Foot-Dragger? No, a Fighter.

But they are not talking about sacrificing growth.
They are finding that the impacts of climate change are pretty serious for China. It's affected their agriculture, it's affected their precipitation levels—floods, droughts, a whole range of other impacts are taking place. They also realize for reasons of energy security they cannot continue on this path. I'm not saying that things will change overnight. There is a lot of tension, to be quite honest, between different departments in the government of China. There is a serious debate going on right now, which I think will lead in the right direction but will take time. In India, the economy can change much faster.

But in the short term what can you do to avoid reliance on fossil fuels there?
There's a lot we can do. We have to bring about improvements even in things like light bulbs, refrigerators and other appliances. In the case of buildings, there are new codes being developed, and new regulatory measures by which a shopping mall that comes up will have to be far more energy-efficient than a corresponding one in North America. In the transport sector, I think we need some major change. To be quite honest, I don't see any sign of that change yet but that will have to happen because they're going crazy with the increase in the motor vehicle fleet. We also need much greater investment in public transport, both within the cities as well as into cities. The railway system really needs major application, and the sooner the better.

And what about the United States—do you feel this administration is moving forward, or do you feel it is still a laggard?
No, I would say there's clearly a very detectable shift on the part of this administration. If one looks at their statements, one wonders—imagine two years ago they would be saying the kinds of things they're saying today. Irrespective who's in the White House, I think the next administration will have to be far more proactive on climate change than we have seen so far.

How important do you think adaptation is—recognizing these changes are afoot and trying to mitigate them?
When one talks about adaptation, one talks about accepting the reality of these impacts and putting in place technological and policy measures by which we're able to manage the problem. That's absolutely essential. The fact that the Nobel Prize committee has awarded this prize to the IPCC for peace is a clear recognition of that if we allow things to run out of hand it can lead to conflict. Where you have water scarcity, you obviously have conflict. Where you have floods and droughts, obviously there will be hardship and that can lead to conflict. If the sea level rises and people are displaced they will over-run political boundaries and that will lead to conflict. We have to adapt to these impacts—even if we are to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases today, the impacts of climate change will continue for several decades. So we have no escape from some of these impacts, and we'd better learn to live with them and that's what adaptation is all about.

At the end of the day, are you optimistic or are you very, very worried?
Well, I'm very optimistic because the extent of awareness has increased over the last eight or nine months—ever since our reports started coming out. This gives me hope that maybe the tide is turning. The U.N. secretary-general organized a high-level meeting on the 24th of September. I had the privilege of addressing in the opening session and there were 80 heads of state and heads of government who sat there and talked about climate change for one full day. This has never happened before and barring one guy, Vaclav Klaus from the Czech Republic, everybody said the science is settled let's get down to action, let's not be late. So this gives me some basis for optimism, maybe things are moving now.

© 2007