The World at the Climate Crossroads

2 December 2009

Praful Bidwai

It is depressingly clear that Copenhagen will at best produce a ‘political’ agreement—just as the Bali conference did two years ago—but not a global climate compact with time-bound, quantifiable, legally binding and enforceable goals or measures.

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December 2009

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About the authors

Praful Bidwai

Praful Bidwai is a political columnist, social science researcher, and activist on issues of human rights, the environment, global justice and peace. He currently holds the Durgabai Deshmukh Chair in Social Development, Equity and Human Security at the Council for Social Development, Delhi, affiliated to the Indian Council for Social Science Research.

A former Senior Editor of The Times of India, Bidwai is one of South Asia’s most widely published columnists, whose articles appear in more than 25 newspapers and magazines. He is also frequently published by The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique and Il Manifesto.

Bidwai is a founder-member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (India). He received the Sean MacBride International Peace Prize, 2000 of the International Peace Bureau, Geneva & London.

He was a Senior Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Bidwai is the co-author, with Achin Vanaik, of South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999, a radical critique of the nuclearisation of India and Pakistan and of reliance on nuclear weapons for security.

Recent publications from Environmental Justice

A Landmark Victory for Justice: Biowatch’s Battle with the South African State and Monsanto Published by Biowatch South Africa, this is a book about access to information, the right to know, and action in the public’s interest – a must-read for anyone campaigning for environmental or social justice.	Protecting carbon to destroy forests This paper provides historical background and reports of experiences on the ground to show how land and nature enclosures are central to REDD+, and why it therefore cannot be fixed.
Myth Busting: EU's Emissions Trading System Since the adoption of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), emissions have risen and the price of consumer energy went up along with the profits of many industrial actors.	Accounting for carbon, depoliticising plunder The EU aspires to global leadership in developing ‘sustainable biofuels’, arguing they can substitute for fossil fuels, but the result has been dispossession of rural communities throughout the South.