New Delhi
3 October 2009
YOJNA GUSAI and RAMESH RAMACHANDRAN
Politics, not science, is dominating the discourse on climate change as world leaders
from 192 countries get ready for the 7 to 18 December summit in Copenhagen. Many
rounds of preparatory talks have taken place this year to set the stage for the Summit,
but as United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-moon said, the negotiations were
moving at "glacial" speed. The Copenhagen conference will chart out a successor to the
Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012. Unlike at Kyoto, the United States today is fully
engaged in the climate change negotiations but US President Barack Obama has
disappointed the world by not offering specific commitments.
The politics of climate change is manifested in the manner in which the developed
countries are seeking to shift the onus for action to developing countries, which have
contributed little to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses. The West seeks to control
the negotiations by insisting that the developing countries also must accept fixed quotas
for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, India, China and other
developing economies contend that the major contributor to climate change and global
warming are the industrialised countries and, therefore, they should take the initiative of
bringing down emission levels by at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
India has indicated that it will not change its stand, but at the same time, it will want to be
a deal-maker, not deal-breaker, in Copenhagen. New Delhi expected that the outcome of
the Copenhagen conference must be rooted in equity and respects the provisions and
principles of the UNFCCC, especially common but differentiated responsibilities and also
historical responsibility. As a measure of its commitment to the issue, India recently
established a National Climate Action Plan which envisaged voluntary mitigation
measures by 2020.
Shyam Saran, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy for Climate Change,
said in a recent interview to this newspaper that India sought a balanced package that
satisfactorily addressed issues such as mitigation, adaptation, transfer of technology,
and finance. "It is not in the treaty [for developing countries such as India] to take on
emission cuts," Mr Saran said about the demands being made on India and others to
take on legally binding emission reduction targets.
"We are not negotiating a new treaty. We are seeking enhanced implementation of the
UN Action Plan," Mr Saran said, recalling that under the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) only the developed countries are required to
take on absolute emission reduction targets, while the developing countries will be
encouraged to take mitigation actions with the provision that these need to be supported
by adequate financial resources and technology transfer.
Union Minister of State of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said that there is
simply no case for the pressure that India, which has among the lowest emissions per
capita, should reduce emissions. Even with eight to nine per cent GDP growth every year
for the next decade or two, India's per capita emissions will be well below that of
developed country averages. The United States, which has five per cent of the world's
population, produces 22 per cent of the global greenhouse gases. In sharp contrast,
India's greenhouse gas emissions are just four per cent, despite having 17 per cent of
the world's population.
Mr Ramesh also asserted that India will not buckle under pressure from the West on the
issue of legally binding greenhouse gases emission reduction targets, but as a
developing economy, India will try to bring down emission levels through domestic
actions as enumerated in the National Action Plan. Under the Plan, India will make a
voluntarily contribution by promoting green technologies and renewable sources of
energy, reducing dependence on fossil (non-renewable) fuels such as coal, and
increasing energy efficiency. The National Action Plan drew applause from two British
ministers, who returned home impressed by India's seriousness about mitigating the
effects of climate change.
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