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US announces withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

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CPR FACULTY COMMENTS

 

Op-eds by CPR Faculty:

CPR Faculty quoted in media and TV:

Ending months of speculation, President Donald Trump finally announced that the US would withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Thursday, 1 June, 2017. In his remarks he offered several reasons for his decision to withdraw. Lavanya Rajamani explains in an interview below:

What were the reasons President Trump cited in support of his decision to withdraw? 

President Trump offered the following reasons, among others, for withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement. In his view, the Paris Agreement:

  • ‘inflicts severe energy restrictions’ on the United States
  • ‘punishes’ the United States ‘while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters,’ and is thus ‘unfair, at the highest level’ to the United States
  • imposes ‘draconian financial and economic burdens’ on the United States
  • ‘redistributes wealth’ out of the United States through the Green Climate Fund, obliging the US to pay ‘billions and billions and billions of dollars’

President Trump also argued that exiting the agreement ‘protects the United States from future intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty and massive future legal liability.‘

How valid were the reasons President Trump cited?

There is little validity to the reasons President Trump cited to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. First of all, President’s Trump’s remarks on the Paris Agreement bear little resemblance to the architecture of the Agreement, revealing a disturbing lack of knowledge of the Agreement he rejected. A fundamental defining feature of the Paris Agreement is the extent to which it privileges and protects sovereignty and national autonomy. The Paris Agreement allows every country to choose its own ‘nationally determined’ contribution (NDC), and it does not legally oblige Parties to achieve these contributions. There is a good faith expectation of achievement but no legal obligation to achieve. The Paris Agreement thus does not inflict or impose any commitments on Parties – neither the US nor India and China. Each Party chose, as did the US, a nationally determined contribution that it believed best reflected its national constraints, circumstances and priorities. It is precisely because these contributions are nationally determined rather than internationally negotiated that there is a yawning gap between the sum of Parties’ NDCs and the collective emissions reductions needed to place us on a pathway to ‘well below 2°C’.

Second, since contributions are nationally determined, and the architecture of the Agreement is facilitative, the Paris Agreement does not impose a prescriptive burden sharing arrangement on states. Every contribution is unique, and differentiates itself from every other contribution by virtue of its ‘nationally determined’ nature. Although parties’ NDCs are expected to reflect their common but differentiated responsibilities, the extent to which an NDC reflects common but differentiated responsibilities is also self-determined. If at all there is any perceived ‘unfairness’ in relation to the US, it stems not from an internationally prescribed burden sharing arrangement – the Paris Agreement contains none –  but the ‘nationally determined’ contribution chosen by the previous US administration of its own volition. It is worth noting that the US NDC – an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26- 28 per cent  below its 2005 level in 2025 – has been assessed by some to be ‘the least ambitious end’ of what would be a fair contribution.

Interestingly, while President Trump’s remarks were baffling in the context of the Paris Agreement, they were apt and indeed reminiscent of arguments made by President George W. Bush, in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. President Bush had argued at the time that the Kyoto Protocol, which contains a prescriptive binding ‘targets and timetables’ approach for developed countries, ‘exempts 80% of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the US economy.’ The Paris Agreement represents a sea change from the Kyoto Protocol, but the US rhetoric rejecting these two agreements plays the same tune.

Third, in line with the facilitative approach of the Paris Agreement, the Agreement neither ‘imposes’ any new financial burdens on the US nor ‘redistributes’ wealth through the Green Climate Fund. Developed countries are required to provide financial resources to developing country Parties but this is ‘in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention’ (Article 9.1). Developed countries are also required to continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance (Article 9.3). The decision accompanying the Paris Agreement captures an agreement to continue the collective developed countries’ mobilization goal through 2025, and to set before 2025, a ‘new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per year’ (decision 1/CP.21, para 53). But this new goal is not restricted to developed countries. As for the Green Climate Fund, it currently has 10.3 billion$, both developed and developing countries have voluntarily contributed to it, and it is subject to transparency safeguards, leaving little doubt about where and how GCF resources are being spent.

Finally, it is unclear what the source of President Trump’s concern over ‘massive future legal liability’ is in relation to the Paris Agreement. Since the Paris Agreement does not contain binding obligations of result in relation to the NDCs, if the US fails to meet its NDC, it cannot be subject to compliance or enforcement procedures, which in any case have yet to be finalized. On the contrary, the US lays itself open to potential legal claims in international fora by rejecting the Paris Agreement, and failing to demonstrate ‘due diligence’ in preventing transboundary environmental harm as required under customary international law.

President Trump asserted that the US would ‘begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.’ How, if at all, can the US do this?

No nation can unilaterally renegotiate the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a product of several years of painstaking negotiations, and it represents a carefully balanced and nuanced compromise between nations with diverse interests. The Agreement as it stands can accommodate the US.

It is unclear what terms, President Trump, wishes to renegotiate, and with whom. If it is the stringency of the US NDC, as it appears, this was not internationally prescribed or negotiated but unilaterally determined by the previous US administration. If it is the overall architecture of the Paris Agreement, then this would entail going back to the drawing board. Even if there were any appetite to renegotiate the Paris Agreement among the rest of the states, which there is not, it is unclear what is to be renegotiated, and to what end. Further, even if the Paris Agreement were to be renegotiated, the US could not hope to get a better deal. The highly skilled US negotiators managed to achieve all their fundamental objectives in the Paris negotiations. NDCs are self-determined. There are no binding obligations of result in relation to NDCs. And, there is no prescriptive burden sharing arrangement in the Agreement.

When will US withdrawal take effect? And, what role will US negotiators play in the Paris ‘rule book’ negotiations in the meantime?

The Paris Agreement only permits a state to withdraw three years after the Agreement enters into force for that state; the withdrawal takes effect a year later (Article 28). The US will thus remain a Party to the Paris Agreement until atleast 5 November 2020. During this time, they can technically continue to participate in the ongoing climate negotiations. However, arguably, given President Trump’s remarks, and the drastic funding cuts to environmental programs in the US, the US may not invest time in preparing submissions or send sufficient representation to the ongoing negotiations. Even if they do so, they will be politically marginalized, and unlikely to exert any influence on the Paris ‘rule book’.

Can the US re-enter the Paris Agreement at a later date? If so, how?

There is no legal impediment to the US re-entering the Paris Agreement at any point after its withdrawal takes effect. The US will need to deposit its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, and thirty days thereafter the Agreement will enter into force for it (Articles 20 and 21). The real challenge with re-entry is not legal but political. Given President Trump’s misleading remarks, there is a danger that the Paris Agreement, like the Kyoto Protocol, will be demonized in American popular consciousness, making later re-entry politically challenging. Further, the longer the US stays out of the Paris Agreement, the more the regime will evolve without American influence, and the harder it will be for the US to accept it.

Using law to combat water pollution

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NEW PUBLICATIONS BY THE CPR-NAMATI ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PROGRAM

 

Contamination of surface and ground water sources due to the discharge of polluting substances has been a long standing problem in most parts of the country. In 1974, a legislation was specifically enacted to regulate and prohibit water pollution. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 established Pollution Control Boards at the Central and State levels and bestowed them with powers to prevent and control water pollution. However, the design and application of this law was largely limited to the contamination of surface water like rivers, creeks, ponds or streams.

Aside from the Water Act, there are also other laws which can be used to remediate water pollution. These include, environmental clearance conditions under the Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, public nuisance in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the licensing process under the Factories Act, 1948. Along with these, there are also certain state level legislations such as the Orissa River Pollution Prevention Act, 1953 and the Karnataka Ground Water (Regulation and Control of Development and Management) Act 2011.

How these laws can be used to find administrative remedies to combat water pollution has been put together in the form of two Information, Education and Communication materials by the Centre for Policy Research-Namati Environmental Justice Program, with support from the Duleep Mathai Nature Conservation Trust.

The materials aim to give the reader an understanding of:

  • The existing legislations;
  • The kind of permissions which are needed;
  • The various institutions which are available;
  • The way in which evidence can be collected;
  • The manner in which complaints can be framed;
  • The various administrative remedies which are available;

The materials focus on the states of Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, and can be accessed below:

Venkatesh Nayak examines proposals to amend the law of land acquisition in India

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FULL AUDIO RECORDING
RIGHTS

Listen to the full audio recording (above) of the CPR-LRI talk, where Venkatesh Nayak shares his experience of working on land acquisition in India. He examines the proposal to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

The talk was organised by the Land Rights Initiative at Centre for Policy Research.

Virtual Talk and Panel Discussion on ‘Topping the Glass Half Full: Opportunities for Regional Trade in South Asia’

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WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

Watch the full video of the virtual talk and panel discussion on ‘Topping the Glass Half Full: Opportunities for Regional Trade in South Asia’. The talk was delivered by Dr Sanjay Kathuria (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR) who is the editor of the book, and was followed by a panel discussion featuring Ambassador Shyam Saran (Former Foreign Secretary & Senior Fellow, CPR); Dr Nagesh Kumar [Director and Head, South and South-West Asia (SSWA) Office, UNESCAP]; Dr Selim Raihan (Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka); and chaired by Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR).

It would be no overstatement to say that seventy years after the decolonisation of South Asia, economic integration of the region remains disappointing. Intraregional trade as a share of regional gross domestic product (GDP) hovers around only 1 percent in South Asia, versus 2.6 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa and about 11 percent in East Asia and the Pacific. Yet, world history has repeatedly shown trade to be a crucial tool for poverty reduction. Centered around the book A Glass Half Full: The Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia, this event discussed various challenges to regional economic integration and lessons that can be learned from some success stories.

Warrior of an Unfinished Agenda: Remembering the late KC Sivaramakrishnan

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A TRIBUTE BY BHANU JOSHI ON HIS FIRST DEATH ANNIVERSARY
OBITUARIES

Kallidaikurichi Chidambarakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan died on 28th May 2015. On his first death anniversary, Bhanu Joshi remembers him.

What is the institutional architecture within which we foresee India’s urbanisation? What framework of governance – public or private do we think would be able to provide better services to the urban India?

Kallidaikurichi Chidambarakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan or KCS, as many of us called him, was amongst the first to ask and continued engaging with this question over his lifetime. Chief Executive of the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority, and secretary in both the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Commerce, Professor and chairman of the Centre for Policy Research, he was one of the pioneering interpreters of urbanisation in modern India.

A man whose commentary and work ranged from delimitation to the environment and climate change, from Ganga water management to South Asian cooperation, KCS was most valued for his contribution to understanding decentralisation in India. He was involved in the making of the watershed 65th Constitutional Bill, which later became the 74th Constitutional Amendment (CAA). The longest amendment to the Constitution of India, it was the 74th CAA, which mandated the creation of municipalities across urban areas.

Perspectives and Approaches

The numerous books, journal and popular writing on decentralised urban governance by KCS employed three concomitant perspectives – historical, legal and political.

He assigned a great importance to historical continuities in his analysis. For him, India’s modern conception of devolution had an antecedent in the nineteenth-century colonial rule. While colonial local self-government provided a forum for representation and practice, it was the provincial, state and central legislatures which controlled their powers, finances and functions. As KCS writes, “In the struggle for independence, urban growth was viewed usually in the frame of large metropolitan or industrial cities and all the want, squalor, slum growth and the blight they presented.”[i] Post-independence, the local government remained a lesser form of government with similar control exhibited by the centre and the state.[ii]

The second perspective was the defining of institutional powers and legislative domains of local governments, produced by the coalescence of law and legal jurisprudence. Although judgements delivered by High Courts and the Supreme Court were central to many of his own arguments; in many of his writings, he was critical of the views taken by the Courts.[iii] He believed, there were limits to which adjudication in the Courts of Law can help the process. Besides, “Courts prefer to dwell upon the letter of the law, rather than the spirit, however relevant it may be for a proper understanding and interpretation of the law. The remedy may not lie in the Court, but elsewhere.”[iv] That ‘elsewhere,’ lay in the polity and the process of people’s participation. He believed, that India’s decentralisation project cannot bypass the messiness of politics and people’s participation.[v] It is a genuine participative process, which is deeply contested that brings a strong and powerful elected government responsible for its successes and failures.

The Question of Governance

KCS were Secretary in the Ministry of Urban Development, when the 65th Constitutional Amendment Bill was brought to the Lok Sabha by the Rajiv Gandhi government. The 74th CAA, modelled on the Bill drafted earlier, opened up avenues of political participation by creating a new political class in big and small cities in India. “We thought we were on the cusp of a revolution,”[vi] said KCS in a public lecture in 2012. The optimism created made it clear that at the local level the elected representatives were going to demand an increasing share in the political domain. “As this demand turns more vocal and insistent, changes in the legal and administrative base of the Nagarpalikas will become inevitable.”[vii]

Twenty years later, the tides changed and there was a recognition that the 74th CAA though path breaking, remained a restrictive framework. His work on the metropolitan regions in India is revealing on the imaginative restrictions imposed by the Amendment. Referring to the metropolitan regions in India; an entity like the Mumbai Metropolitan region comprising of areas beyond the city corporation, to include both rural and urban, multi-municipal and non-municipal bodies, he argued that, metropolitan governance cannot be compartmentalised as rural or urban but there has to be strong intra-municipal coordination, inclusion of the rural local governments and a direct link between the various state and central ministries and the region. The idea that the problems of a ‘big’ city (and hence the region) are of, and restricted to, that city alone is flawed. Transport, water supply, garbage disposal, planned development are not city centred and extends beyond and have to consider the region as a whole. The “74th constitutional amendment of 1993 has failed to visualise the dynamics of large, complex urban formations,”[viii] he surmised. In his last published chapter, he is less charitable, “notwithstanding the initial objectives of enlarging the funnel of participation and providing for a wider system of directly elected representative bodies, in actual effect the amendment has failed to fulfil this objective.”[ix]

And here, then, lies the biggest contribution of KCS. By grappling with the question of the institutional architecture of urban governance, he posed profound questions on how should our cities grow. His body of scholarship leaves a reference point for us to ask – who should head our cities and what structures – elected or unelected should plan for our city? What forms of people’s participation do we imagine for our cities?

Within the wide canvas of indulging the urban, there has been a growth; positively so, on understanding the various facets of the subject. Housing, migration, economic geography, role of land, issues of livelihoods, urban systems, provision of services to urban populations especially the urban poor, urban violence and exclusion, and urban infrastructure have been investigated with great detail. Indeed, these studies provide a lens to subjects hitherto unexplored. Yet, the core question of urban governance, on which arguably, many of these are not only contingent but are greatly affected, has received limited attention over the years. Understandably, the term ‘urban governance’ is not homogenous, and cannot be thought to be panacea for all things bad. However, understanding and advocating greater autonomy to the city, a politically accountable leadership and an inclusive city government which becomes the forum for planning the city are the backbone on which exigencies of urban systems, livelihoods, service delivery tilt on.

His Legacy

In the summer of 2014, KCS was appointed the Chairman of the “Expert Committee on the New Capital for Andhra Pradesh” by the Ministry of Home Affairs. As the Committee was about to depart on a weeklong trip of the newly carved state, KCS mentioned his deteriorating health condition and a no travel dictum issued by the doctors. Nonetheless, constant updates were taken from the members even at wee hours and a few visits were made to Hyderabad. Notwithstanding a jump in his medical regime, the Committee submitted its report much before the deadline.

The report of the committee left the decision to the political leadership of Andhra Pradesh, reaffirming his fundamental belief that in a democracy it is the people who matter. He believed, that a democracy will come to terms not by an orderly progress of law but only by creating platforms where battle will be fought contests would be held. It is in a question, which KCS posed to a gathering in Mumbai that offers a peek into his legacy; “Before you think of becoming Shanghai, shouldn’t Mumbai start thinking of becoming Mumbai first? Like everywhere else, we can lay the contours of battle – It is that much easy for us to promulgate victory then join the battle. The reason why I am spending so much time is because I think we are capable, we shouldn’t be sterile. We need to think out of the box.”

[i] Sivaramakrishnan, KC (1978), Indian Urban Scene, (Shimla, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies), 106.

[ii] Lecture delivered by KC Sivaramakrishnan on ‘Devolution and Urban Development’, (February 23, 2012) part of the Golden Jubilee Lectures on Governance, India International Centre available on http://www.iicdelhi.in/webcasts/view_webcast/golden-jubilee-lectures-on-governance-/ last accessed on 28th May 2016.

[iii] See, generally, Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2010), ‘Judicial Setback for Panchayats and Local Bodies’, Economic & Political Weekly XLV (32): 43-46.

[iv] Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2009), Courts, Panchayats & Nagarpalikas, (New Delhi, Academic Foundation), 257-270, 329.

[v] See, generally, Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2006), People’s Participation in Urban Governance (ed.), (New Delhi, Institute of Social Sciences), 38-51.

[vi] Lecture delivered by KC Sivaramakrishnan on ‘Devolution and Urban Development’, (February 23, 2012) part of the Golden Jubilee Lectures on Governance, India International Centre, Delhi, available on http://www.iicdelhi.in/webcasts/view_webcast/golden-jubilee-lectures-on-governance-/; last accessed on 28th May 2016.

[vii] Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2000), Power to the People, (New Delhi, Konark Publishers), 228-229.

[viii] Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2013), ‘Revisiting the 74th Constitutional Amendment for Better Metropolitan Governance’, Economic & Political Weekly, 48(13): 86-94.

[ix] Sivaramakrishnan, KC (2016), ‘Local Government”, in Sujit Choudhry, Madhav Khosla, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (eds), The Oxford Handbook of The Indian Constitution, (Oxford University Press), 578.

[x] Lecture delivered by KC Sivaramakrishnan on ‘India’s Mega Cities: Prospects and Challenges’, (March 15, 2012), Observers Research Foundation, Mumbai, available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JqG_jH5WaM ; last accessed on 28th May 2016.

Waste and air pollution: Panel on 7 March 2018

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PANEL DISCUSSION HELD AS PART OF THE CLEARING THE AIR SEMINAR SERIES
AIR POLLUTION ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

On 7 March 2018, the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment (ICEE) at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) organized a panel discussion on ‘Municipal Solid Waste as a cause of Air Pollution’ as part of the ongoing Clearing the Air? Seminar Series on Delhi’s Air Pollution. The panelists were Ravi Agarwal, founder director of Toxics Link, Nalini Shekhar, co–founder of Hasiru Dala, and Dr Seema Awasthi, founder and director of ICUC Consultants Pvt. Ltd., and the panel was moderated by Arkaja Singh, Fellow, Centre for Policy Research.

The panel discussed some of the best practices on waste disposal that can help reduce exposure to airborne toxins from municipal solid waste. Some of the strategies suggested give primacy to waste workers, whereas others emphasize on technology, infrastructure and management.

We have identified some important points that came up during the panel discussion and presented them in the form of a Q&A below. Videos of the panel discussion and the power point presentations made by the speakers can be accessed here.

What are the locations and kinds of exposures to various kinds of pollutants, particularly air borne pollutants that take place in the total disposal cycle of solid waste?
Ravi Agarwal (RA): The IIT-Kanpur report (Sharma and Dixit, 2016) attributes 8-9% to open burning of municipal solid waste as a source of PM10 and PM2.5. Waste is a very complex material which emits a cocktail of pollutants including harmful gases other than the classic pollutants and the regularly monitored PM10 and PM2.5. However, most of them are not accounted for due to the complexity of the waste stream. Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical pollutant generated from incinerators. While worldwide there are incineration standards, in India, despite very high dioxin exposure with serious health implications, there have been till recently no regulations for emission of dioxins. There are several dispersed sources of air pollutants from waste which are also not yet measured.

Most regulations are aimed at the end of the pipe emissions, undermining the complexity of the waste stream and the potential of pollution from each stage of the waste disposal cycle.

Seema Awasthi (SA): Nearly 35 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases like methane are estimated to be produced from dumpsites annually worldwide (as per the data from the International Solid Waste Association in 2015) The effluent gases from open waste burning include smoke, black carbon and other toxic fumes with low levels of dioxins and furans.

What are the pollution standards and regulations that govern waste disposal? Do they adequately consider the risk of air pollution? What are the main loopholes in the current regulatory and governance system?
RA: The existing standards are technological standards pertaining to the end of the pipe emissions reduction in the waste cycle. The new MSW Rules of 2016 acknowledged the need to formulate standards at each step in the complex waste stream. It is also the first time that the incineration standards were incorporated into the rules. However, there is a lack of will to support campaigns like that create awareness about the environmental dangers of open burning of waste.

The Sukhdev Vihar/ Okhla Timarpur incinerator is the one where a project with high capital investment was permitted without any environmental approvals.

A research document ‘Be careful with that cure’ by Toxics Link on dioxins emissions from medical waste incineration led to the change in incineration owing to cost of standards for dioxins. The Biomedical Waste Rules were formulated in 1998, and these were subsequently amended in 2016. This is also probably the only incineration law in the world that still prohibits the incineration of chlorinated waste across different waste categories.

Formulating environmental standards is easy. But to acquire skills and equipment, and attain a high quality regulatory system requires capacity building on the ground which is missing in the Indian scenario. For example, there is a 0.1 ng TEQ (nanogram Toxic Equivalents) limit on dioxin and furans but there is no ability to comply with it in India. Furthermore, in India, importance is given to waste disposal rather than reducing airborne emissions. There is a rush to install high cost technologies without adequate understanding of their regulatory or operation ecosystems. Decisions on using the technology for managing waste need to be based on logical assessment of the suitability of the proposed technology in terms of deriving the best cost to benefit ratio. High end, expensive technologies are often promoted by the business lobby. For example, plasma technology was proposed for waste to energy generation by a company in Gujarat that managed to get the standards for this technology incorporated in the 2016 MSW rules. However, plasma is a very high end technology, and internationally is used for destruction of chemical weapons. Its usability for MSW management in India is doubtful.

Standard making is a semi political, semi science based process and is also not always linked with health data; but is often designed on the basis of what is perceived to be achievable. There is no credible primary study on actual emissions from waste or their impacts on health.

SA: According to the 2016 MSW Rules, door to door management system should be in place that ensures collection of segregated waste. The responsibility to collect waste segregated as dry waste, wet waste and domestic hazardous waste (including sanitary waste etc.) lies with the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). As per the 2016 Rules, the bulk generators have to manage the waste they generate, whereas the city government is concerned with the waste generated by the households and small commercial units. The waste collectors/pickers transport the waste to the primary collection point. In big cities, the waste is further compacted in transfer stations or is transported to a processing facility. As per the rules, organic waste or waste with high calorific value should not be dumped or disposed.

Funds for installation of required infrastructure for waste management have been provided under the Swachh Bharat Mission. However, the challenge remains in sustainable operation of the projects and generation of funds for operation and maintenance by the city governments.

What are the main technologies and approaches for dealing with municipal solid waste?
SA: The philosophy of 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – is an efficient way to manage waste. Segregation implies more efficient waste management which reduces the amount of waste reaching landfills; thereby reducing the amount of waste that may have to be incinerated, leading to reductions in emissions. Another method is ‘Zero landfilling’ which aims at processing all the waste before it reaches the landfill. This concept also helps in addressing the issue of paucity of land for landfill sites in growing cities.

Rules prohibit the dumping of organic waste with high calorific into the landfill site. Biomethanation is a viable technical solution for processing such organic waste. Various technologies for incineration can be applied for dry waste and mixed waste. Refuse derived fuel (RDF) method is used for dry and wet waste where the waste is segregated, dried and made into pellets which are then used as fuel.

The JNNURM promoted windrow composting as a method of efficient management of organic waste. The compost generated from most of the windrow composting plants, however, failed to meet the standards of compost that could be used for agricultural purposes. Hence, the smaller cities are now encouraged to use segregate wet waste for composting. For large cities, currently, waste-to-energy options are being promoted mainly because they enable handling large quantities of waste in smaller areas, reducing volume significantly, generating only 15-20% of rejects in the form of ash and inerts. Simultaneously, we get energy as the end product for which the Government of India provides subsidy to help make the project finacially viable.

Biomining with scientific closure is an option being explored to manage the huge quantities of waste lying in the open dumpsites in almost every city of the country. Through biomining, one can segregate and recover useful material lying within the big waste mounds, thereby reducing waste footprint, resulting in reclamation of land that could be used for construction of scientifc landfill or waste processing facility. However, biomining is an expensive process and can only be adopted by those municipalities which have adequate capital for setting-up the required infrastructure.

50% of Bangalore households are now segregating their waste. How has this come about? What has been the role of the city authorities, and the waste workers, both formal and informal, in achieving this?
Nalini Shekhar: The informal waste pickers working with Hasirudala are filling the gap by providing a waste management system, which the local government could not provide. With the help of the waste pickers, 1050 tonnes of waste is being managed, which is resulting in saving 84 crore rupees per annum for the city. The waste pickers are recognized as extremely skilled labor and in Bangalore city they have been issued identity cards with the city logo and signature of the municipal commissioner, on the initiative of Hasirudala. ‘No burning of waste’ campaign of Hasirudala was the first campaign centered around the role of waste pickers. Bangalore is the first city to have a MoU with the waste pickers. Around 80% of the city’s waste is no longer burnt by the waste pickers.

Hasirudala has managed to involve the government. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) helped in setting up of nearly 180 dry waste collection centers in about two years. Every ward now has a dry waste collection center for non organic waste. All these dry waste collection centers are managed by waste pickers. Dry waste is collected twice a week in every ward with the help of waste pickers. Further, the waste pickers are given work orders in their name to collect dry waste, while the wet/organic waste is collected by contractors.

The three-way waste collection, i.e., dry waste, wet waste and sanitary waste, was also initiated in Bangalore with the help of waste pickers. The separate category of sanitary waste came into being in 2017 with the intervention of Hasirudala. It is considered as municipal solid waste while being collected, and is considered as biomedical waste for disposal.

Reduction of waste is also important and Karnataka is the first state to pass a legislation banning one time use plastic. Waste workers showed readiness to give up on making more money out of more waste collected at the cost of public health. The ban has only been successful due to citizen participation.

The reject waste collected from households has reduced from 310 g per household per day to 95 g due to better segregation of waste. This was the initiative of the for-profit HasiruDala Innovation Pvt Ltd catering to 33,000 households a day. The waste pickers are not only recognized as skilled labour force but are also seen as entrepreneurs and Hasirudala’s interventions have targeted their innovation skills in all its programs.

What are the challenges concerning location and maintenance of landfill sites? What are the possible solutions to saturated landfill sites?
SA: The issue of solid waste management has become so pertinent in the present times because the quantum of waste generated has increased tremendously. Limited land and resource availability with the municipalities makes waste management a challenge in big cities. It is also an issue with smaller cities which lack the resources and infrastructure for efficient waste management.

In our country, only 70% of the total waste is collected and only 20% of the total waste generated is treated. The remaining 80% finds its way to the landfill (Planning Commission, Govt. of India. 2014). Nearly 90% of the population in South Asia does not have access to waste collection and disposal, as per the data from the International Solid Waste Association in 2015.

Landfill fires are a big cause of concern as they are a source of air pollution. Decomposition of organic waste, in the absence of oxygen, generates methane and carbon dioxide. Methane has a high calorific value and makes the landfill site vulnerable accidental fires. High temperature and pressure conditions are also conducive for starting a fire within a landfill. Burning of waste to reduce its quantum is also sometimes the only option for smaller cities with inadequate infrastructure for waste processing.

According to the Rules, the waste rich in organic contentment, recyclable waste and dry waste with high calorific content should not reach the landfill sites and has to be recycled or processed to a useful end product. In the case of saturated dumpsite, the dumpsite should be properly closed following the prescribed scientific procedure.

In scientifically operated landfill sites, the excavated space is covered with an impervious liner to prevent groundwater pollution and the waste, strictly the rejects, is covered daily with 15 cm soil layer after being dumped. After the landfill is full to its capacity, it is closed with an impervious liner (clay, HTPE etc) followed by soil cover and green grass cover. However, due to the lack of resources the standard procedure is not followed. The Gorai site in Mumbai is the only site where a landfill site has not only been successfully closed but the CDM credits are being used for managing the project.

Waste and Workers in Hyderabad

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AUDIO RECORDING OF A TALK BY ANANT MARIGANTI
URBAN SERVICES

Listen to full audio recording (above) by Anant Mariganti on how the waste economy and different forms of work relating to waste management interact with each other in the city of Hyderabad. With waste management being as much about urban governance as about urban informality (actors and institutions involved), the talk analyses the process in an urban setting through focusing on communities.

Mariganti is the Executive Director of the Hyderabad Urban Lab and a geographer with a PhD from the University of Minnesota.

We Are Greener Than You Think: Examining Indian Cities’ Response to Climate Change

Posted on by cprindia

FULL VIDEO OF CPR-CSH WORKSHOP
CLIMATE RESEARCH

Watch the full video (above) of the talk by Ankit Bhardwaj and Radhika Khosla where they present a comprehensive literature review that synthesises the growing research and salience of the topic. In doing so, they describe the recent trends and characteristics that mark Indian cities’ approaches to climate change.

A deeper perspective has been shown by examining the case of a single city, Rajkot and describing how this second city is using existing governance arrangements to promote climate efforts, and the ways in which the efforts can be scaled. The workshop ends with a discussion on the mainstreaming of these emerging climate actions into the broader set of urban development goals.

Ankit Bhardwaj is a Research Associate at CPR’s Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment and works on characterising India’s multiple transitions and using a multi-objective approach to integrate climate and development objectives at the city level in India

Radhika Khosla is a Fellow at CPR and works on the integrated nature of India’s energy sector to examine the linkages between energy, development and climate change, particularly in urban areas.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here. Find all available videos of previous workshops here.

Unpacking the progress of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM, Gramin) three years on

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BY THE ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE AT CPR
SANITATION SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES BUREAUCRACY

The Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) marked its third anniversary this year. With only two more years to go to meet targets, what are we seeing as priorities for the Mission? Have they changed?

Devashish: Let us state upfront that there are in fact two ways of discerning priorities. The first is what the officially stated government priority is – available through the programme norms and guidelines. But there is also the priority that gets translated on the ground – what has been carried forth by implementers based on their own capacity and understanding. There is often a significant gap between the two. The recently released, updated implementation guidelines indicate that the priorities of the mission are witnessing a forceful reorientation towards the initial ideal of a community-led, sustainable movement. These revisions also seem to address several of the concerns raised by media and civil society and signal the right intentions.

More specifically, the guidelines include detailed instructions on the monitoring and verification protocol, as well as administrative capacity issues like manpower and trainings. They are also more focussed on the sustainability of the ODF (Open Defecation Free) status beyond mission activities , such as, what is being called ODF ++; issues related to toilet technology; and the need for greater attention to behaviour change with interpersonal communication as a means of bridging the access usage gap.

These are not new focal areas but a more explicit statement of principles the mission has always espoused. That they are reinforced three years into the five-year mission period suggests that the Centre sees the gaps in the programme, and is urging mid-term course correction. However, in the context of the current push to meet targets within a specified deadline, unless we find ways to strengthen implementation, there is a danger that these guidelines and principles will dissipate as they travel along the bureaucratic channels to the ground.

The government has consistently maintained that the objective of the mission is not only construction but behaviour change. With seven states already declared ODF and others striving for the status, do we have data available on toilet usage?

Devashish: This is the biggest gap in the existing monitoring framework of the sanitation sector. As we mentioned last year, collecting usage data is complicated, and quantitative data in this regard is often unreliable. At present the NSSO (National Sample Survey Office at the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) is an important source of toilet usage numbers. However, their approach to capturing it is fraught with problems.

For example, the wording of the question itself is a concern. It asks whether ‘members are using latrine’. This comes across at once as leading and accusatory and is likely to bias the respondent into answering in the affirmative. Further, no attempt is made to talk to other members of the household and verify what the respondent answers on their behalf. As RICE institute also notes, how you ask the question, whom you ask, how many times you ask, all have implications on the answer. There are also seasonal variations – usage tends to change during the rainy seasons, for example. We ourselves faced this problem in our survey when we got different answers to the question – where do you normally go versus where did you go today!

Avani: The other, more current source of tracking usage is the Swachh Survekshan, conducted annually by the Quality Council of India on behalf of the central government. Here too, however, the same shortcomings can be noted. Their approach is even more curtailed and they only ask the respondent ‘does any member (of the household) defecate in the open sometimes?’

The implications of this approach are evident from numerous stories on the gaps between access and usage. The concern that ODF Panchayats are not truly ODF has been flagged by AI and others previously. Recognising this, the guidelines have laid out a detailed monitoring and verification process and need for continued engagement with ODF Panchayats and villages after declaration, rewards for Panchayats that perform well, and other measures to ensure that official declarations do not become an end in themselves. Moreover, this time the guidelines focus on the use of independent qualitative studies in order to ascertain the status of usage. This is definitely a positive step. More focus needs to be given to collecting regular, independent data through different methods on tracking usage and compliance to policy.

Then, what can be said of the status of toilets that have already been built?

Devashish: Aside from everything else, it is very clear is that toilet construction is happening on a massive scale. While the latest Swachh Survekshan found that 90% of toilets are being used regularly, other independent estimates tend to be more conservative. One also often finds ground reportage based on anecdotal evidence claiming that many toilets are unusable and employed for storage and other purposes. The truth is likely somewhere in between. Of the millions of toilets being constructed, many are likely being used and many are probably not. While one may argue about where this proportion lies, it is safe to say that the ODF states are not truly free of open defecation. It would be more accurate to say that they are relatively freer of open defecation than before.

Avani: While this sounds positive – it is also a cause for worry. We have seen this already happen in the push for school toilets and specifically girls’ toilets. A few years ago the government had launched a Swachh Vidyalaya campaign. All focus and attention was on meeting the target of 100% toilet construction in all schools in the country. On Independence Day 2015, one was greeted by a congratulatory message on the completion of the target of constructing over 4.15 lakh toilets in 2.61 lakh schools. Consequently, the focus shifted away from school toilets towards individual household toilets. However, a look at the data suggests a large number of schools still not having access to a functional, usable toilet. According to ASER 2016 (Annual Status of Education Report), more than 30% of schools did not have a functional and usable toilet. A recent survey we conducted in a district in Rajasthan in nine Panchayats also found a significant lack of usable toilets in public facilities.

The Swachh Bharat Mission has been critiqued for placing emphasis on toilet construction while not being able to adequately render other policy aspects such as awareness raising for toilet use. What is your understanding of the situation?

Devashish: ODF is possible only if each and every person uses a toilet, each and every day. However, given the difficulty in capturing and tracking usage, the current ODF declaration process equates construction and usage, implicitly presuming that all those who construct toilets also use them. Not only is this not a valid assumption, it necessitates that ODF declarations be based on the only available quantitative measure, namely SBM construction targets, which are outdated and an inexact estimate of the actual toilet needs. For example, if a Panchayat had a mandated target of a 100 toilets, they declare themselves ODF as soon as a 100 toilets are constructed. That this Panchayat might in fact need 150 toilets, or that only 50 of these constructed toilets are actually used, are not always considerations. There are several instances of Panchayats being hurriedly declared ODF, often in a matter of weeks, under top down pressure.

Avani: Just to add, it’s important to remember that ODF is a process not an end in itself. However, while the goalpost may have changed from toilet construction to ODF, the problem is that this message has not fully been translated to the ‘implementers’ on the ground. And that is where I even question the SBM Dashboard. We all know the saying that what gets measured gets done, and for anyone who has seen the MIS (Management Information System) dashboard – the thing that stands out is a ticker counting the number of toilets constructed. Ironically, the Ministry’s own SBM idea book states that ‘[The SBM] approach necessitates adoption of the right processes, an understanding of actual outcomes and ability to resist a target driven approach.’ I would much rather the SBM-Dashboard instead showcased actual success stories – of the champions and ideas and innovations that different administrators have used. There are plenty of those and those should be highlighted and celebrated, not just the toilets constructed. In the absence of that, the main focus which is meant to be on catalysing a community-led social reform movement will be at odds with the adopted approach of targets and strict timelines that are imposed in the current ‘mission mode’ of functioning. Mass reform to overturn an engrained social norm is unlikely to take place in this timeframe, and the beleaguered frontline bureaucrats are clearly aware of this. They have no resort therefore but to focus on hard numbers and enforced target completions because that is the only approach which will achieve what is being asked of them.

What are the challenges that you foresee for the Swachh Bharat Mission in the coming years?

Devashish and Avani: As the name indicates, Swachh Bharat is a mission mode programme, which in government parlance means that it is a high intensity, limited duration scheme meant to achieve a specific purpose, namely, ending the practice of defecating in the open.

It must also be recognised that this approach is inevitable not just in the sanitation space but across every major government programme in the current governance environment. The work of Profs. Pritchett et al. of Harvard University on government capability and success of large development programmes helps shed light on some of our systemic problems. They posit that a system with weak institutional capability (they characterise India’s institutions as being moderately capable) when pressed to reach unachievable goals, will find solace in ‘mimicry of form without substance’. In effect, top down, large scale, target driven programmes which do not account for local realities and ask ‘too much of too little, too soon’ will inevitably devolve into chasing nominal success indicators, focussing on tangible outputs rather than outcomes. The much lauded political will driving SBM, coupled with existing weak institutional capability, is leading to ‘premature loadbearing’, a breakdown of the intentions, and inability to escape this capability trap. Simply put, our systems are not robust enough to meet the objectives, and adding top-down pressure is counterproductive to say the least.

Swachh Bharat is not a typical scheme – and for measuring its success it can’t be treated as one either. Again quoting from the Ministry’s own Idea book, it states that SBM implementation requires a lot of ‘unlearning’. For administrators, the schematic implementation usually requires a blue print which needs to be followed often in a top down manner. There are checklists, reports, money, and beneficiaries. Swachh Bharat instead is a Jan Andolan – a movement that needs to be built through shared understanding and collective action. There are no beneficiaries but owners, no ‘right process’ but complete flexibility based on the ground situation. These are subtle changes in language between saying this is our target and let’s do anything and everything to achieve it versus if we want to become a country that practices safe sanitation to improve public health, what is the enabling environment needed for it.

Consequently, there are many challenges that are now emerging, some requiring immediate attention while others needing sustained efforts.

The first of these challenges is to ensure the veracity of the granted ODF status. It is important to ensure that the 2,73,315 villages declared ODF so far, and the others to come, are truly free of open defecation. This is essential because in a mission mode programme, the likelihood of continuing efforts towards an objective that has already been (even nominally) met is limited. Visits to ODF Panchayats make it evident that work does indeed stop cold as soon as the declaration is made.

Second, is a question of sustaining the ODF status once achieved. As we mentioned, freedom from open defecation must be seen as a process rather than a one-time outcome. Given the ultimate objective of reducing the morbidity burden of sanitation related diseases, it must be ensured that not only are ODF villages truly ODF but that they remain so.

Third, a significant challenge is that of ensuring consistent and sufficient water supply. Not only is lack of water found to be a barrier to toilet usage and maintenance, the implications on additional labour for women charged with carrying water are also a concern.

Finally, it is important to remember that Solid Liquid Waste and Faecal Sludge Management (FSM) are integral aspects of safe sanitation. While the SBM-Gramin guidelines speak about a twin pit toilet, which does not require emptying out of faecal sludge matter – for most households who can afford to build a toilet – the chosen method is a septic tank or a single pit toilet. The implications of this may not be visible today but it is a public health crisis in the making and thus must be addressed today.

In the absence of FSM services, there are only two possible outcomes of the exponential growth in toilets. The toilets will fill up in a few years and be rendered defunct, or our traditional FSM mechanism, namely manual scavenging, will be resorted to. Not only will this perpetuate an exploitative social system, but it will also give rise to a public health emergency. This might sound alarmist but this waste will, in the absence of alternatives, be disposed in open land or water sources, as it is today. Instead of disperse accumulation of faecal sludge over a period, we will find it being released in a concentrated form, reversing all the gains that the preceding years have seen.

There is no doubt that a true and complete Swachh Bharat is a challenge for a country like India. But for Swachh Bharat to succeed, we need to highlight its successes and but equally importantly discuss the constraints to ensure course correction. It is only then that we will be able to meet our goal.