Tamasha in Bali

Bali, a small island paradise of Indonesia, has a population of 30 lakh people, of whom 93 per cent are Hindus. A few weeks ago, in the star hotels of this remote corner of the world were assembled around 10,000 important people, representing governments, scientific institutes, and NGOs from 192 countries, to discuss what should be done to counter dangerous global climate change.

The previous Kyoto conference on the same theme failed to achieve anything, mainly because the United States refused to accept enforceable international guidelines for curbing carbon dioxide emissions. This time as well, the United States agreed only at the very last minute to investigate the question further, buying itself time for two more years.

Following the recently published U.N. Inter-Governmental Climate Change report, which won the Nobel Peace Prize, it is abundantly clear that more than a 2° C rise in global temperature by 2050 can cause untold harm to the environment and human societies. It has been calculated that this temperature limit can be maintained if heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are kept to 450 parts per million of CO{-2} equivalent.

To keep to this limit global emission of these gases should not exceed 1,700 gigatonnes in the first half of this century, and Western nations should reduce emissions by 80 per cent below the present levels by 2050. The European Union promises to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent compared to 1990 levels, provided other industrial countries also act, though so far it has not kept even the modest commitments it made at Kyoto.

But many scientists are pleading that global temperatures should be lowered to pre-industrial, that is 1860, levels if we are to strive for security.