Developing world fights against new eco barriers

The developing world is fighting a new global environmental war in the name of green economy, meaning economic growth by lesser consumption of natural resources.

Updated on: Oct 5, 2011, 02:00:27 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The developing world is fighting a new global environmental war in the name of green economy, meaning economic growth by lesser consumption of natural resources.

The rich nations wants to get UN ratification to impose a series of trade barriers for sustainable growth but the Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had opposed any such move saying "green economy should not lead to green protectionism".

The UN is holding a conference in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 to have a new agreement on green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.

A two-day ministerial level consultation between 54 countries to discuss broad outline for the agreement ended in Delhi on Tuesday with rich nations remaining non-committal on financing clean technology transfer and environment protection in the developing world.

The rich poor divided was visible with Colombia and Guatemala backed by the US proposing uniform sustainable development goals for nations but Natarajan said there cannot be same goals for all. “Any such goal has to be based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and equity,” she said.

The developing nations are already facing a green protectionism from rich nations in form of carbon tax to be imposed by the European Union on flights using European airports from January 2012.

Although Natarajan termed the tax as "unfair trade practice" European environment commissioner Janez Potocnick defended it saying such a measure was the way out for sustainable use of natural resources.

More of such green protectionism is on the way as the European Union is discussing higher ecological tax on products grown by using harmful environmental subsidies or produced by dirty fuels such as coal. It would mean higher tax on good produced by consuming higher energy as compared to products, whose production require less energy consumption.

The Rio plus 20 meet is also seen as an attempt of rich nations to push its new renewable and energy efficient technologies without compromising on the Intellectual Property Rights.

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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