Inconvenient Truth, Retold

Every issue is contested because it is the contest of ideas and of realities. These exclusive excerpts from Sunita Narain's new book, Conflicts of Interest remind us of the politics behind climate change that threatens our common future

- Sunita Narain

It was the late 1980s. My colleague Anil Agarwal and I were searching for ways to regenerate wasted common lands. We learnt that unless people benefited from these common lands, they would not keep their goats out. The forests would not regenerate. So, cooperation was essential. Cooperation required equitable distribution of the rights and benefits of these lands. We understood goats.

Around the same time, in 1990, a prestigious US research institution, World Resources Institute (WRI), published its annual report. This said, for the first time, that not only did climate change impact everyone, but also that everybody was responsible for emissions that caused climate change. Their data showed that methane, which comes from growing rice or livestock (enteric fermentation or farting) was responsible for the bulk of emissions. They also showed data that developing countries contribute nearly half the emissions that cause climate change.Anil and I were blissfully unaware of these findings or the implications for the ongoing negotiations on a global agreement to combat climate change. But we were pulled into this debate.

We got a call from the rather flummoxed chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar, who wanted to know how he should tell his people to stop keeping animals or eating rice. We asked why he wanted to know. He showed us a letter, written by then environment minister Maneka Gandhi. She had just visited Washington DC and, based on her interactions with the WRI, had written to him, asking for restraints on ‘unsustainable’ things like growing rice or keeping animals. ‘How do I do this?’ he asked us. ‘Do the animals of the poor really disrupt the world’s climate system?’

We were equally flummoxed. It seemed absurd. Our work told us that the poor were victims of environmental degradation. Here they were now, complete villains. How?