Cabinet nod to India's tough stance at climate talks

The union cabinet on Thursday approved India's tough stance on climate change issues despite rural development minister Jairam Ramesh cautioning against the country being seen as a "deal breaker" at the Durban climate talks.

Updated on: Dec 2, 2011, 24:58:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The union cabinet on Thursday approved India's tough stance on climate change issues despite rural development minister Jairam Ramesh cautioning against the country being seen as a "deal breaker" at the Durban climate talks.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had proposed at the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India should not give in to the pressure of the developed world and should say no to a binding climate treaty.

Natarajan, while opting for a hardline approach, had also proposed that India should push for second committment period for existing climate treaty-Kyoto Protocol and ensure that new transparency regime on climate mitigation action was not intrusive to the country's domestic policy.

According to sources, Ramesh, who was head of India's climate negotiating team in 2010, reportedly expressed fear that India's tough stance can isolate it at the Durban talks. He was also of the view that India should keep its options flexible to avoid being described as a deal breaker.

Another functionary, who opposed Natarajan's proposal, was planning commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia. He suggested that India should not toe the line of rich countries, which have historical responsibility to reduce carbon emissions, and not the developing countries.

They were also of the view that China has left its options wide open whereas India was perceived to have shut its negotiating window.

But senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee, Kapil Sibal and Kamal Nath supported Natarajan's proposal and wanted Natarajan not to compromise with India's stated position at Durban. India has been advocating equity to be the basis for any future treaty.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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