G-8 Summit and India

G-8 Summit and Role of India

Recent Development

The 31^st G-8 Summit held on June 6-8 2007 held in Germany discussed main issues like Climate change, Proliferation, Globalisation and trade and Regional Security. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the Summit. During the sidelines of the summit he met United States President George Bush. The G-8 Summit for the year 2007 starts in Germany.. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States would participate in the Summit. The participation of five emerging economies - China, India, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil was \the highlight of the Summit as they are accused of global warming by the G-8 countries. They are called as “Outreach Countries” and would start Heiligendamm process an initiative that will institutionalize high level dialogue between the G-8 and the five most important emerging economies, known as the O5 (Outreach 5) and the establishment of a common O5 + G8 secretariat at the OECD

These five countries are expected to become the new economic powers in the 21st century. The leaders of these emerging economies were rubbing shoulders with the leaders of eight rich and powerful nations of the world at the picturesque Baltic seaside resort in Germany.

There have been similar attempts in the past to come together by the developing countries. There was the G-77, then there was the G-15; in recent times, there was the G-4, apart from NAM, SAARC and other multilateral fora. Most of them have not been able to deliver goods and thus lost relevance with the passage of time. Will this new grouping be effective? On the face of it, it should if the leaders have the political will to do so.

Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, is annoyed at the unequal status given to outreach nations in the just concluded G-8 summit in Germany.

India has already conveyed to the German chancellor Angela Markel that next time it should get the chance to discuss the issues of its concern before the G-8.

Dr Singh said there could be no meaningful management of global issues if India and other outreach countries were not involved.

During the G-8 summit this year, India not only championed the cause of the outreach nations but also advocated for development of Africa.

Dr. Singh complained about the ambitious Millennium Development Goals, set for African countries by the G-8 nations, and said that these goals have not come up to the expectations.

G-8 Nations and their Summit

The Group of Eight (G8) is an international forum for the governments of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Together, these countries represent about 65% of the world economy.

The group's activities include year-round conferences and policy research, culminating with an annual summit meeting attended by the heads of government of the member states. The European Commission is also represented at the meetings.

Each year, member states of the G8 take turns assuming the presidency of the group. The holder of the presidency sets the group's annual agenda and hosts the summit for that year.

Group of Eight (8) was formed at the initiative of former United States Bill Clinton in 1997. This was partly a gesture of appreciation from Clinton to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who steadfastly pursued economic reforms in Russia and remained neutral to the eastward expansion of NATO.

The G8 is intended to be an informal forum, and it therefore lacks an administrative structure like those for international organizations, such as the United Nations or the World Bank

G-5 within G-8

The G-5 is a powerful group of developing countries and there is convergence of views on several issues, such as global warming and Doha round of WTO talks. Meanwhile, the Heiligendamm summit meeting revealed the cracks within the rich club, while the G-5 showed unanimity in their approach.

The G-5 felt that there could be no meaningful dialogue in the summit without the presence of India, China, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil. For the first time, these countries realised that they should have their own strategy to deal with G-8 nations on issues concerning economy and global warming. They felt that had they met prior to the summit, their shared concerns would have had more weight. Even before reaching Berlin, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his doubts about the success of the summit. In fact, it was Brazil which mooted the formation of the G-5 at the Berlin meeting hosted by the Mexican President on June 7.

The G-8 watchers could not miss the India-China alliance to oppose the developed countries' efforts to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. China and India, as the world's fastest-growing economies, compete for foreign investment, access to oil and gas and diplomatic clout. The deepening cooperation between the two was, therefore, quite obvious.

At the Heiligendamm summit, the G-5 rejected the attempts made by the US to make its environmental targets and climate change goals dependent on the performance of the countries like India and China. Both Beijing and New Delhi argued that they must use more energy to lift their people from poverty, and that emissions per person are a fraction of those in rich countries. Also, both leaders told that the responsibility for tackling the greenhouse gas emissions lay with the developed countries, although the developing nations, too, would do their bit to improve the situation.

The Indian officials claim that the formation of the G-5 is not for disengaging from the G-8, but to engage with it in a more meaningful manner, besides protecting the interests of the developing countries. The idea will be taken forward in the Foreign Ministers' meeting of the G-5 in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Only time will tell whether this new group will be effective or not.

India, Climate Change and G-8 nations

Group of Eight nations reached agreement aimed at halving greenhouse gases by 2050, and the US had also signed up.This was the main highlight of the G-Summit meet

The developed nations used G-8 summit as a platform to give impetus to negotiations that would begin in Bali, Indonesia in December 2007 which would find a successor to the UN-backed Kyoto Protocol on capping greenhouse gases, which expires in 2012.

At the heart of India's position on climate change is the notion that India - whose population is predicted to reach 1.5bn by 2050 - must be allowed to pollute on a per capita basis equally with the West. The Western World wants India to do a “contribution to the broader United Nations effort” to tackle climate change.

India has 17 per cent of the world's population, it emits only four per cent of the global greenhouse gases. Per capita emissions are thus relatively small, just one-quarter of the world average, and four per cent of that in the U.S.

While the rate of growth in the gross domestic product has exceeded eight per cent a year, the rate of increase in primary energy consumption has been just 2.76 per cent.

That would imply drastic cuts in emissions in developed countries if the world is meet the target of keeping global warming within the generally agreed 'safe limit' of two degrees, as set out by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The divide which will face developed and developing nations when they meet in Bali, Indonesia in December to start negotiations on a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

Despite claims of a climate change 'deal' at the G8 summit last week, the meeting only served to increase Indian irritation at being treated as "petitioners not partners" at the global top table.

India's prime minister let it be known the G8 decision to delivere their final communiqué before meeting with the G5 countries - India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa - had made him question the worth of even attending the summit.

Mr Ghosh said it was now up to the world to decide how big the 'carbon pie' should be at a certain point in the future - say, 2050 - and then agree that by that date all nations should have an equal entitlement relative to their size of population.

At present, the average America citizen accounts for more than 15 times the carbon emissions of the average Indian - the average Briton seven times - while in absolute terms India's emissions are predicted to surpass those of the US in 30 years time

While US President George W. Bush has insisted that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would not succeed till countries like India and China were involved, India has taken the stand that countries responsible for creating the problem of climate change in the first place should take the lead in solving the problem. The leaders of the emerging economies (0-5) which include India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico have put the onus of addressing the issue of climate change with the developed countries, asking them to take the initiative by making significant cuts in their greenhouse emissions. The Indian Prime Minister has stated that developing countries should be treated as “partners and not petitioners”. The 0-5 leaders agreed to chalk out common strategies and were of the view that access to adequate technology was one of the major requirements to help them reduce emissions. The greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries is far in excess of what countries like India and China emit. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has spoken in no uncertain terms that the growth and development of developing countries should not be compromised while dealing with climate protection.

G- 8 Summit and Indo- US nuclear deal

At the sidelines of the G-8 Summit US President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and discussed the much contentious Indo-US nuclear deal that was signed in March 2006 and that was passed in the US Congress in December 2006.

Both sides are bargaining hard as they test each other's will to implement the agreement quickly. They are mobilising their energies both in bilateral talks and through media comments.

Under the deal, the U.S. has offered a one-time exception for India in the existing global non-proliferation regime so that India can keep its nuclear weapons without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Meanwhile, India is coming under increasing pressure to demonstrate its loyalty to a larger "strategic partnership". Prime Minister Manmohan Singh absented himself from an important meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, (SCO), largely because the U.S. views the SCO with suspicion and New Delhi does not want to antagonise Washington.

The SCO includes China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Two of these, Russia and China are nuclear powers while India and Pakistan, which have observer status at the SCO, are aspiring nuclear powers having carried out weapon tests in 1998.

Iran, which also has observer status and is accused by the West of trying to develop nuclear weapons, sent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Shanghai summit.

As of today, the negotiations of Indo-US deal have revealed that disagreement existed on five major issues: (a) Testing; (b) Right of return; (c) Safeguards; (d) Fuel assurances; and (e) Right to reprocess spent fuel.

When the US Congress passed the Henry J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 in December.

The Hyde Act did redefine the nature of the "full civilian cooperation." thereby giving the impression to India that the US was shifting the goal post of July Joint Agreement. However, the Bush Administration officials like Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns asked India "not to rock the boat" and that the provision of Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 which forms part of the Hyde Act (Section 103) would be as 123 Agreement or bilateral agreement between the US and India that need to be worked out would be the operative part of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation. After signing the Hyde Act, President George Bush in reference to controversial Section 103, had said "The executive branch shall construe such policy statement as advisory."

India is hoping that it could resolve some of the concerns of the Hyde Act. While negotiating the text of the 123 agreements the negotiation with American officials have been held at Washington, New Delhi, London, Cape Town since January to the current round of talks ending on June 6, 2007 in Germany

While Indian nuclear hawks run a spirited campaign against the deal as a "sellout" and a "coup" to defang India, an impressive number of U.S. Nobel laureates have issued a strong statement against the agreement.

In the nuclear poker between Washington and New Delhi, two sets of issues have become critical for settling the agreement and getting it ratified by the Congress.

One set pertains to ‘technical', but important, questions: What kind of safeguards must India accept on its civilian nuclear programme? Assuming India is allowed to import nuclear fuel, what criteria will determine how it is modified/processed, stored and/or reprocessed? What can guarantee that it will not be diverted to military uses? And under what terms the agreement can be terminated by either side?

The second issue concerns possible further nuclear testing by India. Must it sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or a bilateral agreement with the U.S. not to conduct future tests? Or will a voluntary moratorium of the kind declared in 1998 and reiterated in the July 2005 accord do?

Ideally, the U.S. would like India to offer something more than the July assurance so that the deal can pass relatively smoothly through the Congress: e.g. a legally binding commitment not to conduct a nuclear blast.

But India flatly rejects this. It wants to keep the moratorium voluntary. Such a moratorium can easily be rescinded. Under existing U.S. laws, a country that conducts a nuclear test automatically attracts sanctions and forfeits civilian cooperation with the U.S.

These issues will figure in the coming round of talks next month. Both sides are proceeding with cautious optimism.

India's options here are extremely limited. For all practical purposes, the Manmohan Singh government cannot amend or go beyond its understanding of the nuclear deal recorded in the Jul. 18 agreement, which notifies as "civilian" only 14 out of its 22 power reactors (under operation or construction).

However, the Bush administration may not find it possible to pilot the agreement through unless it is seen to have extracted an additional assurance from India against further tests.

New Delhi is under pressure from its nuclear super hawks to test a hydrogen (thermonuclear or fusion) bomb so as to have a powerful deterrent not just against Pakistan, but against the major nuclear powers which have such weapons. It has conducted five tests of the less powerful, but immensely destructive, fission bomb.
India, meanwhile, has opened yet another front in the negotiations. It demands that it be allowed to build a stockpile of nuclear fuel for each of its civilian reactors. This would guarantee that supply of imported fuel would continue uninterrupted.

After India's first (1974) nuclear blast, the U.S. suspended supply of lightly enriched uranium to two of India's reactors at Tarapur. "Although the Indian government cites this as the reason for demanding the ‘strategic stockpile' guarantee, the real reason may be more complex", says Kamal Mitra Chenoy of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. "India is desperately short of uranium. Its sole operating uranium mine is running out of ore and there is public opposition to opening new mines."

The current negotiations between the U.S. and India are focused on what is called the "123 agreement", pertaining to an amendment of Section 123 of the U.S. atomic energy act dealing with nuclear exports. This is likely to be "marked up" soon in the form of bills to be voted by both Houses. This is expected to set the stage for passing the substantive "nuclear cooperation" agreement inked last July.

The bill's passage may not be smooth. There is significant opposition to the deal in the House of Representatives and from non-proliferation experts. Indian-American groups as well as the Indian government's lobbying agencies are working furiously to garner support for the deal.

Eminent scholars and scientists in the U.S have now joined opposition to the deal. As many as 37 Nobel laureates have urged the Congress not to approve the deal "in its current form" because it is a "formula for destroying American non-proliferation goals."

In a letter, supported by the pro-peace federation of American scientists, they argue that the agreement "weakens the existing non-proliferation regime without providing an acceptable substitute. Since nothing is more important to U.S. security than blocking further proliferation and possible use of nuclear weapons, the lawmakers should withhold their seal of approvalà"

The laureates include the distinguished economist Kenneth J. Arrow and scientists Raul Christian Lauterbur, Alfred Goodman Gilman, Roger Guilemin and Donald A. Glaser.

Interestingly, their letter criticises Washington's nuclear weapons doctrine too: the U.S. cannot continue to treat nuclear weapons as "militarily useful and politically salient while expecting to stop global nuclear proliferation. The Indian nuclear deal is just one symptom of a bigger problem."

It also holds that the rapid growth of civilian nuclear power would increase the amount of fissionable material stored worldwide, and the number of facilities that could be used to build nuclear weapons.

As the United States and India held yet another round of intensive talks this week to flesh out the landmark nuclear deal they signed in July, it became clear that they will both explore how far they can push each other for concessions that would ease Congressional approval.

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Mohammed El-Baradei has weighed in on the side of the deal, and termed it "a creative break with the past." He says it would be illogical to deny civil nuclear technology to India --a country that has "not violated any legal commitment and never encouraged nuclear weapons proliferation" and is "a valued partner and a trusted contributor to international peace and security."

"This only casts doubt on the impartiality and credibility of the IAEA as a global nuclear watchdog," holds academic and anti-nuclear activist Chenoy.

On conducting a nuclear test, the Indian officials seem to have indicated that there was no way India could commit itself not to test. Yet there is some indication that on this issue a compromise formula is being attempted. Nevertheless this issue involves the sovereignty and security of the country. Indeed American officials have repeatedly indicated that current strategic partnership with India has been to make India power.

Our neighbourhood is surrounded by untrustworthy nations. The relation of China with Pakistan, supply of magnetic rings to Pakistan, transfer of Korean missile technology to Pakistan and the unresolved Sino-Indian border dispute are the threats to Indian security. For the US the threat is only from the terrorists but for India it is from the terrorists and the countries funding and abetting them directly or indirectly plus nuclear blackmail from China and Pakistan combined.

Compromising on this issue is akin to compromising with the security of nation in the long term.

Section 123(a)(4) of the US Atomic Energy Act gives the US government the right to require the return of any nuclear material and equipment transferred under this deal and any special materials produced through the use thereof, if India conducts nuclear test or terminated or abrogates the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement. Presently, the Hyde Act does not exempt India from this clause. However, there are suggestions of setting up a consultative mechanism that gets into action in case of nuclear devise thereby to reduce complete breaking down of the right to return clause.

On the other key issue of reprocessing of spent fuel right, the American officials have conceded that neither the Hyde Act nor any other law prevents US from giving consent on reprocessing to India. All that the US Atomic Energy Act and Hyde Act seek that India would have to get the consent of US for reprocessing

PM Manmohan Singh was playing the political card when he told the members of the G8, the group of eight industrialised nations, at Heiligendamm earlier this month that "we have come here not as petitioners but as partners."

It was obvious that India and the four other rising economies, China, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, which make up the G-5, were miffed that the G8 declaration issued a day before their joint meeting had already laid out the terms of a purported agreement on ways to counter climate change. Much as the world's rich nations that comprise the G8, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Japan, France, Russia, Italy, and Canada, would like to co-opt the G-5 in the plan to reduce carbon emissions around the world, it was quite evident that none of the five was happy being told to go easy on carbon emissions.

"We have not come here to discuss targets or accept internationally enforced targets on us," Dr. Singh said at the meeting. But in an interaction with the German Chancellor and summit host, Angela Merkel, he did say that the developing nations would accept their responsibilities. "We can assure the world that at no time, our per capita emissions will exceed that of the developed countries."

He went on to add, "This will act as a two-way incentive. If the developed countries do more to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions per capita, we will also reward them by doing more."

Dr. Singh might have been tempted to tell the leaders of the developed world to first reduce their consumption of fossil fuel before lecturing others. Of course he and his colleagues on the G5 did emphasise the larger role the developed world had in addressing climate change "given their responsibilities in causing it." But one must compliment him for going beyond the rhetoric and offering to do some corrections at home. A country on the road to development will get there quicker and more certainly if it chooses the more efficient energy route.

For India, the time for choosing is now. Take electricity: nearly two billion units (kilowatt hours) of electricity are consumed every day across the country; two-thirds of this energy spins out of some 380 thermal plants that burn coal. It would be heartening if in the future there can be a quantum jump in the availability of renewable energy from wind turbines, hydropower, or solar cells, but in practical terms, these sources are unlikely to scale up sufficiently quickly to help electricity grids cope with the surge in demand. Much of the burden will continue to rest on coal.

The Energy Loss

Over 320 million tonnes of coal was burnt in 2006-07 to produce electricity, a lot of it in power stations owned by State electricity boards whose boilers are not terribly efficient in extracting the energy in the coal. Critical appraisals show some of these power plants have a thermal efficiency (a measure of how much electrical energy they can extract from coal) of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent. (Source: NTPC presentation to the IEA, 2004) Take out the energy used in running the power plant, estimated to be 8.5 per cent of energy that is generated, (source: Central Electricity Authority) and the losses in transmission and distribution (about 20 per cent), the other example of crushing inefficiency in the electricity system, just about 14 per cent to 22 per cent of the energy in the coal finally reaches the plug point in your home.

And in the evening when you switch on the light, typically a 60 W incandescent bulb, in your living room, the decisive wastage takes place. The bulb uses just 10 per cent of the energy to light up the room; the other 90 per cent is released as heat.

So just 1.4 per cent to 2.2 per cent of the energy that once was in the coal turns up as the light that you want.

In contrast, modern thermal plants are now capable of a thermal efficiency in excess of 40 per cent, they consume only about 5 per cent in-station, and if transmission and distribution losses can be contained at levels prevalent in developed countries, up to 35 per cent of the energy in the coal can be served up as electricity to the consumer.

This implies that if all plants and transmission lines are upgraded — obviously the vintage units are beyond makeover and need to be shut down — the country can make do with just two-thirds of the coal that it currently burns. Emissions will drop proportionately.

However, if such corrective action is not launched, the scenario will get bleaker.

Already the availability of electricity is 10 per cent short of demand and just about half the population has access to it. A 57 per cent increase in capacity is needed over the next five years to meet the anticipated energy needs of an economy growing at around 8 per cent a year and the other half of the populace aspiring to join the bandwagon.

Some 542 million tonnes of coal will be required each year by 2012 to meet the demand for electricity. Coalmines in the country may not be able to produce enough; imports may be necessary and will be costly in a global market where supplies are taut. The additional load of carbon emissions may be embarrassingly large