THE ENVIRONMENTS OF THE POOR -

MAKING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INCLUSIVE

Keynote Address
by
Jairam Ramesh
Minister of State (Independent Charge)
Environment and Forests, Government of India

at the

Asian Development Bank (ADB) Conference

on the Environments of the Poor

New Delhi
November 24, 2010
 THE ENVIRONMENTS OF THE POOR - MAKING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INCLUSIVE

I. INTRODUCTION
I’m delighted that ADB has organized this seminar at a time when there is
an intense political debate in this country on the nature of environmentalism
itself. On the one side, there are those who believe that environmental issues are
really a middle class, elitist pastime, and have no relation to the development
challenges that this country faces. On the other, there are many who would argue
that the growing environmental movement or environmental consciousness
that we are seeing today is actually the environmentalism of the poor and that
it is because of the threat to livelihoods that environmental issues are coming to
the forefront today.

I think therefore, that an intellectual exercise like this seminar, which brings
together different points of view and analytical work that is being carried
out in various parts of the world on the links between poverty, mainstream
developmental issues and environmental issues, is opportune and very relevant.
I have read some of the papers that have been listed for this conference and I am
sure they would have much value to add to the ongoing debate.

In the process of mainstreaming environmental issues as part of the poverty

reduction agenda, it seems to me that there are three very important aspects
that we have to keep in mind:

1. the climate change aspect, which is gaining increased significance.

2. the public health aspect, which is often neglected; and

3. the natural resources aspect, which is also very important and often does
not get the attention that it deserves.

All of what I am going to say today is born out of the Indian experience.

II. THE POVERTY-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE LINK

Let us take the climate change aspect first and analyse the relationship between
environment and poverty reduction issues in the context of climate change. It
is believed in many quarters in India that we have not caused the problem of
global warming; why should we take proactive actions to address it? We have
not had an aggressive domestic agenda on climate change. Our domestic actions

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have been dictated by our international negotiating positions.

Now, why do we need a domestic agenda? That is a very important question.

The obvious reason, which should be clear to us all, is that there is no country in
the world that is going to be as profoundly affected by climate change as India.
Many countries have points of vulnerability to climate change, but I cannot
think of any other country in the world that is more vulnerable than India. Let
us look at some of these points of vulnerability.

First of course, is our dependence on the monsoon. Even though less than 18%
of our GDP now depends on agriculture, there is no running away from the fact
that variations in GDP growth are driven by variations in the performance of
the monsoon. In spite of all the impressive gains that we have made in terms
of diversification of our economy, the fact is that 2 out of 3 Indians still depend
on agriculture or agriculture related occupations for employment. Therefore,
there is extraordinary dependence on the monsoons, not just by the agricultural
sector, but also the other sectors of the economy due to its spillover and
multiplier effects. An analysis of data from the last 50 years shows that 40-45%
of our fluctuations in GDP are on account of variations of monsoon alone. So the
monsoons are critical. What happens to the monsoon is, perhaps to my mind,
the single largest determinant of prosperity in India.

The second point of vulnerability arises from the fact that we have a large
population living in our coastal areas. We have a large peninsula with millions
of people living on the coast who can only be classified as highly vulnerable
to rising mean sea levels. Now, if there is one aspect of the IPCC that cannot
be scientifically challenged, that has the strength of robust evidence behind
it, it is the fact that climate change is going to affect mean sea levels. This is
almost an incontrovertible conclusion that has been arrived at. Therefore, while
we are rightly concerned about Maldives, Bangladesh and all other countries
vulnerable to a rise in mean sea levels, the fact is that there is no other country
as vulnerable to this threat than India, just in terms of the sheer number of lives
impacted: we have 250–300 million people living on our coast starting from the
Sunderbans in West Bengal, extending all the way up to Gujarat. I am talking
of almost 13 states and union territories and a large portion of the population
of India.

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The third point of vulnerability arises from what is predicted to happen to the
Himalayan glaciers as a result of global warming. Evidence on this of course is
somewhat mixed. I myself don’t share in its entirety the gloom and doom that
is painted by many climate evangelists for the future of the Himalayan glaciers.
But the fact of the matter is that the health of the Himalayan glaciers is a cause
for great concern. If the majority of Himalayan glaciers continue to retreat in
the manner that they have been, they are going to seriously impact the amount
of water availability in the North Indian rivers that are the lifeline for almost a
billion people living in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh.

And finally, the fourth major point of vulnerability arises from our dependence
on the extraction of natural resources. The fact is that India has embarked on
an 8-9% GDP growth drive in the last five years, which we hope to sustain over
the next 15–20 years at the very minimum, and to do so will require increased
extraction of our mineral resources. More and more we are discovering that
coal reserves (which are essential for power generation) and other minerals are
located in our forest areas. So the more coal we produce, the more forests we
destroy, and the more forests we destroy, the more we add to our greenhouse
gas emissions, besides all the concomitant ecological losses.

I do not think that there is any country in the world that is as clearly and
categorically vulnerable to climate change on so many dimensions: monsoons,
the rising mean sea levels, the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers and the
anticipated deforestation in response to the extraction of natural resources.

To begin with, I think we need to recognize that India is profoundly impacted by

climate change and that the response to this impact must be a mix of adaptation
and mitigation. Though the “M” word (mitigation) was a taboo in India until
recently, it is very important to our future. Although we are a very small emitter
in per capita terms, we are today the world’s fourth largest emitter in absolute
terms. China is at number 1, with 23% of world greenhouse gas emissions, the
United States giving the Chinese a run for their money at 22%, the EU would be
about 13% and India and Russia are roughly almost on par at about 5%.

Modeling studies conducted by the NCAER brings to light certain grave facts. It
shows that the great advantage of having a denominator (i.e., population) that

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is 1 billion plus, growing by 10 million every year, is that on a per capita basis,
we will always have low emission levels, but in absolute terms, if we continue
our greenhouse gas emission profile, we could end up accounting for anywhere
between 8.5–9% of world’s greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. As
responsible global citizens, we should be concerned and we need to act now. An
expansion in our international role comes with certain responsibilities. This does
not mean we abdicate our negotiating position. It means that we are responsible
for two agendas - we must negotiate internationally from a position of strength,
but must also work proactively on the domestic front, taking substantive policy
actions.

So I think regarding the climate change connection between environmentalism

and poverty reduction, it is very clear that we are vulnerable, and it is the poorer
regions and communities that will bear the burden of this vulnerability. While
this will call for adaptation – and adaptation would mean largely a major
investment in agriculture – this will also call for a very significant investment
in mitigation.

III. THE POVERTY-ENVIRONMENT-PUBLIC HEALTH LINK

Now let me talk about the second dimension of this link between environment
and poverty reduction which is related to public health. I believe that the
public health dimensions of environmental issues have been grossly neglected
in this country. And this is one reason why environmental issues do not get
the strong response they deserve. When I tell my ‘growth- walla’ friends “You
know environment is an important issue”, they’ll say, “But you know 9–10 %
GDP growth is more important”. If I could tell them that by not dealing with
environmental issues directly, we are really debilitating the Indian population,
and eroding the long-term sustainability of this growth, I would probably get a
better response from them.

I think that we need to change the terms of the debate on environment in this
country. We need to present it as a public health issue. This is not a marketing
gimmick. One of the weaknesses of our country is that we do not have a strong
base of epidemiological data. But from whatever anecdotal evidence we have
been able to gather from the various institutions and experts,

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I can confidently say that there is a very close connection between conventional
environmental and public health issues. For example, about 25 years ago, the
proportion of children with respiratory diseases in Bangalore, the IT capital of
India, was less than 10%. But today, data seems to suggest that almost 30%
of people in Bangalore suffer from asthma or some other respiratory diseases.
Bhatinda, a prosperous agricultural region of Punjab has today emerged as
one of the major epicenters of cancer. This has been directly attributed to
land degradation and more importantly to water contamination and water
pollution.

So when you really look at the environmental effects of many economic activities,
whether it is in agriculture or industry, you will find that there have are many
negative health impacts that are significantly related to these activities, which
in my view, will act as a severe drag on our ability to sustain our high rate of
growth for a long period of time. There is an excellent report of Indian poverty
carried out by Anirudh Krishna from Duke University that has been recently
released. Anirudh, a former IAS officer, has been a Professor of Duke for a long
time. He has done one of the most comprehensive analyses of Indian poverty.
The one powerful conclusion that he has confirmed in his analysis (spread over
more than a decade), is that rural expenditure on health is the primary reason
families decline into poverty. Health expenditure, the inability to spend on
health or the debt that you incur, all leads a family into poverty.

There is today a very solid body of evidence to suggest that rural indebtedness
in India is driven by expenditure on health. Today, a very significant part of the
expenditure on health would come from environment-related factors. So I am
convinced that if we can persuade people to see the environmental issue as a
public health issue, we would get somewhere in our attempt at integrating and
mainstreaming environment into the developmental process.

IV. THE POVERTY-ENVIRONMENT-NATURAL RESOURCES LINK

I have spoken about the environment in the context of climate change. I have
spoken about environment in the context of public health. Let me now talk
about environment in the context of natural resources. It is absolutely clear that
sustaining 8 – 9% GDP growth over the next two decades or more will have

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a significant impact on our natural resources. It’s going to have a significant

impact on coal as I mentioned to you, on forestry, on water and land. A primary
determinant of this growth is going to be our ability to use these natural resources
in a sustainable manner.

Most of the natural resources that are required to fuel economic growth in India
are located in our forest areas and most of these forest areas happen to be in the
poorer regions of our country. Out of the 600 districts of our country, the 188
districts in which the tribal population is a very substantial proportion, account
for approximately 60% of our forest area. Therefore, there seems to be close
nexus between poverty, forests, tribal population, the availability of natural
resources, and I might add, social violence as well. It is a strong correlation. So
we have to look at and address this dimension

V. POVERTY – AN ECOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

The Vice-President of the ADB made a very important statement about the role
of environmental factors in poverty. In fact this has been a very important issue
that has engaged our attention for many years. We’ve looked at educational
poverty and health poverty, we measure poverty as consumption poverty and
the NCAER does income poverty studies. But ecological poverty or the notion
that poverty can arise from ecological factors, is a very important idea that we
need to look at.

From my experience I can say that in many parts of India, the single most
important cause of poverty is land degradation. Land degradation is caused by
a variety of environmental factors - some natural, some man-made. When land
degradation is arrested, we will see a dramatic improvement in poverty levels.
A very good example of this is one of the most successful World Bank projects
on the reclamation of sodic soils in Uttar Pradesh. In the central part of Uttar
Pradesh, small farmers are mainly low-caste farmers belonging to the weaker
and discriminated sections of society. This area is really the poverty bowl of
India and farmers are suffering immensely because of low yields from the land
that they are cultivating, as these lands are mostly wastelands and have sodic
soils. A World Bank project was designed in the 1990’s to reclaim the sodic soils.
I can tell you that large parts of U.P. have been transformed solely by this critical

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intervention, which was to restore the productivity of the land, especially for
the small farms cultivated by farmers belonging to the weaker sections of our
society.

Ecological poverty is extremely important and must be given adequate

attention. We need to make a very systematic effort to design interventions
that will ensure that ecological factors do not exacerbate poverty levels. In
fact, many civil society organizations in India have worked very successfully
on watershed development projects, water conservation, rainwater harvesting
and the intelligent use of water for agricultural purposes, all of which have had
dramatic effects on poverty levels.

VI. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that to me, environmentalism is
meaningful only as environmentalism of the poor. There are of course lifestyle
environmental issues but for the most part, livelihood environmental issues
are what we are concerned with. And I think if we look at environment in the
context of climate change, public health and natural resources, we will be able
to appreciate better the link between environmentalism and poverty. We really
need to redefine the terms of environmental debate in our country because today
environment protection is considered by many to be a drag on development.
The whole debate has been “conservation versus growth”, “environment versus
development”. I think this is a meaningless debate and if it is formulated in
this fashion, environment cannot win this debate; who can argue against 9%
economic growth? Therefore, we have to redefine the terms of the debate on
the environment and look at it in terms of poverty reduction. This is certainly a
giant step forward.

I look forward to working with the ADB and the NCAER on providing further
operational content to this link and also making it a part of mainstream political
discourses.

Thank you.