Environment and Natural Resources
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rising profile of environmentalism from the 1960s onwards. ……….. Earth Summit has brought environmental issues to the centre-stage of global politics.
1992
The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book in 1972 entitled
“Limits to Growth, dramatising the potential depletion”
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in ALSO KNOWN AS “ EARTH SUMMIT’’
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. [attended by 170 states, thousands of NGOs and many multinational corporations.] First World, generally referred to as the ‘global North’ were pursuing a different environmental agendathan the poor and developing countries of the Third World, called the ‘global South’.
WHAT IS AGENDA 21 ?
Rio Summit produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry, and recommended a list of development practices called ‘Agenda 21’. • Some critics have pointed out that Agenda 21 was biased in favour of economic growth rather than ensuring ecological conservation.
Five years earlier, the ……………… Report, Our Common Future, had warned that traditional patterns of economic growth were not sustainable in the long term, especially in view of the demands of the South for further industrial development.
1987 Brundtland
Commons’ ?
are those resources which are not owned by anyone but rather shared by a community.
require common governance by the international community- THEY CALLED ?
res communis humanitatis or global commons. earth’s atmosphere, Antarctica (see Box), the ocean floor, and outer space
There have been many path-breaking agreements FOR ENVIRONMENT -
• 1959 Antarctic Treaty • the 1987 Montreal Protocol • the 1991 Antarctic Environmental Protocol ozone hole over the Antarctic in the mid-1980s
The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):
parties should act to protect the climate system-“on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” • It was also acknowledged that per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low • China, India, and other developing countries were, therefore, exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol - 1997
setting targets for industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Certain gases like Carbon dioxide, Methane, Hydro-fluoro carbons etc.[The protocol was agreed to in 1997 in Kyoto in Japan, based on principles set out in UNFCCC.]
India signed and ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in….
August 2002. • India, China and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol
WHERE India pointed out that the per capita emission rates of the developing countries are a tiny fraction of those in the developed world?
At the G-8 meeting in June 2005, • discussions- Within UNFCCC about introducing binding commitments on rapidly industrialising countries (such as Brazil, China and India) to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
India when the country’s rise in per capita carbon emissions by 2030 is likely to-
• still represent less than half the world average of 3.8 tonnes in 2000. • Indian emissions are predicted to rise from 0.9 tonnes per capita in 2000 to 1.6 tonnes per capita in 2030
ACTION TAKEN BY INDIA :
• National Auto-fuel Policy mandates cleaner fuels for vehicles. • The Energy Conservation Act, passed in 2001, • the Electricity Act of 2003 encourages the use of renewable energy • National Mission on Biodiesel, using about 11 million hectares of land to produce biodiesel by 2011–2012.
the implementation of the agreements at the Earth Summit in Rio was undertaken by India in …..
1997 India is also of the view that the SAARC countries should adopt a common position on major global environment issues
The forest movements of the South, in
Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, continental Africa and India • Forest clearing in the Third World continues at an alarming rate
forest movements of the South from those of the North is that the forests of the former are still peopled, whilst the forests of the latter are more or less devoid of human habitat or, at least, are perceived as thus. wilderness in the North?
as a ‘wild place’ where people do not live. In this perspective, humans are not seen as part of nature.[as something that should be protected from humans through the creation of parks and reserves.] * , most environmental issues in the South are based on the assumption that people live in the forests
Wilderness-oriented perspectives have been predominant in ‘underdeveloped wilderness’, unlike in most European countries.
Australia, Scandinavia, North America and New Zealand
wilderness campaigns are entirely missing in the South.SOUTH MOVEMENTS -
• Philippines, green organisations fight to protect eagles and other birds of prey from extinction. • India, a battle goes on to protect the alarmingly low number of Bengal tigers • Africa, a long campaign has been waged against the ivory trade and the savage slaughter of elephants. ** the most famous wilderness struggles have been fought in the forests of Brazil and Indonesia**
where is a vast network of groups and organisations campaigned against theWestern Mining Corporation (WMC), an Australia-based multinational company.
Philippines
. The early 1980s saw thefirst anti-dam movement launched in the North, namely, the campaign to save the …………… River and its surrounding forests in Australia.
franklin • This was a wilderness and forest campaign as well as anti-dam campaign.
there has been a spurt in mega-dam building in the South, from
Turkey to Thailand to South Africa, from Indonesia to China. * i**ndia has had some of the leading anti-dam, pro-river movements. Narmada Bachao Andolan is one of the best known of these movements.[ non violence ]
Resources have provided some of the key means and motives of global European power expansion. what are these?
• focus of inter-state rivalry • dominated by the relationship of trade, war and power, at the core of which were overseas resources and maritime navigation. • access to timber, naval timber supply[17th c. in europe] • uninterrupted supply of strategic resources, in particular oil • ** However, oil continues to be the most important resource in global strategy.** • Traditional Western strategic thinking remained concerned with access to supplies, which might be threatened by the Soviet Union. • A particular concern was Western control of oil in the Gulf and strategic minerals in Southern and Central Africa.
The global economy relied on oil for much of the 20th century as a portable and indispensable fuel. OIL COME FROM -
• West Asia, specifically the Gulf region, accounts for about 30 per cent of global oil production. • But it has about 64 percent of the planet’s known reserves. • Saudi Arabia has a quarter of the world’s total reserves and is the single largest producer. • Iraq’s known reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia’s. The United States, Europe, Japan, and increasingly India and China, which consume this petroleum,