'Brown clouds' stir Asian conspiracy storm
By Raja Murthy
MUMBAI - A controversial United Nations report claiming "atmospheric brown
clouds" generated by Asia are harming the world's climate, agriculture and
health has created a storm of controversy in India, which has slammed it as
part of Western pressure on Asia's efforts to counter global warming.
The brown cloud was more pointedly called the "Asian brown cloud" in an earlier
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report in 2002, before protests from
India and China led it to be changed to the politically-correct "atmospheric
brown cloud".
The updated version of the 2002 UN report, released on November 13, says three
kilometer-thick brown clouds of soot, particles and
toxic cancer-causing chemicals, primarily hovering over the Persian Gulf and
Asia, are the latest major threat to global health, food supplies and the
environment.
"I expect the atmospheric brown cloud to be now firmly on the international
community's radar as a result of the report, " declared Achim Steiner,
under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP.
Steiner can revise his expectations, as so far the report has only raised
controversy. India's scientific community have said the atmospheric brown
clouds over Asia are a seasonal, temporary phenomena which may look bad, but
have none of the catastrophic implications mentioned in the UN report.
The Indian government has also unceremoniously trashed the UN report, pointing
fingers at UNEP's credibility, with India's Science and Technology minister
Kapil Sibal describing the latest brown cloud report as "propaganda," according
to a Press Trust of India news agency article from November 21.
Sibal said India's scientists have examined the issue and have dismissed the
report's claims that burning of fossil fuels in Asia has caused the brown haze.
He pointed out that India's per capita greenhouse gas emissions are 1.2 tonnes
compared to 23 tonnes in the US and 10 tonnes in European countries.
Sibal, also one of India's senior lawyers, said, "For anybody who says India
and China are responsible for this, I can only say, we certainly are not."
The Indian government even attributed motives to the UN report. "It is a way of
getting at India and China," an unnamed environment ministry official was
quoted as saying in the Times of India, India's largest-circulated English
daily.
"We say that the developed world is primarily responsible for global warming,
so the West has latched on to the brown cloud formation to target us on
traditional fuels. But these fuels are not the only reason why brown clouds are
formed," the official said.
Both the 2002 and new report claim the main sources of the cloud's pollutants
came from wood burning and fossil fuels in East Asia, and that the its tiny
particles have increased the solar heating of the lower atmosphere by about
50%.
"The atmospheric brown cloud needs more study before we can draw conclusions on
its impact," cautioned T S Panwar, director of Energy and Environment Policy at
the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
The TERI chief executive, Rajendra Pachauri, leads the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with former US
vice president Al Gore.
Panwar, an environmental scientist specializing in air pollution, told Asia
Times Online that the atmospheric brown cloud is a normal winter phenomenon
following the monsoon, when pollution particles collect in the middle
atmosphere before vanishing.
"As the UN report mentions, it is important to note that such atmospheric brown
clouds exist outside of Asia too, in Africa and the American continent," he
said.
Panwar said the data collated in the UNEP report, which was funded by the US,
does not sufficiently support the alarming conclusions being drawn from it.
The new report is part of US-led Western pressure on India and China to accept
more responsibility for global warming and restrict greenhouse gas-emitting
industries, say Indian officials. Asia's economic powerhouses, in turn, blame
Western nations for being guiltier of poor global warming practices and
refusing to put the brakes on industrial development.
Kapil Sibal said the UNEP report was part of pressure being exerted on Asian
nations ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in
Copenhagen, Denmark, in the winter of 2009. The conference plans a new climate
change agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol signed in the Japanese city in
December 1997.
Professor Veerabhadran Ramanathan, head of the UNEP scientific panel that
produced the report, attempted to reassure Asia Times Online of its
non-partisan nature. "The report has authors from many Asian countries
[including India, China, Korea, Japan, among others] and was reviewed by
experts from China, India and other parts of the world," said Ramanathan.
But, like its predecessor in 2002 on the "Asian" brown cloud, the new report
has unimpressed other Indian scientists. J Srinivasan and Sulochana Gadgil,
faculty members at the Bangalore-based Centre for Atmospheric and Ocean Science
at the Indian Institute of Science, both criticized the earlier report, saying
its conclusions did not support the data.
Professor Gadgil said similar criticism could be aimed at the new UN report.
When Asia Times Online asked Ramanathan about the major differences between his
latest report and the more controversial precessed, which is also credited to
him, he said, "There are no major differences in the findings".
He did say that on the regional climate side, this report has more concrete
numbers. "It highlights the Himalayan glacier retreat, which was not included
in the earlier one, and has new findings on the agricultural and health
impacts," he said.
The earlier report inspired sensationalist headlines such as: "'Asian brown
cloud' casts shadow on US weather" (Chicago Tribune May 7, 2004); "'Asian Brown
Cloud' menaces the world" (International Herald Tribune August 13, 2002) and
"Asia's killer pollution cloud may be heading for Europe" (Evening Standard,
London, August 12, 2002).
At best, the 2008 report could be accepted as a general call to clean up the
planet. Still, the UNEP has to exercise more caution before pronouncing global
doom - and placing extra blame for it on Asia. If it fails to do so, the global
body risks being dismissed as a peddler of hidden agendas.
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