Act before pressure builds

The muted buzz about global warming, inaudible till now to most people as they went about their daily lives, is rising suddenly in pitch to an insistent noise that is also gaining rapidly in volume. In the US, Al Gore's powerful documentary film called An Inconvenient Truth and the book by the same name have in the last few months brought the issue in all its starkness to more audiences than any event since the publishing of Silent Sprint more than three decades ago alerted the world to the dangers in using pesticides. In the UK, the release last week of a 600-page report by Nicholas Stern, the World Bank's former chief economist, has achieved a similar purpose in a quite different way. Many newspaper column inches have been devoted to the subject, TV shows have warmed to the theme, and Tony Blair has declared that the Stern report is the most important document on the future issued by his government. There is an echo of this in India too, with a newsmagazine publishing a graphic story on the dramatic retreat of Himalayan glaciers""underlining the point that the issue is of very direct concern here. If India's river systems are not fed by Himalayan snows, it would spell disaster for millions of farmers and many cities in the north of the country would simply not get water. Half of Bangladesh could be under water if the polar ice caps melt; what that means is migration on a scale that no one has seen till now.

Those who have been sceptical of the whole theme (and Mr Gore's film and book have their share of critics""many of them allegedly linked to the big oil companies) find themselves increasingly in a small minority, and indeed in the dog-house. Mainstream thinking and argument are now powerfully aligned behind the thought that something has to be done, and quickly. The positive element is the point in the Stern report that correctives are available and can be applied. At the same time, the implicit warning in the statement that a stitch in time could save 20 tomorrow, is that people and governments must move quickly if they want to prevent a catastrophe. It is not clear how this suddenly rising level of concern will manifest itself in domestic policies and global initiatives, but India had better get ready to face some pressure.

The Kyoto position of a decade ago, that countries like India and China do not need to do anything to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases, is certain to be challenged all over again, especially when these two countries are the fastest-growing in the world (read: accounting for the biggest increase in greenhouse gas emission), and when the new critics of globalisation in the west are looking for some stick with which to beat back the new competitors. Both New Delhi and Beijing may shout themselves hoarse that per capita emissions in the two countries are very low, but it is wiser to be pro-active; for while they have a valid point (the United States, with 5 per cent of the world's population, accounts for 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emission), it is not one that is going to be greeted sympathetically. Mr Blair says, for instance, that even if Britain reduces its emission to zero, the 2 per cent reduction in global emissions would be neutralised by China in two years. Besides which, India in its own interest should want to be a good global citizen and have an active policy in place to control emissions, even as the economy grows rapidly. Dr Manmohan Singh should set up a task force to spearhead this job.