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| India for climate change pact |
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Saturday, August 01, 2009
NEW DELHI: India insisted on Friday it wanted to reach a global agreement on fighting climate change at the upcoming UN summit in Copenhagen but reiterated its opposition to binding carbon emission cuts.
“We are not defensive, we are not obstructionist. We want an international agreement in Copenhagen,” Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi.
But India “simply is not in a position to take on legally binding emissions reductions targets,” he said, while pressing rich nations to provide technical and monetary aid to help developing countries fight global warming.
Ramesh’s statement came ahead of the December conference in Copenhagen, which is meant to seal a new international accord on fighting climate change after the Kyoto Protocol’s requirements expire in 2012.
India and fellow emerging market heavyweight China have consistently opposed binding emission cuts in a new climate treaty until developed nations, particularly the United States, present sufficient targets of their own.
India, like China, says that having to meet binding cuts now will prevent it from raising its people out of poverty as rich countries have already done on the back of industrial growth fuelled by coal, oil and gas.
Ramesh said the importance of forests in reducing carbon emissions, finance and technology were “the areas under which India is seeking to influence the international debate on climate change.”
Forestation is one of the new steps outlined by India to tackle climate change. Others include mandatory energy efficiency labels on electrical appliances such as television sets and refrigerators.
New Delhi, which has pledged not to let its per capita emissions exceed those of rich nations, launched a push last year to expand solar power — and not fossil fuels — as it develops energy sources in a country where some 400 million people lack regular electricity. While per capita emissions are low in India — the average Indian produces one tonne of carbon dioxide to the average American’s 20 tonnes — its huge population put it among the world’s leading emitters.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
