Delhi says no to removal of trade barriers

India on Saturday was at the forefront with Brazil, opposing a proposal of developed nations seeking removal of trade barriers to allow transfer of clean technologies, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 9, 2007, 02:02:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India on Saturday was at the forefront with Brazil, opposing a proposal of developed nations seeking removal of trade barriers to allow transfer of clean technologies.

The European Union and the United States made a joint proposal through the World Trade Organisation to remove specific barriers to trade in clean energy technologies like wind turbines and solar panels as part of the long- running Doha round of talks.

Both India and Brazil termed the proposal “disguised protectionism” to boost exports from rich countries under the pretext of climate change mitigation.

“India had refused to any clean technology transfer mechanism without transfer of intellectual property rights. Climate change cannot be used to boost exports from rich countries to the developing world,” said an Indian delegate at the Bali conference of 190 nations on climate change.

Brazil opposed saying that bio-fuels like ethanol from sugarcane have not been included among the clean technologies proposed for transfer to the developing world. The country is the world’s biggest producer of ethanol.

Commerce ministry officials are representing India at the ministerial level talks, unlike the US, Australia, Brazil and Portugal, whose trade ministers are attending the meet.

“Our stand is crystal clear. Let clean technology transfer start first under the Kyoto Protocol, then we can talk about the future,” said Indian environment secretary Meena Gupta.

On Sunday, WTO chief Pascal Lamy will look at what kind of tools and instruments could be applied to maximise linkages between trade and climate policies, Reuters has reported.

Australia, which ratified the Kyoto Protocol only at the beginning of the Bali conference, joined Japan and the US on Saturday in demanding emission cuts in developing countries, especially the industrialised ones, like India and China. The developing countries have rejected all such demands.

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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