Praful Bidwai is a former Senior Editor at The Times of India and one of South Asia’s most widely published columnists. He’s also the author of the recent book The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future. This book is notable in a number of ways, and not just because it contains a long and coherent chapter called “Alternative Visions: What would an Equitable Global Climate Deal Look Like?”
Bidwai is a rare analyst. He writes as a man of the South, but at the same time he can be extremely critical of the South’s negotiating postures. In fact, he devotes an entire chapter — “Rooted in Incoherence: Anomalies and Contradictions in India’s Climate Policy” — to an excoriation of India’s stance in the negotiations, which he judges to be incoherent, duplicitous, and short-sighted, and all of these by virtue of being rooted in an unjust model of development. His essential claim here is not simply that India’s position is an undemocratic one that ultimately serves its elites, though this is a line he develops at length. It is also that India’s position is based on unsound ethical claims that cannot possibly support a fair global accord. That, in particular,
“the per capita norm does not capture, nor is it logically related to, the central concern highlighted by recent climate-related scientific findings: namely, the urgent need to prevent dangerous climate change.”
To be sure, one could argue — and many people do — that the “per capita norm” is an important negotiating tool, and that as such it serves a larger goal of global climate justice. But Bidwai will have none of it, arguing that class disparities within India are probably larger than global disparities. Moreover, he is extremely critical of what he sees as India’s over-emphasis on historical responsibility. His bottom line:
“A fixation with dividing emissions quotas along North-South lines can easily translate into a right to greater carbon space or a right to pollute.”