Barely a week ahead of the UN meet on climate change in Copenhagen, India on Monday made it clear that there will be no compromise on its position on carbon emission cuts and will preserve its economic interest at all cost.
New Delhi also sounded sceptical over substantive legally binding
outcome from the Copenhagen summit starting from
December 7 and expects only "weak" commitments from the developed countries.
"At present what we are really negotiating is not how to deal with the climate change, but how we preserve our economic positions and how do we cap trade and promote some of our economic interest," Shyam Saran, the special envoy to prime minister on climate change, said at a CII function in New Delhi.
"And when you start mixing up dealing with what is an elemental global threat to humanity with profits and cost
calculations or calculations about economic interest, then that leads to nowhere," the country's lead negotiator said.
Saran categorically stated that India is not expecting any fund or technology transfer for mitigation and adaptation
for climate change from the developed nations at Copenhagen as what he could gather from the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Port of Spain.
"Hence, in this scenario we have to safeguard our country's interest," he said, adding that in no way India
would take legally binding emission cuts.