Foot-Dragger? No, a Fighter.

In 2002, when Rajendra Pachauri was named to head the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Al Gore criticized him as the "let's-drag-our-feet candidate." But the crusading ex-veep was quickly proven wrong; Pachauri has loudly campaigned for changes in environmental policies, and the series of voluminous IPCC reports released this year have essentially put an end to the scientific debate over global warming. Soon after his organization won the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore, Pachauri spoke with NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria. Excerpts:

ZAKARIA: There are still people who say that the science on global warming is still unclear. How do you react to that kind of talk?
PACHAURI: Well, the calculations are so simple that even a high school kid can do them. The 20th century sea level rise was about 17 centimeters. Our predictions for the end of this century are 18 to 59 centimeters. So even if we end up somewhere in the middle, we have a pretty serious crisis on our hands. The fact that there are storms and coastal flooding even now means there's going to be major devastation. The ocean takes a long time to mix; thus far the warming has been essentially in the upper layers. It's now gone down in several places to about 3,000 meters. In a couple of decades or three decades, the warming will be even more serious.

What's the cost involved in doing something about this – is it too great?
We have completely debunked this fallacy. If you want to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases at the level that will limit temperature increases to 2 degrees to 2.4 degrees centigrade, the cost to the global economy in 2030 will be less than 3 percent. Now, that really means that the level of prosperity that we are going to reach in 2030 may, at best, be postponed by 8 or 9 months. That's certainly not a high price to pay. If you're going to translate this into annual cost, it's only 0.12 percent of the GDP. Various things that can be done with existing technologies—we don't even need any miracles by which you come up with new technologies. The technologies are all there. You can see them in operation in Japan, you can see them in operation in Germany, but there are some economies that have not used them at all.

What about the issue of coal? At the end of the day, the single largest contributor to CO₂ in the world is coal and it's cheap and plentiful.
As far as coal is concerned, we really need technological innovation. There are things like gasification of coal that could improve the efficiency of the whole society. And, as you know, even the U.S. is now spending money on this technology that will essentially allow capture of CO₂ and storage. I think what we really need much more is expenditure on [research and development]. What's happened, unfortunately, since 1985 when oil prices crashed, R & D expenditure on alternatives also crashed correspondingly. I suppose the private sector will invest in these things if you have a price on carbon. In our findings, we have clearly highlighted the importance of keeping a price on carbon. If one were to do that, then you'd see the world moving towards a low carbon economy without any disruptions in the economic system.

Do you think that if you had a carbon tax, the West would need to subsidize clean coal or alternative energies in places like China?
I think internationally you need a liberal facilitating arrangement because in the Framework Convention on Climate Change there is a clause about common but differentiated responsibility and there are also provisions for financial and technology transfers from north to south. Unfortunately, the world has done very little with these provisions. So I think that if there was a means by which you could facilitate a low carbon future in China and India, you'll get desirable results. That hasn't happened so far, unfortunately.

The United States is the largest consumer of coal, but there'll be 650 coal-fired plants built between now and 2012 in China and the emissions of those will be quite substantial.
I think there are two aspects to think about. Firstly, in per capita terms, India and China are way below the U.S. and North America. But a quite apart from that, I believe that China and India have to chart a new path. The developed country experience has proved disastrous for variety of other reasons—energy security for one thing, local pollution another. But I think in both countries, there is now a serious debate—in India I can see it for sure because the prime minister is quite concerned about this issue. He set up the advisory council on climate change. Similarly in China, there's a China council for international cooperation on the environment and development, of which I'm a member. There's now a serious effort to look at a low carbon economy in China.