Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 9 December 2009

Helping Environment

INITIATE LOCAL INNOVATION

By Suraj Saraf

While world statesmen are busy holding global parleys to face threats to humanity being posed by climate change resulting in global warming, it would be pertinent to mention what India’s President,  Pratibha Patil has strongly advocated i.e the need to adopt innovative approach to tackle the minatory situation at the grass-root level.

“World attention is focused on the Copenhagen (climate change) conference. I think our grassroots local innovation can be useful not only for national problems but also for world problems and answer for our second Green Revolution and climate change,” she said while addressing the recent Fifth National Grassroots Innovation Awards in the country’s capital, New Delhi.

She underlined that it was not necessary that high-tech facilities were required for an innovation. “It is a fallacy to think that innovation is a high-end activity that takes place only in sophisticated laboratories. Innovation is a wide-ranging term that could mean technological, a fresh way of management or a different way of doing the same task but which would result in better performance,” emphasized President Patil.

Further, she maintained that innovation could be the result of accumulation of collective knowledge of a civilization. “It is important this knowledge is preserved and when used due recognition and recompense given to the holders of traditional knowledge.” The outlay for research and development in national plans must go up manifold and the “government should embark on laying down a National Innovation Policy to bring about the much-needed coordination among various initiatives in research, education, agriculture, medicine and business.

It has also been highlighted that the quality of research should be upgraded and institutions and agencies receiving funds must be made “fully accountable. The result of innovation should be harnessed to become products and services for the betterment of society. However, this translation is often unpredictable and long-drawn requiring substantial efforts.  

According to an earlier world report on “Development and Environment”, many developing countries in recent years had begun to develop policies and institutions for tackling environmental problems. The report specifically underlined the fact that because developing countries had to start from scratch and because their problems were extremely pressing, they had sometimes considered solutions that were untried or little used in the industrial world.

This was not a conjecture but that a number of cases were cited wherein the instances of innovative approaches to the environmental situation from developing nations were quoted. One, the report had cited control from pollution from transport in Mexico where a combination of regulations and incentives had been used. These were claimed to be less costly than regulation alone because they discouraged driving whereas most industrial (developed) countries encourage the use of cleaner engines and fuels. In Mexico measures such as gasoline taxes were being used to reduce demand and shift the travel towards less polluting modes of transport.

In Thailand, an Industrial Environment Fund had been proposed to finance the treatment of hazardous waste from industrial sources. The fund would be financed from charges on waste generation, and its proceeds would be used to establish and operate central treatment and disposal facilities.

In line with “polluter pays” principle, the fund would be financed from waste charges that would first be estimated for each industry and later verified by environmental auditing. The charge would be set at a level to cover the cost of transport, treatment and disposal of hazardous waste and provide a margin for implementing the programme. Interestingly, all factories would deposit with the fund their waste charge for the entire year.

Plants that attained lower waste per unit of the output, as verified by accredited private environmental auditing firms, would then be eligible for rebate in the operation of the treatment and disposal facilities would be contracted out to private waste management firms through competitive bidding.

Clearly, the main message of this initiative is that pollution control costs could be maintained if the incentives are right, according to the report. The more efficient an industry’s production process, the less waste it generates and the less it pays for waste treatment and disposal. Indeed, the scheme has given the industry an incentive to reduce waste and encourage developing business opportunities in hazardous waste management.

A study of air pollution in Southern Poland found net benefits to be the highest if stricter control on emissions of suspended particulate matter rather than on emissions of both particulates and sulphur dioxide were enforced. Apparently, the costs of protecting and improving the environment appear at first sight to be large, yet such investments must and can be afforded. With good policies, the costs are modest in comparison with the potential gains from improved efficiency and economic growth.

In all likelihood, most investments would pay for themselves. Such investments must and can by afforded with good policies. Moreover, costs are modest in comparison with potential gains. But increased international support would be essential, the report advocated. It also added that local environmental concerns needed to be better embedded in official assistance programmes, and the close link between environmental quality and poverty reduction warranted additional support.

The advocacy for innovative approach to face challenge of environmental control (and thus climate change and global warming), by President Patil does come timely for India. If given proper heed, Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh would not have reported to lament again that if there were any Nobel Prize for dirt and filth, India would get it. He is learnt to have done so at a function while releasing a report on “Green India, 2047.” Said the overview of the report,” Our limited analysis suggests that unclean air and water may be taking toll in terms of over eight lakh deaths in the country each year and morbidity costs amounting to 3.6 per cent of the GDP.”  It is time that our political class encourages innovation at the local level and have something to share with the rest of the world. –INFA

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