International Conference on Science & Technology Capacity Building for Climate Change
October 20-22, 2002, New Delhi

Inaugural Address by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Science & Technology and Ocean Development

I must confess to a surge of excitement in being here today. The excitement of being at the threshold of an unprecedented opportunity - an opportunity to tackle through the use of science and technology, the most complex challenge humankind has faced so far - the threat of global warming and climate change. This is also an opportunity to pool our resources and capabilities, delve deep into the wealth of our ancient civilization knowledge, analyse dominant economic and scientific and technological systems and create new paradigms of thought and action; an opportunity to provide all human beings with an environment they need to delight in living.

This is no ordinary conference whose recommendations will wind their way to dusty library shelves. This is a call for prefiguring and blueprinting our future. The challenge of global warming and climate change is no ordinary challenge. Rarely before has a phenomenon brought into sharp focus such a welter of issues - the dysjunction in the relationship between man and nature, the logic and the direction of contemporary economic growth and the patterns of consumption and production. Rarely before have so many uncomfortable questions had to be asked at one time and answers found without having the luxury of time to search for them.

In an environment of uncertainty one thing is certain. We cannot go back to 'business as usual'. We can certainly not wait for the 'developed' world to use their scientific and technological prowess to find miraculous solutions, because the 'developed' world and the notion of 'development' they stand for is at the core of the problem. On the other hand we in the developing world are a part of the solution. The potential for a solution  lies with us, because somewhere in the deep recesses of our 'genetic-software' we have access to the civilizational skills of living in harmony with nature. The values of sustainability are not new to us. Or human resources in science and technology compare favourably with the best in the world. The potential is there. The challenge is to convert it into capacity - articulated in terms of modern science and technology.

The phenomenon of Climate Change is the most dramatic manifestation of a created imbalance in the relationship between man and his eco-system. We know that the earth's climate system has demonstrably changed on both global and regional scales since the pre-industrial era and that these changes are primarily attributable to human influence. The concentration of green house gases and their radiative forcings have increased mainly as a result of human activities. We know that the globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4^o to 5.8^o Celsius over the next 200 years - about two to ten times larger than the central value of observed warming during the last 100 years. 1998 was the hottest year in the past one thousand years. Seven of the ten warmest years ever recorded occurred between 1990 and 1999.

The adverse impact of these changes are numerous. There is evidence to show that recent regional climate changes, particularly temperature increase, have already affected many physical and biological systems in many parts of the world. Many human systems are projected to be adversely impacted, including a general reduction in potential crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions, decreased water availability, an increase in the number of people exposed to vector-brone and water-borne disease, an increase in heat stress mortality, widespread increase in the risk of flooding and increased energy demand. Sea level rise and an increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones would displace tens of millions of people in low lying coastal areas of temperate and tropical Asia. In many parts climate change will increase energy demand, decrease tourism attraction and influence transportation. It will exacerbate threats to biodiversity due to land use and land cover change and population pressure. Significant extinction of plant and animal species are projected for Africa which will impact on rural livelihoods, tourism and genetic resources. Most less developed regions are specially vulnerable to climate change because a larger share of their economies are in climate sensitive sectors and their adaptive capacity is low due to low levels of human, financial and natural resources.

The finding and the projections I have highlighted are based not on the alarmist outcry of some fringe environmental activist group but the sober, extensively researched assessment of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (whose President and Secretary we have with us today) which has been accepted by all the member governments.

Current scientific and technological approaches to dealing with the issues of climate change are, in my view, fundamentally flawed. Firstly they confuse symptoms with the disease and offer cures which can at best delay the consequences. This is not on account of insufficiency of knowledge but because focusing on the causative factors requires questioning paradigms and analytical categories. It also raises uncomfortable questions about the social systems within which scientific knowledge is produced and the way in which such scientific knowledge, in turn, influences and legitimates forms of social production and consumption. Secondly, within the framework of the linear, mechanistic and reductionist science within which we are imprisoned we tend to break every problem into isolated parts and hope that a part by part solution of the whole is possible. Thus we first separate the issue of global warming and climate change from its socio-economic and cultural context and then break it up further into issues of 'impacts' and 'vulnerability', 'adaptation' and 'mitigation'. The narrowness of the terminology itself exposes the superficiality of approach. What do terms like 'adaptation' and 'mitigation' signify. That a degree of environmental degradation is a 'cost' we should accept as inevitable, learn to live with and keep making token efforts to mitigate and minimize costs. Is this what science is about. I have always believed and will continue to believe that science has a divine purpose, which is - 'to know', to probe and probe and constantly stretch the frontier of knowledge. Should we stop asking questions because the questions cause discomfort to certain entrenched and powerful interest groups. Should we allow the scientific agenda to be determined by those who would rather not have us ask questions which embarrass. Never.

We have to acknowledge that as long as the goal remains to have constantly higher levels of consumption with unlimited consumer choice and profit maximization as the predominant value, efforts to tackle the problem of an imbalance between man and his ecosystem have little chances of success. We need to pose to ourselves fundamental questions about the nature and direction of our technological and economic growth, the impact of our growth models on sustainability of consumption and production and the scientific epistemology which informs our process of technology development. 'Sustainability' is the central issue we need to address.

The formalization of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995 was the beginning of the negotiation process for managing climate change. The Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC is the highest body which negotiates climate related issues and commitments of nations to deal with them. New Delhi will be host to the COP-8 where leaders and interest groups from all over the world will descend to present their points if views and try to steer the course of negotiations towards their perceived notions about the approach to deal with the issues. To my mind the agenda for all the COPs was set long ago when we adopted the path of rapacious exploitation of nature of satisfy human greed and followed an unsustainable techno-economic dream. The models of techno-economic growth thrown up by the fragmented approach to Science and Technology completely ignored the unbroken wholeness between man and the ecosystem, the ecosystem and our planet earth, the planet earth and the universe.

Let me now turn to the role that technology can play in finding solutions to the problems created by the Climate Change phenomenon. I have on many occasions, elsewhere, made suggestions on remodelling our technology development and technology application processes so as to be similar to natural processes. A natural ecosystem functions as a closed loop involving slow changes, which occur at a pace which allows time for adaptation to the natural environment. In contrast, technology has so far used a linear approach in which resources are extracted as though they are inexhaustible, processed to make synthetic products which have no natural counterparts, involve lengthy transportation both of raw materials and manufactured products and each step impacts on the environment and generates waste. Further technology design is insufficiently evaluated in terms of its impact on nature. We need technologies which completely eliminate the concept of waste, we need to design every process so that the products themselves, as well as leftover chemicals, materials and effluents can be reused in other processes. We need quantum leaps in energy efficiency and a shift from non-renewable to renewable sources, by applying the principle of de-carbonisation.

Some years ago, Robin Clarke of Biotechnic Research and Development in UK catalogued a thirty five point criteria for what he called a 'soft technology society'. These include ecological soundness, low energy inputs, use of renewable and recyclable materials, craft industry orientation, integration with nature, democratic politics, decentralization, emphasis on agricultural diversity, community control, multi-disciplinarity, science and technology not dependent on specialist elites but performed by all, among others as the essential constituents of an ideal social system and as the criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of technology solution. Some of the categories are possibly contradictory and some impracticably utopian but the overall approach they represent makes for a coherent statement of an ideal society. With some modifications to reflect contemporary developments and some flexibility, such a criteria can serve as a measure for differentiating between 'good' and 'bad' technology, and for setting standards for scientific and technological capacity development.

It should be evident, though it is not to many, that as long as the goal remains to have constantly higher levels of consumption with unlimited consumer choice and profit maximization as the predominant value, efforts to tackle the problem of an imbalance between man and his ecosystem have little chances of success. In a situation where unbridled consumer choice is unquestionably accepted as a value, it is impossible to go beyond technocratic and economist approaches to sustainability. A purely economic and technological solution to unsustainable forms of production and consumption is an impossibility because production and consumption are social acts and unsustainability is primarily a social problem. Social problems apparently created by technology the way we presently understand cannot be solved by the application of yet more technology. Social problems have to be understood in terms of social value systems and values have to change fundamentally for the problems to be resolved.

The question is how do we institutionalize policies and structures which prevent or eliminate the use of non-sustainable technologies and stimulate the use of sustainable ones. Relying purely on market forces under distorted market conditions will delay the achievement of sustainability goals. On the other hand regulatory mechanisms have severe limitations as do any statist interventions. The challenge is to create a social environment and forms of governance and power structures which provide the framework for the expression of collective initiative and community control as well as the development of the full capabilities and creativity of the individual. Is it possible to create a society in which the distinction between social and technological values, the first reflecting the values of man, the second those of the machine no longer exists.

In the present context of negotiations under the aegis of COP, the importance of bringing about a technological paradigm shift towards sustainable consumption patterns needs to be underlined. During its earlier negotiations COP decided to establish a framework for capacity building. In 2003, COP-9 will review this framework. Another framework has been established for technology transfer in which all parties agree to create an enabling environment by removing barriers and cooperation on various uses, including technology transfer by expert credit agencies. This COP framework should be aiming at giving a new direction to Science to promote technologies which lead to sustainable consumption.

The phenomenon of Climate Change encompasses such a vast range of extremely complex interconnected issues that an inaugural speech can only attempt to touch on some of them. My objective was to initiate a dialogue, raise questions, provoke a debate and present my own vision of how we should build our scientific and technological capacities to protect and revitalize our eco-systems and create an equitable, just, creative, co-operative, value based and lively social order. The Regional Centre of Excellence for S&T Capacity Building for Climate Change that we have proposed will be a small but significant step in that direction. I hope the proposal will receive your unqualified endorsement, support and co-operation and that at the end of this conference we will move closer to the implementation of a strategy and an action plan.