Coping with climate change
Zan Jifang

Global warming is not a fresh issue, but perhaps not everybody is very clear about the size of its impact on the Earth. A recent report released by the British Government shows that the aggravating greenhouse effect will gravely damage the world economy, bringing about a disaster equal to that of the two world wars or the economic recession of the 1930s.
The report was written by British economist Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, after a year of investigation and research, and is considered the most authoritative ever on this problem.
The 700-page study said that, if the governments of all countries did not take effective measures to restrain the greenhouse effect in the coming 10 years, then, in the next century, the global air temperature would increase by five degrees, which would, in turn, usher in ever greater environmental disasters. Floods and droughts would make some 200 million people homeless, and it would cost all countries as much as $6.98 trillion to deal with.
Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20 percent, but taking action now would cost just 1 percent of global gross domestic product.
The economist calls for sustainable development and urged industrial countries to try to cut their consumption of non-renewable energy resources that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases when burnt, such as oil and coal, and at the same time increase input in environmental protection.
He also suggests the input of developed countries should be more than underdeveloped countries to make up for the environmental pollution caused by their carbon dioxide discharges over the years.
The Stern Report coincides with the UN conference on climate change held in Nairobi, Kenya, November 6-17. Thousands of experts and officials from all over the world gathered to discuss the effect of global climate change and the urgent countermeasures people need to take.
As the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, will expire in 2012, the conference also discussed how to further reduce emissions in the post-Kyoto era. But the consultations are still at a stage of technical discussion and exchanges of different standpoints and views.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, 35 industrial countries and the EU as a body are committed to reduce emissions by 5.2 percent compared to the 1990 level during the period 2008 to 2012.
But more and more evidence is emerging to show that a reduction of five percent is far from enough. Scientists estimate that a 60 to 80 percent cut in greenhouse gases by the middle of this century will be needed to stabilize the atmosphere.
Up to 2004, the greenhouse gas emissions of major industrial countries were reduced by 3.3 percent on average, based on the 1990 level, but the discharges by the United States, the largest producer of greenhouses gases in the world, has risen by 15.8 percent. U.S. president George W. Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, saying that it could damage U.S. economic development.
U.S. climate negotiators at the Nairobi conference said the American stand would not change within the term of President Bush.
Analysts are concerned that the American refusal will directly affect relevant international cooperation aimed to cut down greenhouse emissions to hold back the global warming tendency.
At the opening ceremony of the Nairobi conference, Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana called on all countries to take practical actions on climate change.
Global warming threatens the poorest people in the world, and it would particularly affect the process of Africa’s poorest to realize their social development goals, he said.
More and more experts believed the developed countries have to agree on establishing an adaptation fund to help developing countries to cope with climate change.
They hold that, as climate change is inevitable, how to adapt should be placed on the agenda to protect the future of the human race. Chinese climate expert Gao Guangsheng said that to adapt to climate change is to take measures to reduce the disasters it brings, such as heightening dykes and improving drought-resistant crop types.
Su Wei, deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the Nairobi conference, said the effect of climate change was worldwide, and so coping with it needed joint efforts of both developed and developing countries.
Su said that the Chinese Government was willing to strengthen cooperation with African countries in dealing with the problems.
Developed countries should shoulder major responsibility for the negative effects of climate change. They needed to take measures first to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while having an obligation to help developing countries in their capability construction so they could participate properly in global cooperation for coping with climate change, said Su.
He added that China was one of the biggest sufferers of climate change and the country was actively engaged in relevant consultations and negotiations with other signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility.”
Actually China has already carried out cooperation with the EU in addressing climate change. As a first step, Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai and EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson recently agreed to set up a task force on “sustainable trade” to help build joint trade strategies on climate change, including conditions for trading environmental technologies between China and Europe.
Mandelson also attended a seminar in Beijing on trade and climate change on November 10. The seminar focused on the challenges of balancing China’s continued economic growth with the imperative of addressing the environmental cost of rapid development domestically and globally.
He said that the developed world, emitting 80 percent of all the historic production of greenhouse gasses, had a special responsibility to lead the way.
At the China-EU Summit in Beijing in 2005, China and Europe issued a joint declaration on climate change. Mandelson noted that Europe stood ready to share expertise and experience with China on clean coal, renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon sequestration.
China is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. As a developing country, it is not under any of its restrictions. But, it has also taken measures to reduce its greenhouse gas emission, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 12 to 17 percent since 1996.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review  Articles Exchange Item)


AIDS: India No. 1
Amjed Jaaved

According to the UN estimates, it is India, not South Africa, which has the highest number of AIDS-affected people. According to the Daily Statesman (New Delhi, August 23, 2006), ‘As per the latest government estimates, India has an estimated 5.2 million HIV infected people. However, the United Nations says 5.7 million people are infected with HIV in India, the largest number in any country in the world’.
This is not the first time the UN Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has expressed anxiety at rise in number of AIDS cases in India. In October 2005, the executive director of the Fund, Richard Feachem, had said that ‘India has outstripped South Africa as the country with the highest tally of people living with HIV-AIDS’. Indian government claims that South Africa had 5.3 million infected people and India 5.1 million. As such, India was number two, not number one, in terms of aids infection. Feachem insisted, ‘[India’s] Official statistics are wrong and India had overtaken South Africa’.
Under the UN pressure, India had agreed to conduct a country-wide National Family Health Survey to count the number of AIDS-affected people in India. India hopes to ‘know the actual prevalence and number of HIV-infected people by December 2006 or January 2007’.
Survey teams claim to have ‘already collected 1, 25,000 blood samples from all over the country’. Nagaland has refused to cooperate in the survey. Nagas fear that the Indian government may use blood samples to prove that Nagas are not ethnically pure. As such, their demand for greater Nagaland is frivolous.
The AIDS has increased by leaps and bounds in several Indian states Between 1998-99 and 2005-06, AIDS increased from 20 per cent to 41 per cent in Chhattisgarh, from 30 per cent to 49 per cent in Gujarat, from 39 per cent to 62 per cent in Orissa, from 55 per cent to 70 per cent in Punjab and from 61 per cent to 79 per cent in Maharashtra. Truck drivers and migrating populations carry AIDS virus from one state to another.
Currently, about 300 soldiers are undergoing treatment in military hospitals or camps. However, the doctors believe that there are thousands of undetected cases. Assam Rifles doctors have told reporters, ‘The reason for alarming increase in AIDS cases in Assam Rifles is non-existence of random blood screening facility’. Doctors with army and other paramilitary and police units in the northeast say, ‘Same is the state of affairs with the units we are attached with’.
The disease is fast spreading among local civil population because of the troops’ promiscuous relations with local population. Some studies declare India’s northeast region to be ‘one of the country’s high-risk zones with close to 100,000 people infected with HIV’.
During his visit to AIDS Research Institute, Pune (September 19, 2005), India’s health and family-welfare minister ‘expressed satisfaction at the trial of the anti-AIDS vaccine on humans’ (“AIDS vaccine trial on track”, Indian Express, Sep 20, 2005. But, a report in another Indian daily states ‘Vaccines which are at least partly effective against AIDS may be available in a decade’ (“Hopes of HIV vaccine in 10 years”, The Hindu September 14, 2005).
It appears the poor Indians are set for AIDS-drugs trials for another ten years. Unfortunately, the Indians being used as guinea pigs are not even told about the side - or after - effects of the trial (“Cheap human guinea pigs attract foreign drug firms”, samachar.com September 29, 2005).
India requires to do more than pay lip service to achieve its ambitious Tenth-Plan HIV/AIDS targets_ eighty per cent coverage of high-risk groups through targeted interventions, 90% coverage of schools and colleges through education programmes,80% awareness among the general population in rural areas, reducing transmission through blood to less than one per cent, establishing at least one voluntary testing-and-counselling centre in every district, achieving zero-level increase of HIV /AIDS prevalence by 2007.
Business circles in India are fearful that AIDS-epidemic fears would discourage private investors (foreigners and Indian nationals abroad) from investing their capital in India. With China emerging as a major economic competitor on the globe (due to foreign investment of over $ 400 billion and construction of huge dams), AIDS spectre was of great concern to the government.
It is internationally assessed, that India would go bankrupt in next five years because of AIDS (“AIDS to hurt Indian biz in 5 yrs, says World Economic Forum” Rediff.com,). The earlier assessment was that India would go bankrupt in 10 years because of AIDS (“India bankrupt in 10 years”, The Financial Express, Reuters, July 13, 2005).
Frustrated by India’s apathy to the AIDS menace in her regular and non-regular forces, the UN has agreed to pay cost of AIDS-preventing devices to India’s ‘1.3-million-strong military’ (“Free contraceptive devices for troops, UN to foot bill”, Samachar.com April 29, 2005,). According to UNAIDS, six of India’s 29 states have ‘generalised epidemics’ (Indians claim ‘only five’). Pakistan, too, should guard against spill-over effect of AIDS in India (even if it is No 2, not No 1).



Seamy side of Indian secularism
Mamoona Ali Kazmi

India’s pretence of itself as a model of democracy and religious-cultural pluralism is shattered by the study of Sachar Committee. Muslims who form 13.4% of India’s population faces systematic exclusion and serious discrimination at multiple levels, thus continues to be backward.
The data gathered by Sachar Committee shows that Muslims now constitute India’s ‘ new underclass’. In some respects such as public services, education, income, social mobility and landholding, Muslims’ position is even worse than Dalits (Officially called Scheduled Castes). For instance only 80 percent of urban Muslim boys are enrolled in schools, as compared to 90 percent of Dalits and 95 percent of others.
Mostly, Muslims live in areas deprived of basic necessities such as electricity, roads and municipal services. In some states such as Maharashtra banks denied loans to Muslim businessmen. Muslims face worse discrimination in respect of jobs. The Sachar Committee data from 12 states where Muslim share in total population is 15.4 percent shows that their representation in government jobs is only 5.7 percent. In police, administrative and diplomatic services their representation varies from 1.6 to 3.4 percent. Muslims are poorly represented in judiciary and military. From the beginning the Muslims are under-represented in the armed forces. The Indian leaders also accepted this fact. Nehru said in 1953 that in our defence services, there are hardly any Muslims left. The Muslims are totally absent from intelligence agencies such as Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and National Security Guard (NSG) as they are mistrusted.
Rajiv Bhargava, a political theorist attached to the Centre for Study of Developing Societies in Delhi said, “ The pain, bitter truth is that Muslims’ have long been the target of systematic exclusion and discrimination. They face institutionalized religious prejudice, just as ethnic minorities from the former colonies face institutionalize racism in Western Europe, or blacks do in the United States”.
The activities of Hindu fanatics are also indicative of deteriorating Muslim condition in India. Most of the time they target Muslim property, home, religious places and business. In the beginning of 90’s Babri Mosque, a 430 year old mosque in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh), was demolished. On 6 December 1992, a mob of 300,000 Hindu fanatics brought together by BJP and other extreme right wing groups demolished the mosque. Due to the anti- Muslim bias the law enforcement agencies have a tendency to target Muslims during incidents of communal violence. The involvement of police in Gujarat pogrom of 2002 made the situation more severe for Muslims as those responsible for their security became a threat for them.
In India, Muslims are still treated as aliens and not as big minority. They are deprived of their due share in education, employment, defence and intelligence services. Their belongings are not secure. They feel threatened not only from Hindu majority, who is trying to curb their separate identity but also from police and other security forces. Similarly, their under- representation vindicates their little or no say in the political arena. So, Muslims are under-represented in all spheres of life and the only sphere where they out-numbered the other Indian nationals is the jail, which is reflective of the sham Indian secularism.