Green activist to take on Brown
Pulkit Vasudha
Ahmedabad, August 24: THE crusading environmental activist from the city, Mahesh Pandya, is back from ‘Cut the Carbon’ march being held in the United Kingdom.
Kicked off on July 14, the march will culminate in London on October 2 after covering 1,000 miles across the UK. The march aims to highlight the devastating impacts of climate change on the poorest people in developing countries. The marchers demand urgent action by governments to check global warming.
Pandya covered over 400 miles on foot, but he is not tired. Now he is ready with a signature petition that will soon be sent to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, requesting him to consider specific recommendations in the Climate Change Bill to be tabled in the House of Commons in October.
Another demand is that the UK should encourage other developed countries to reduce carbon emissions and keep global warming below two per cent during the UN Conference on Climate Change in December.
Pandya was the only Indian environmental activist among the 21 invitees from Brazil, El Salvador, Congo, Kenya, Philippines, Tajikistan, Mali, Bangladesh, South Africa, Jamaica and the UK. He dazzled ministers, leaders and local people with his keen knowledge of environmental problems facing the developing countries.
During their walk, the marchers kept on asking: ‘What will we do without rain?’ Pandya encouraged people to think about how the luxurious lifestyle of the first world contributed to increasing the penury of the poor in the third world.
“Climate change is no longer an intellectual debate. It is a fact, a reality of the present,” emphasises Pandya. “More so, it is the reality of the poor in the poorest regions of the world. If developed countries reduce their needs, global greenhouse emissions will fall and stall global warming.”
The UK, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, is the first country to initiate a Climate Change Bill which will formally resolve to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Pandya points out that a single person in a developed country used as many natural resources as 20 people in developing nations. He cited Gandhi’s as an example _ the Father of the Nation used a single bucket of water from the Sabarmati for his daily bath, rich people cannot do without luxurious showers which consume many litres of water.
In his three interviews with the BBC, and many addresses to the public, Pandya stressed that developed countries should stop playing ‘green politics’. “Though developed countries are buying carbon credit from developing and under-developed countries, they have to ensure that carbon emissions are reduced,” he said. “Clean Development Mechanism projects in developing countries should be monitored before buying carbon credits.”
Pandya also rejected the idea of alternative fuel such as biofuel, which is becoming a rage in many countries which want to switch to clean sources of energy.
“Biofuel is derived from the jatropha plants which grow naturally in tropical climates and are used for grazing cattle. If the jatropha is grown commercially, common grounds _ a valuable resource for shepherds _ will be enclosed leading to migration and loss of livelihoods,” explains Pandya. “Displacement also rots the clean environmental systems of natives. Migration to urban areas leads to a depletion of natural resources, all of which contribute to climate change.”
Climate change is not just about variations in seasonal cycles, it is also about growing infertility of land, depletion of fish in water, scarcity of natural resources and its effects on individual lives.
“The GDP of the country never takes into account the environmental pollution index. More and more urban Indians are now installing RO plants to get clean drinking water. Those of us who can afford it, pay for clean water supply but what about the millions for whom the only source of water is rivers, ponds and wells?” asks Pandya.
“To be an environmental activist in Gujarat is seen as being anti-development, but industrialisation needs to be regulated and monitored even in Gujarat,’’ he says.
Source: Indian Express