India seeks Kyoto type agreement after 2020

Giving European Union thumbs down, India has proposed that global climate treaty after 2020 should be similar to existing treaty Kyoto Protocol stipulating mandatory emission cuts for the developed world and voluntary mitigation action for the developing world.

Updated on: Apr 30, 2012, 20:46:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Giving European Union thumbs down, India has proposed that global climate treaty after 2020 should be similar to existing treaty Kyoto Protocol stipulating mandatory emission cuts for the developed world and voluntary mitigation action for the developing world.

European Union after the Durban climate conference has claimed that the new climate treaty to be effective after 2020 should have emission reduction targets for all nations depending on the level of emission trajectory.

India, which has opposed any binding emission cutes, has told United Nations that it would like the post 2020 arrangements to resemble the Kyoto type approach.

“Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries have binding emission cuts in absolute terms which have to be fulfilled at economy wide level and there is a compliance regime for verifying and enforcing the achievement of targets,” India has told UN.

There is no such binding clause for the developing countries such as India and China.

“The responsibilities of developing countries in a post 2020 arrangement will clearly need to be built on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility,” said India’s submission for negotiating the future treaty.

Most climate change experts on Monday felt that no climate treaty was possible without equity framework and India should take a lead in ensuring it becomes foundation of the proposed treaty.

The formulation of the treaty will be discussed in the new ad-hoc working group called Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. Its first meeting is expected to take place in Bonn, Germany, in first week of May.

India has also told the world community that it will engage in discussion on the principles of equity and differentiated responsibilities but made it clear that one set of rules cannot apply to all the countries.

Agreeing with the view point that emission gap needs to be bridged, India said it also meant funding by the richer nations for adopting cleaner technologies and building capacity to fight climate change.

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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