President Barrack Obama yesterday singed an important executive order in the East Room of White House, which marked the beginning of reversal of Bush administration’s environmental policy.
The President has directed the Transport department to frame rules in order to execute and implement the Law of 2007 which requires 40% improvement in the efficiency of gas driven cars, other small vehicles and light trucks by the end of 2020. More specifically, the 2007 Law requires the Cars and light trucks to be driven at an efficiency of 15 KM/Litre. In India, most of the small vehicles specially cars are very fuel efficient and are running even 20 KM/ Litre. Thus the enforcement of this law would help bring down the level of green house gases to a great extent, a pledge Obama had taken during his election campaign.
President has also categorically asked the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider the request of California to allow it to frame tougher Rules and Regulation to ensure reduction in emission of green house gases (GHGs), a request which was flatly turned down by the Bush administration. California wants a reduction of 30% in the emission of GHGs by the end of 2016. As many as 18 other states are also willing to frame similar rules of their own for reducing emission of GHGs.
Reiterating his commitment towards checking global warming, he has appointed Todd Stern as CLIMATE ENVOY of USA. Mr. Todd had served as chief negotiator under Clinton administration in Kyoto protocol talks during 1997-99 and is said to have very positive out look vis-à-vis climatic change and global warming.
The America oil policy is also all set to under go a radical change. Obama hinted this at the First press conference held at White House after taking oath. He asked the department to take steps to ensure that more fuel efficient vehicles are manufactured by the end of 2011. This would decrease the dependence of US on the OPEC and cut our import bills, he said. Obama opined that this would help create more jobs in Detroit and thus accelerate the pace of recovery from the economic down turn in a big way.
It is not out of place to mention that US has a huge oil reserves but it is importing from Gulf so that it can use its own reserve when the ‘wells of Gulf get dry’. This has been the unpronounced oil policy of US over many decades. Government came and went, but this policy remained unchanged. Many experts in international politics are of the opinion that the first Gulf war of 1991 and the Iraq war were fought to establish American hegemony so that the supply of fuel to this country goes unabated and that too at a price fixed not by OPEC but in New York and London.
The process of reversal of the above mentioned policies and their implementation would not be smooth job for Obama as it is likely to break the age old mindset of the neo imperialists in the administration. It would at the same time not be easy for those who may oppose Obama in view of the land slide mandate that has been bestowed on him .
LESSON FOR INDIA- India is a signatory to ‘Kyoto Protocol’ and is thereby obliged to frame rules for reducing emission of GHGs. For achieving target of reducing the emissions set by the Kyoto, India needs to frame tougher laws related to fuel efficiency, because Co2 emission by vehicles is directly related to magnitude of this problem.
According to one estimate, India is the second largest Car market in the world and constitutes 14% of CAGR. India meets 78 % of its fuel demands by imports and is likely to go up to 94% by 2030. This means that the level of emission of GHGs especially Co2 would go up alarmingly over a period of time.
We have one ‘Bureau of Energy Efficiency’ which takes care of this problem. There is a ‘National Action Plan on Climate Change document (NAPCC)’ which postulates many other related topics including emissions of GHGs. Right now, we don’t have any emission specific law, therefore; we desperately require enacting an emission specific legislation for vehicles as the Americans have done in 2007.
Supreme Court of India has already laid down certain guidelines and many of which had been implemented in Delhi. All the Buses and Auto rickshaws in Delhi are now CNG driven. We need to take similar steps in other parts of the country also.
Many experts fix target of 80 gm/ Km by 2020 for India and say that if it is not achieved, we would be among the largest polluting nations in the world.
Countries like Japan, China, S. Korea, Taiwan and almost all EU countries have emission regulators; therefore there is no reason why a fast developing country like India does not have a regulation in this regard.
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