any other environmental protection scheme or rehabilitation processes) in time would be of the project proponent and that too only if his project is likely to be delayed in case of default.

No Provision for Participation

 

While the Committee has recommended sweeping changes in environmental laws in spite of finding that the regime is robust, it has not made recommendations for the one most glaring lacunae in the current legal regime. This is that the current legal regime has almost no place for participation of local communities, affected people and ordinary citizens in the assessments of impacts, in environmental decision making, or in monitoring of implementation of environmental measures.

Such participation is most crucial in ensuring proper implementation of environmental laws and for ensuring environmental protection measures. Unfortunately, the Committee has lost the opportunity for introducing comprehensive provisions for meaningful participation of people. Possibly, its very limited consultations and the limited exposure of its members to relevant aspects of environmental regime has been responsible for this omission.

It is imperative now for the MoEF not to rush into implementation of the Committee’s recommendations, but put them in the public domain and first have extensive consultations on these.

Wind Energy, Yes - But Can We Do it Decently?

I do believe that wind energy will be an important part of moving to a sustainable energy supply for India. Yet, it is not binding on us that we do it in as gross a manner as possible. The picture below shows that we are going about it in the same mindless manner that we go about installing conventional power generation capacity. We should not remain in this blissful state of deluding ourselves that just because we are installing wind (or solar) that there will be no impacts.

Photo From MoEF Publication on Sustainable Development

In fact, wind and solar, if installed on the same scale as conventional energy will also have huge impacts. Sure, these may be less serious than drowning hundreds of villages in a dam, or spreading coal ash all over the place, but the key thing is that there will be impacts – social, environmental and others.

Coal Ash Dump in Odisha - Note Location Close to Water Body

So when pushing for sources like wind, we should avoid making the same mistake we have made with conventional sources – go about as if there are no impacts, or worse, don’t bother about the impacts because they are to be faced by some one else, someone who is economically and politically weak. The story of what Enercon Wind Farms project is doing in Kalpavalli region in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district is an example of this, and a pointer to what can happen. See the Kalpavalli story in Down To Earth at http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/green-energy-takes-toll-green-cover

India’s Submissions to UN Panel on Sustainability: A Missed Opportunity

The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), Government of India’s recent submissions to the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel for Global Sustainability, on the occasion of its meeting at Helsinki on 17^th May 2011 “made a strong call for equity and universal energy access by the year 2030 for all.”[i] While the call for equity is welcome, it is a moot question as to why the world needs to wait till 2030 – almost 20 more years – before universal energy access is a reality.

Moreover, India’s detailed proposals to actualize universal energy access lack coherence, and belie the expectations raised by its strong call for equity. This note presents a critical look at the proposal on universal energy access.

MoEF has submitted three notes to back up its call, one on equity and sustainable development, the second on universal energy access, and the third outlining a new indicator to measure sustainable development.

Note on Equity in the Context of Sustainable Development

The note on Equity is a very well written note, outlining comprehensively what equity means, and how sustainability, environmentalism, and sustainable development is inextricably linked with equity. It is unfortunate, then, that this note does not inform the other note on Universal Energy Access (UEA Note). In a sense, it appears that the Minister’s left hand does not know what the right is doing.

Note on Universal Energy Access by 2030

The UEA Note starts with a very interesting statement that

“…the world has enough energy resources to last for centuries. Coal and nuclear can sustain the world energy for over four centuries. Therefore, there is no global energy crisis.”

If this is the case, the natural question is why so many people are without access to energy. (A wrong usage of units causes some confusion here, and even if it is a typo, such errors should be avoided when submitting notes at this level.)

The problem, according to the note, is that we are attempting to satisfy three criteria simultaneously – energy security, economics and environmental compatibility. However, subsequent discussions reduce the environmental problem to essentially that of carbon emissions. This is not only a very narrow view of the environmental impacts, but such an emphasis on the climate angle undermines India’s own stated position[ii] that it is not responsible for the climate crisis and hence the main liability to address it should be of those who have been the main contributors. The long section on Low Carbon Options seems a digression and does not fit into the main theme of the note, namely, universalizing energy access.

The note is problematic in many other ways. First of all, it has not stated explicitly what needs universal energy access is supposed to meet. By inference, we see that the aim seems to be to cover energy for lighting and cooking. Whatever it may be, it needed to be made explicit, as the expectations from universal energy access may be more than this. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many rural and poor households in India deem electricity for running TV sets and cell phone chargers to be as fundamental a need as lighting.

Secondly, there is no explanation as to why it should take 20 years to universalize energy access. Indeed, India should have strongly argued for a much smaller period to achieve this.

Thirdly, the note somehow very easily – and without and logical explanation – slips into the assumption that universalisation of energy access will have to come from decentralized, renewable sources like solar, which are very expensive at this moment. It is true that in some cases, decentralized renewable sources may be the most optimal option, but this need not be always the case. As a recent paper by Prayas Energy Group, Pune shows[iii], there are many steps, including allocation of energy from centralized sources on a priority basis to the poor that can help address this issue.

Fourth is the issue of burdening energy supply to the poor with extraneous considerations.

In his letter to the Chair of the UN Panel, Minister Jairam Ramesh says that

“The challenge before us is to ensure that this [universal energy] access happens rapidly, while ensuring that the sustainability related constraints are not violated”.

The UEA Note makes these sustainability constraints more explicit. It states that

“This [universalizing energy access] is a daunting task in its own right and it is further complicated by the constraint of reducing global CO2 emissions.”

What is puzzling and difficult to understand in this whole argument is why universalizing energy access should be made to shoulder the burden of sustainability related constraints, in particular reducing carbon emissions. We can well understand that local sustainability issues like preservation of forests, rivers etc would be important. But why load the burden of cutting global carbon emissions onto the energy for the poor?

Indeed, the UEA Note says that given the energy aspirations of developing countries (not to mention the heavy energy use lifestyles of the developed countries), coal will continue to remain a major part of world energy mix under any scenario. In other words, the world will continue to burn coal (and oil), emitting green house gases in huge quantities – to run the air conditions of the rich, to drive their automobiles, to light up big malls, run energy guzzling appliances like heaters and so on, but when it comes to meeting the energy for universal energy access, for the most basic needs, we want to insist that it meets the constraint of sustainability and reducing global CO2 emissions. This runs completely contrary to the basic principles of equity, which the other note of the MoEF has very well articulated.

It should be clarified that we are not making a case for continuing with “dirty energy”, nor are we making a case for highly centralized energy supply. We are only saying that it is odd, and highly iniquitous, that we burden the energy supply to the poor with high financial costs (of decentralized options like solar), and with tight constraints of meeting sustainability norms (of global carbon emissions, something that the world’s poor have been least responsible for), all the while allowing the energy use of the rich to come from cheap sources (like coal, cheap also because it externalizes many costs), and not imposing any particular constraints on them for meeting sustainability norms.

It may be mentioned here that the so called low carbon technologies considered in this note include nuclear (and other discussions include large hydro too), so what the note is suggesting is that we opt for low carbon even if we have to pay the price of other impacts. We would argue that for India – at least for the poor in India and globally too – what is more important and more appropriate is a “low impact” portfolio of technologies, rather than a “low carbon” portfolio.

Instead of all this, the note on universal energy access should have taken a firm and unequivocal stand that whatever energy options the global community chooses, the first right and claim on these energy sources must be to meet universal energy access obligations. Moreover, while the energy needed for these obligations should meet the requirements of low local social and environmental impacts, they should not be loaded with extraneous costs like meeting global carbon emissions targets. And last but not the least, India should have argued for a much smaller time period in which to meet the objective of universal energy access.

It is only such a stand that would do justice to the strong call for the equity made by Minister Ramesh at the UN Panel meeting.

It is not known whether there were any broad based consultations – or even peer reviews of the notes prepared on behalf of the Minister for submission to the Panel – before India’s positions were finalized. It is urged that at least for the next round, such consultations should be carried out. This will help India put up coherent positions, and take the lead in pushing critical aspects like equity and justice in global efforts at sustainability.

A longer Version of this note is available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/56354214/India%E2%80%99s-Submissions-to-UN-Panel-on-Sustainability-A-Missed-Opportunity

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[i] Press note by MoEF

[ii] Low Carbon Growth Report of MoEF

[iii] Electricity for All, Ten Ideas towards Turning Rhetoric into Reality, Prayas Energy Group, 2010.