Climate change: India ready to play hard ball

The next round of climate talks in December is likely to be a tough one — pitting developing countries against the developed world. Pushing for a level playing field, India has asked the UN to address the developing nations’ concerns when climate talks are held. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Oct 9, 2011, 02:36:49 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The next round of climate talks in December is likely to be a tough one — pitting developing countries against the developed world.

Pushing for a level playing field, India has asked the United Nations to address the developing nations’ concerns when climate talks are held in Durban, South Africa.

After showing flexibility at the Cancun talks, India is pushing for an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime for developing countries to have access to costly clean western technologies. The Cancun agreements were silent on IPR issue.

The December 2010 talks also mentioned “equity” without defining it. India has defined it as a right to have equal access to global atmospheric space - something opposed by the developed countries.

A lot of issues absolutely important to India were left out at Cancun, said Chandra Bhushan, executive director of NGO Centre for Science and Environment. “It is important that India brings equity and technology issues to the negotiating table which will allow it to move faster towards low carbon growth,” he said.

In an eight-page proposal submitted to the UN's convention on climate change - the world body's decision-making arm on climate talks — at Panama City, India has sought a “facilitative IPR regime”, linked equity with access to sustainable development and called for a bar on imposing “unfair trade practices in the name of climate protection”. Equity should be the basis of climate deals.

Cancun agreements didn’t address the concerns of developing countries and their resolution would be key to “unlocking agreements” in other areas, India has said. The Durban meet should give a timeframe for resolving the issues.

The European Union’s and other developed countries’ move to impose a carbon tax (euro 2.5 per passenger) on flights departing from European airports will be contested at Durban.

The conference should prohibit rich countries from taking unilateral measures in the name of climate protection, India has said, seeking “unambiguous and firm commitment” from the developed world on the matter. “Such unfair measures can lead to fragmented... and sub-optimal climate policy,” it said.

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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