Dear ATCA Colleagues; dear IntentBloggers

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

. Ashutosh Sheshabalaya from Brussels and Bassilly, Belgium, for "West must meet East -- Climate Sermons, Innovation and Poverty";
. Elizabeth Marshall from the northern extremity of the United Kingdom, based in Wick, Caithness, for "Climate Chaos: The Threat to Islands & Lowlands";
. Lord Howell of Guildford from The Palace of Westminster for "Outdated Euro-centric Thinking needs to focus on Asia and The Real Keys";

in response to "EU to become Green Model for US, China and India -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel; EU leaders to make Europe change lightbulbs."

Ashutosh Sheshabalaya is the author of 'Rising Elephant', which is a heavily-researched bestseller about India's rise and long-term opportunity and challenge to the West, published in the US, India and Europe. Described as a "tour de force" by the Director of UBS bank's Wolfsberg think-tank and as "highly provocative" by former Indian Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, 'Rising Elephant' has been reviewed worldwide. He has worked in Brussels as an accredited foreign correspondent, in public affairs (for the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries), and as a strategic consultant -- both for private corporations as well as the European Commission, Invest in Sweden Agency and others. In total, he has led research projects for over 65 studies covering a wide range of industries. Now heading Belgium-based India-Advisory, he is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars in Europe, India and the US, a columnist for the Indian online news portal Sify and an occasional contributor to Yale University's Center for Globalisation and Washington's Globalist. A winner of the all-India National Science Talent Scholarship and the Wien International Scholarship, he studied at a leading Indian engineering institution, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and at Brandeis University in the US. Mr Sheshabalaya is married to a Belgian and is part of New and Old India. His parents were both university Vice Chancellors, and his family includes an Industry Minister in the Nehru government, a Commissioner in British India and representative of the Tata industrial group, one of India's first women legislators, senior military officers, diplomats and seven members of the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: West must meet East -- Climate Sermons, Innovation and Poverty

Chancellor Angela Merkel's call is welcome. However, I doubt it will set an example for India.

As I explained to MEPs recently at a European Parliament conference on biofuels, India's broader climate chaos effort will depend on a much higher level of per capita income; currently, even in terms of purchasing power parity, it is not only 15-20 times lower than the West, but three times lower than the world average. In other words, in two very different playing fields (Europe and India), the sums simply do not add up -- and such sermons go unheard.

What is especially relevant here is India's massive but highly price-sensitive rural consuming segment which -- unlike China -- not only votes to throw out governments, but is also key to driving India's near double-digit economic growth. And yet, it still consumes less than 0.5 TOE (Tonne of Oil Equivalent) per head in commercial energy.

Instead, what Europe needs to do is to take very-serious political (and in some cases, competitive/industrial policy) note of Indian advances in the renewable energy area.
For example, Indian biomass gasification technology is already licensed in Europe. Indian electric car Reva (currently under evaluation with fuel cells) was recently described by the New York Times as one of the biggest successes in its class (and is exported, among other places, to the UK). Meanwhile, Indian windpower giant Suzlon is fast becoming a world player (not least by acquiring key assets in Europe to leverage its already significant market presence back home).

Last but not least, India's biodiesel substitution target is actually more ambitious than Europe's; it is also using a novel route (Jatropha). As with some other national programmes -- combining innovative Indian high-technology approaches with a political mandate -- may provide some surprises. This not only concerns the examples mentioned above, but also areas like supercomputing (with massively parallel processing, India broke the teraflops barrier before Europe), Thorium fast-breeder nuclear power, Tritium extraction, liquid fuelled launchers, etc.

In the home lighting area mentioned below, a Le Monde review last November featured Mighty Light, an Indian-designed solar powered answer to rural needs.

Due to its unique combination of 21st century know-how and 19th century problems, India may have some unique answers for the wider world. But what it does not have is the money to propagate such solutions with sufficient speed both in India itself, let alone in other developing countries.

This is where the EU may have a critical role to play.

Regards


Tosh
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Elizabeth Marshall is a Fellow of The Energy Institute in London and Member of the Ad Hoc Expert Group on Energy convened by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), based in Geneva, Switzerland, since 1992. Elizabeth is a former director of the British Institute of Energy Economics and a member of The Windsor Energy Group of which The Lord Howell is Chairman. She is based in the extreme North of the United Kingdom in Wick, Caithness, and is a member of the Institute of Directors in London and The Reform Club. She writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Climate Chaos: The Threat to Islands & Lowlands

Lord Howell is certainly right about the inconvenient truths. The most pressing for maritime island nations like the UK are the rising sea levels. When I gave a presentation recently about the need for an urgent look at energy economic policy to integrate energy production with coastal protection in light of the need for coastal protection/sea walls and other barriers to be raised a minimum of six feet, as is now happening at Wick, some of the audience did not want to believe that six feet was the level needed despite the photographic evidence of the sea pouring over sea walls that were raised four feet two years ago.

We are risking immense and irreversible damage to our coastal towns and cities and our power station cooling systems, refineries, oil storage depots and other major energy and related infrastructure such as water and sewerage systems, if we continue to pretend the problem does not exist or continue to fail to put together some of the best engineering and construction brains in the country to devise the methods and stratagems whilst estimating the costs to tackle this problem.

Alan Jones at the London Climate Change Agency has a model for integrating energy, water and waste and for looking at distributed systems. We need to take such models, refine and cost them, and put together new alliances and partnerships to implement them. This requirement is more urgent than emissions reduction proposals. Experience suggests that in respect of the rapidly rising sea levels which the recent IPCC report fails to clearly express -- we have not got twenty years to wait before we take action. Building the London Olympics without taking care first of the Thames Barriers seems a total waste of time and money if this entire area is inundated as it could well be by 2012 if no action is taken now.

This should be northern Europe's main immediate concern in respect of climate chaos as so many our great cities are low level, on or near the sea or tidal rivers --Rotterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Hamburg, London, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Lisbon -- to name but a few-to say nothing of the Mediterranean area and North Africa with its huge populations in cities such as Cairo.

Sincerely


Elizabeth Marshall

[ENDS]

Please click here for previous Socratic Dialogue. We look forward to your further thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.

Best wishes


For and on behalf of DK Matai
Chairman, Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA)
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ATCA: The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance is a philanthropic expert initiative founded in 2001 to resolve complex global challenges through collective Socratic dialogue and joint executive action to build a wisdom based global economy. Adhering to the doctrine of non-violence, ATCA addresses opportunities and threats arising from climate chaos; radical poverty; geo-politics, organised crime & extremism; advanced technologies -- bio, info, nano, robo & AI; demographic skews; pandemics; and financial systems. Present membership of ATCA is by invitation only and has over 5,000 distinguished members from over 100 countries: including several from the House of Lords, House of Commons, EU Parliament, US Congress & Senate, G10's Senior Government officials and over 1,500 CEOs from financial institutions, scientific corporates and voluntary organisations as well as over 750 Professors from academic centres of excellence worldwide.

The views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. Please do not forward or use the material circulated without permission and full attribution.
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