At present the Chairman of IndAsia Fund Advisers Pvt. Ltd., Mr. started his talk on “Corporate approach to sustainable growth” by noting that till recently environmental issues were treated in an “emotional” manner and environmentalists lampooned as tree-hugging loonies or eccentrics. But that was till the IPCC report was published in 2007.

The report came after six years of study involving 450 lead authors and covered 130 countries. It concluded that the fact of global warming was unequivocal and that it could have an abrupt and irreversible impact on earth.

Later, a survey of 140 climate scientists on this report showed that 18% felt it was too alarming, 82% thought it was not alarming enough and no one (0%) believed that it was not scientific enough.

“It is one of the largest scientific studies that the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, it is right now in a minor controversy which is being blown out of proportion by ‘climate-sceptics’. But the conclusions are as valid as any conclusion that is of a scientific nature can be, and that is, that mankind’s activities are resulting in global warming and that global warming can cause dramatic consequences to the world.”

Mr. Shah warned that if the glaciers on the Tibetan plateau melted, then the lives of 400 crore people would be affected. Most of the important rivers, such as the Indus, the Ganges, the Irrawaddy, the Mekong and the Yangtze, originated from this plateau and if these rivers dried up, then a fate similar to that of the Saraswati would ensue when an entire civilization was wiped out.

Having read the writing on the wall, several countries started working furiously on meeting the challenges of climate change. In Japan, Toyota developed the hybrid car “Prius” and made it a stupendous success; Honda recently launched cars with zero emission in California.

Canon decided to increase the efficiency of its resource consumption by a factor of 2 by 2010 and started working towards it. In Germany, on the other hand, E.ON, one of the largest energy companies in the world, was on its way to reducing its carbon dioxide emission by half by the year 2030.

Yet another consequence of climate change entering the public realm was the opportunities that it opened up in the carbon market. It was a mere $29 billion in 2006, but rose to $120 billion in 2008 and would grow exponentially to $560 billion by 2020.

But one of the most important developments would see banks and all institutions that lent money telling their clients to “future proof” their businesses by becoming “green”.

Already, Mr. Shah said, companies like GE were forcing others to see the opportunities. It was developing renewable energy technology such as wind turbines and affordable roof integrated photo-voltaic systems, green cold energy, super-critical boilers, more efficient gas turbines and hybrid locomotives that employed energy in various ways.

“All these are ‘green’ opportunities. In Europe they have banned the use of incandescent bulbs, so they have to use CFL bulbs. Therefore, some industries will fall by the wayside and new industries will emerge.

“But companies do have concerns. A lot of people feel that there are risks… that all this climate change business may actually be a natural phenomenon, maybe because of the conical movement of the earth’s axis around its pivot (which takes about 26,000 years). Therefore, at certain positions it may be warmer and/or colder, and that may account for the glacial ages and the warm ages.

“If that is the case, will the legislative compulsions die out and will those who have invested more, lose out? That’s the fear in many companies. There is also lack of uniformity in measurement, verification and reporting; and sometimes it seems that the polluter is not paying but profiting, because the measurement is inappropriate.”

Over and above all this was the fear of politicisation. One of the “most insidious pieces of legislation passed last June by the US” said that the US had the right to tax imports from countries like India which lacked rules on emission.

What about India? Mr. Shah said that according to a McKinsey report, India emitted 1.6 billion tonnes of CO₂; if the country’s GDP grew at the rate of 7%, it would emit 5 billion tonnes; but at a growth rate of 9% it would account for 6.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ emission by 2030.

It was possible for India to start investing to lower the emission and to become competitive. But the report said India would have to spend 600 to 700 million euros on this.

“I’m sure we can do it at much lower cost if we set out minds to it. The Nuclear Power Corporation tells the world that we can do our power plants at a fraction of the world’s cost. But we have not experimented, we have not gone ahead. Commitment by the government is required.”

India had to take up nuclear, hydro, solar and other means of generating power; it also had to reduce transmission and distribution losses, go for cleaner coal generation and super critical and other technologies which allowed greater efficiency of coal energy.

Mr. Shah said that another suggestion was for a differential tariff, so that people used power when it was easily available and not during times of peak consumption. Promoting energy efficient urbanisation was another crucial area.

“The automobile would become obsolete in advanced urban cities in the next few decades and public transport would take over. Mark my words, this is going to happen. We have seen some cities like Ahmedabad which has implemented the BRTS correctly, but Delhi has done it badly… but the prime need for urbanisation is urban transport infrastructure for the public.”

Other fields of work were improving agricultural practices, conservation tillage, micro-irrigation (not just drip irrigation) and afforestation, “which is the final answer”.

It was all a case of seizing opportunities, said Mr. Shah. China had done it and become the world’s largest producer of wind turbines and of solar photo-voltaic cells and would shortly become the world’s largest producer of nuclear power plants.

He warned India against complacency and pointed out that if (as mentioned in a World Bank study) the USA imposed a tax of $60 per tonne on CO₂ emission on end-product imports, India and China would be badly affected because they emitted a lot of CO₂ in the products that they made.

It was likely that companies in the USA, the UK and Europe would be up in arms and demand to know why they were being penalised while imports were allowed from countries that had no control over emissions. Therefore, notwithstanding the WTO, some kind of import tax was certain to be introduced.

The US had finally announced a 28% reduction in emission by 2020. Although it was a shame that this was not over the 1990 levels but over the 2005 levels, it had to be granted that President Obama had finally moved in the matter. Similarly, China had voluntarily announced an emission intensity reduction of 40 to 45%.

But India sat twiddling its thumbs, saying it would not take unilateral action, or that it would not act without some payment.

In Mr. Shah’s opinion, it was the “Bombay Club” syndrome at work. (He recalled that some industrialists had gathered together in the 1990s and protested the government’s decision to free up imports.)

“It’s the same phenomenon you see in action today. There is a lobby of industrial groups that says that carbon tax or moving towards a lower carbon economy would cost us more, so why should we make the investment? We are behind (the West); we have come (into the picture) later, so we should be allowed to go ahead.”

However, public opinion was in favour of a “green” economy and that was the reason why the Union Minister for Environment, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, had to concede a voluntary reduction in emission intensity of about 20 to 25% before Copenhagen.

Sadly, there was no sign as to how it would be implemented. But the announcement had been made and the government would be asked to follow through and sign on the dotted line (“they must have signed last week, perhaps”).

Ultimately, enlightened self-interest would drive companies towards “green” business policies and practices, to protect their businesses from creeping legislation, to facilitate growth, to maintain a competitive position and to respond to consumer demand for such products.

Mr. Shah said that as a member of the Board of Directors of M/s Pfizer Ltd., he had noted that there were several “audits” while buying products from suppliers. Among other things, the company wanted to know whether child labour was employed at any stage and whether ethical practices were followed at all times.

Soon, Western companies would start asking whether “green” practices as defined by their governments had been followed. If the answer was in the negative, then they would not buy, for they did not want their clients to ostracise them for practices not approved by their government.

Although this was the time to make money out of new “green” products, Mr. Shah said, he did not see any one in India making LED bulbs or lighting. Instead, traders were buying from China and selling in India. China had taken the lead in such products, too.

What was his advice to Indian companies, boards and directors? First, he said, it was necessary to assess the intensity of their usage of natural resources and to measure the amount of carbon dioxide emitted. Once this was done, it was crucial to set goals for progressive reduction – the ultimate goal being net carbon neutrality.

The entire organisation would have to be sensitised about the need to achieve this target. Soon, ideas would come from the shop floor to improve processes and technologies in order to save energy intensity, emission intensity and natural resources.

Finally, there would have to be board-level responsibility for measurement and progress achieved in this direction and to identify threats and opportunities from the changes.

Mr. Shah next turned to what individuals could do. It was at this stage that he quoted Mahatma Gandhi telling a Sri Lankan journalist in 1948: “Reduce your wants, satisfy your needs.” He agreed that this was difficult to practice, but said that a beginning could be made by, say, avoiding bottled water and by planting trees.

Trees solved problems, they helped decarbonise the world and did not just offset carbon dioxide. Similarly, the oceans acted as sinks and absorbed CO₂ from the atmosphere. But trees were the ultimate answer.

Mr. Shah said he was involved with a web-enabled social activity, growtrees.com, which allowed individuals and companies to plant trees and offset carbon and also to greet, honour or recognise people with trees.

Toyota planted 21 trees in Monaco for every customer of an SUV vehicle it sold. While on the one hand this was recognition of the fact that their vehicles would belch out CO₂, on the other it also worked as a customer acquisition strategy.

Similarly, individuals could celebrate Diwali, birthdays and anniversaries by sending e-cards and planting trees to offset carbon emissions, thus contributing to a better world, Mr Shah added.

When the floor was thrown open for questions, Mudit Jain commented that rather than corporates, it would be better if people changed their life styles.

The speaker repeated his quotation of Mahatma Gandhi, “Reduce your

wants, satisfy your needs”, and said that the answer to the question lay in the quote.

Trilochan Singh Sahney pointed out that a Japanese steel company was capturing heat and converting it into energy, thus meeting 85% of its entire requirement. As for enlarging the green cover, as the population grew and people became more affluent, the only way to protect land was by going vertical, thus leaving space for more plants and trees.