E COLOGICAL MODERNIZATION AND THE K YOTO P ROTOCOL

In Rio, 150 countries signed the UNFCCC and it entered into force two years later. UNFCCC has no binding targets on emission reductions and no

commitments for financial and technological transfer to developing countries.

The ambiguity is clearly stated in the convention’s ultimate objective in Article 2 (emphasis added):

The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner

(UNFCCC 1992).

The statement about enabling economic development is in the spirit of ecological modernization and “(…) the dominant vision of development was that of

ecological modernization model with the emphasis on the necessity of continued economic growth” (Connelly and Smith 2003: 240).

Gone was the radical spirit of the 1970s. The main principles in article 3 of the UNFCCC take a pragmatic stance towards climate change. Article 3, paragraph 3 emphasizes the precautionary principle: as long as it is done in a cost-effective manner. Since then, the mantra for combating climate change for Annex I countries has been cost-efficiency (emphasis added):

The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost (…) (UNFCCC 1992).

The Earth summit in Rio in 1992 spurred further action and collaboration in the global environmental arena. Three years later, the main decision-making body of the UNFCCC, the COP, reviewed the institutional arrangement for achieving the

convention’s ultimate objectives and found it insufficient. Further negotiations were needed to reach a firm commitment for stabilizing the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere.¹⁸ After two years of intense negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted 11 December 1997 (UNFCCC 1998, Depledge 2004).

3.5.1 A global marketable solution

The logic of ecological modernization runs all the way from Rio to Kyoto, given that the Protocol is an update of the convention, only with stronger and legally binding commitments to curb GHG-emissions. The introduction of economic concepts and mechanisms into global agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol is central to ecological modernization (Barry 2005). Flexible mechanisms which put a price on carbon, such as the CDM, JI and emissions trading, were invented to reorient global structural design flaws. There is “... a penchant within

ecological modernization for market-based and entrepreneurial solutions, which turn collective ecological problems for society as a whole into selective

economic opportunities for market actors (aided by the state)” (ibid: 310).

Mol (2001) claimed that the nation-state had lost its sovereignty to supra-national environmental regimes such as the EU. The example he provided is Germany's reluctance to accept emissions trading. This was later set aside by the Kyoto Protocol where emission trading is allowed under article 17 both within countries and among them (ibid: 107). Today, Germany is one of the biggest emission traders in the market (Point Carbon 2009). During the negotiations over the Protocol, countries– especially developing countries– were fearful of losing their sovereignty and refused to accept emissions caps. USA and Australia, two of the largest GHG emitters, opted out of the Protocol due to claims that it would harm their national economies. Therefore it's difficult to apply Mol's claim to the Kyoto Protocol and label it as a supra-national environmental regime. It might be more valid to say that regional regimes such as the EU and strong sovereign

18 In the language of intergovernmental negotiations, an update of the UNFCCC is called a Protocol. The negotiations of Protocols are stated under Article 17 of the Convention.

countries put forth ideas of ecological modernization as a solution to climate change. Such ideas are politically attractive because they do not require major structural changes in the economy when it comes to dealing with environmental issues. The mantra is that we can continue on the same economical path as long as we provide minor technological solutions to production of more material goods and services; it might even be good for businesses that they are offered a chance to expand beyond national borders. Barry calls this “supply-side” policy:

Thus, ecological modernization is clearly a supply-side, as opposed to demand-side approach to environmental policy. That is, ecological modernization does not engage with consumption issues of either challenging or regulating the demand for goods and services in the economy, nor with issues concerning the distribution of consumption within society. Ecological modernization as a “supply-side” policy, like all supply-side policies, attempts to circumvent, downplay or avoid issues of social or distributional in/justice and in/equality. It does this by obviating the need to engage in politically regulating overall demand, or adjusting the pattern of the distributional consumption, by focusing policy and public attention on the supply, rather than the demand for or distribution of, economic goods and services (2005:311).

Political avoidance of imposing regulation on and adjusting the pattern of demand means that even though there is an increase of use of renewable energy in a society, there is no regulation of where and by whom this energy is used. In other words, it can lead to more production of goods and emission of GHGs.¹⁹ There is no guarantee that renewable energy leads to an improvement in the lives of impoverished people (i.e., human development). Seeing as ecological

modernization is a successor of old modernization theories, development is measured as economic growth (increase in GNP), wealth and income, paid

employment in the formal economy and an increase in consumption and so forth (Barry 2005). There is no room for including distributional and social aspects of human development (Langhelle 2000).

During the negotiations of the UNFCCC, developing countries pushed for an integration of the principles of sustainable development into the final document.

19 One example which is relevant for Rajasthan is cement production. The state is the leading producer of cement in India, contributing to 15 percent of the national output (Center for Monitoring Indian Economy 2010). Cement manufacturing contributes to GHG emissions in the chemical process of calcinations of limestone. In the US it is the largest single source of emissions from industrial processes (EIA 2008).

Developing countries did not want to be made responsible for the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere. They asserted their right to development, but it was to be done sustainably. The principles of sustainable development were accepted and carried on to the Kyoto Protocol. Sustainable development and ecological modernization have a lot of similarities, which I will touch upon in the next chapter.