Boom Or Bubble
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1-15 MARCH, 2015 DownToEarthSCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY Subscriber copy, not for resale `45.00 Boom or bubble Biotechnology industry is growing like never before. Can the sector maintain its bull run? Bangladesh: Taka 58.00 / Pakistan: Rs 58.00 / Nepal: Rs 38.00 / Sri Lanka: Rs 117.00 / Maldives: Rf 28.00 Bhutan: Ngultrum 24 / Rest of the World (South): US $2.70 / Rest of the World (North): US $3.40 (North): World US $2.70 / Rest of the (South): World Ngultrum 24 / Rest of the Rf 28.00 Bhutan: Rs 117.00 / Maldives: Rs 38.00 / Sri Lanka: Rs 58.00 / Nepal: 58.00 / Pakistan: Taka Bangladesh: 01Cover.indd 7 23/02/15 4:34 PM Certificate Course on the Policies, Politics and Practices of Environmental AGENDA FOR SURVIVAL Management in India, New Delhi, June 1 - 30, 2015 This interdisciplinary month- COURSE ASSIGNMENT long summer certificate course UNEARTH (online) allows Indian participants to http://bit.ly/1AWxoby understand and critically evaluate issues that lie at the UNEARTH (print) interface of environment & http://bit.ly/1xaucM9 development, poverty, Report, write, edit, design and democracy, equity & justice. learn hands-on to produce your COURSE MODULES own magazine. ■ State of India’s Environment FOR DETAILS ■ Poverty & Biomass Economy http://www.cseindia.org/node/1701 ■ Ecological rights & natural resource management ELIGIBILITY ■ Land and its use: Agriculture, Open to 25 young professionals food security and college students from any ■ Conservation & conflict: stream from India. Wildlife management debate ■ Urban growth challenges: FEE Water & waste management, `26,000/– this covers cost of the air pollution & mobility course, food and stay (shared ■ Sustainable industrialization & accommodation). public health concerns ■ Climate change & global KAMLA CHOWDHRY environmental governance FELLOWSHIPS Will be awarded to a few LEARNING MODE selected candidates to support Classroom lectures, case study their stay in Delhi. presentation, discussions, and lot more. Interrogate policy makers HOW TO APPLY and activists. Hear leading Candidates are required to send academics, policy pundits, lawyers, their latest CV/resume with a short grassroots activists and members covering note to the email of CSE's research and advocacy addresses given below teams speak. SPECIAL OFFER E-MAIL Several field trips include a FOR STUDENTS Sharmila Sinha week-long trip to explore commu- FROM NON [email protected]/ nity-led eco-restoration efforts in METRO CITIES [email protected] march15, 2015 march15, rural India and within Delhi. MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION LAST DATE English 30th March 2015 Kothi village, Manali in Himachal Pradesh, 7700 feet above sea level Down To Earth Down To CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT Anil Agarwal Environment 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi-110 062 Training Institute (AAETI) Mobile: +91 9818482018 the training and education hub of CSE Ph: 91-11 40616000 (Ext: 219); Fax: 91-11-29955879 Website: www.cseindia.org; E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected] IFC EDITOR’S PAGE WALK THE TALK ON CARBON TAX, MR FINANCE MINISTER UDGET 2015, presented by Finance Minister Arun to maintain this “carbon tax”, even when the price of petrol and diesel Jaitley, has a first. In it, India has accepted that it has increases in the international market. But it is also a fact that the a de-facto carbon tax—on petroleum products and price of these fuels is lower today and as far as the consumer is con- dirty coal. Arguably, the only big green initiative of this cerned, the signal to change consumption is weak and inadequate. budget is the increase of cess on coal—from `100 per Therefore, not only does the government require to tax these Btonne to `200 per tonne. But the question is: is this carbon tax, polluting fuels, it also requires to use the tax funds and much more imposed on the carbon content of fuel, doing what it should—reduce to provide infrastructure to wean us away from cars or using roads greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for climate change? to transport goods. What is bad is budget 2015 is doing the re- In other words, is there a design behind the carbon tax to ensure we verse. It says it will set aside `4 per litre of the excise duty on petrol move beyond polluting fossil fuels? and diesel for a dedicated road cess. This tunnel The budget followsfrom the Economic vision of viewing infrastructure for transport as Survey, which states that high price on diesel and just “roads” is regressive. Instead, what is needed petrol are important price signals to limit con- is to reinvent mobility so that it moves goods and sumption and, hence, CO2 emissions. In 2014, people, and not vehicles. The fact is that budget taking advantage of the global fall in fuel pric- 2015 has recognised that this excise duty is a car- es, subsidy or under-recovery has gone and the bon tax, which is putting a price on each tonne of government has increased excise duty on both CO2 emitted. Now this tax must be used to help petrol and diesel. So even though fuel is cheap- shift to less carbon-intensive ways of production. er, the tax component is higher. The Economic We also know that the health costs of air Survey estimates that based on emission fac- pollution are very high. Budget 2015 does little tors, currently, India imposes an implicit carbon to address this concern. It does not say that the tax of US $140 per tonne of CO2 on petrol and excise duty collected on dirty fuel will be used to US $64 on diesel. This is substantial. upgrade refinery technology so that we can get The Economic Surveyalso estimates that clean fuel and breathe easy. It is also a fact that the cess of `100 per tonne of coal is equivalent to a carbon tax of even though the government is no longer subsidising diesel, its price US $1 per tonne of CO2. It argues that this cess should be increased remains lower than that of petrol, mainly because of differential so that it can lead to CO2 reduction and also better reflect the health levels of taxation. So, even though there has been a decline in the cost of emissions from coal-fired power plants. It calculates that a number of diesel private cars being sold, it is not enough to make a three-fold increase from the current rate would lead to an annu- dent in pollution levels. Therefore, what is needed is to tax diesel ve- al CO2 emission reduction of 129 million tonnes—this is equal to hicles to equalise the price differential. seven per cent of India’s current emissions. A five-fold increase in This is also the case with coal cess. The government now aims to the cess would equalise price of domestic coal with international and use this cess to clean the Ganga or build toilets. All this is important would contribute to annual CO2 emission reduction of 214 million but takes us away from the objective of moving away from using pol- tonnes, which is 11 per cent of India’s annual emissions. luting fuels or cleaning emissions from thermal power. In budget 2015, the finance minister has opted to take the What is needed is to walk the talk. Not just talk the talk. slow road and has doubled the cess on coal to balance the need to tax pollution and the price of power in his words. He also mentions that India’s de-facto carbon tax on most petroleum products compares with international norms. But is this tax an adequate signal to bring about change? Let’s take petrol and diesel. The fact is that the government has increased the tax on fuel because it is convenient. It will be important 1-15 MARCH 2015 www.downtoearth.org.in 3 03Editors.indd 3 02/03/15 12:59 PM Down To Earth ON THE WEB SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORTNIGHTLY WHAT'S HOT FOUNDER EDITOR Anil Agarwal EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Sunita Narain SPECIAL COVERAGE MANAGING EDITOR Richard Mahapatra ASSOCIATE EDITORS Union Budget Vibha Varshney, Kaushik Das Gupta, Archana Yadav, Aruna P Sharma 2015-16 MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Arnab Pratim Dutta The first full-fledged CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ajit Bajaj budget of the Narendra GRAPHIC EDITOR Sorit Gupto Modi government has REPORTING TEAM come after promises of a Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava, "transformational" policy Suchitra M, Aparna Pallavi, Anupam document. A CSE-DTE virtual Chakravartty, Alok Kumar Gupta, Jitendra Choubey, Kundan Pandey, Jyotsna Singh roundtable along with experts in the field analyses COPY DESK Snigdha Das, Rajat Ghai, Jemima Rohekar, what the budget has to offer Aditya Misra, Vani Manocha, Rajit Sengupta, for inclusive growth and Moushumi Sharma sustainable development. DESIGN TEAM Chaitanya Chandan, Shri Krishan, Raj Kumar Singh, Tarique Aziz SPECIAL FEATURE BLOG PHOTOGRAPHER Vikas Choudhary PHOTO LIBRARY Anil Kumar 67 years of budget-making Unlike Delhi, WEB TEAM Turkey's largest city Rajendra Rawat, Jaidev Sharma Istanbul has been PRODUCTION designed for people, Rakesh Shrivastava, Gundhar Das not cars, says Anupam INFORMATION AND RESEARCH ASSISTANCE Srivastava Kiran Pandey www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in team POPULAR CONSULTING EDITORS Chandra Bhushan, Anumita Roychowdhury On web vol 23, no 20; Total No of pages 60 Biggest solar plant in Editorial, subscriptions and advertisements: Society for Environmental Communications, Northeast begins power 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, Down To Earth explores of many policy makers, generation New Delhi 110 062, Phone: 91-11- 29955124, how India's biggest ranging from measures 29956110, 29956394, 29956399 Fax: 91-11-29955879. financial policy document to enhance foodgrain On Facebook Email: [email protected] has evolved over the years. production and industrial © 2005 Society for Environmental Communications.