Isolated India and China reluctantly agreed to the outcome

The Durban climate agreement has buried India's reluctance to take emission cuts and has got three years to decide how much carbon emissions reductions it would be willing to take after 2020. Chetan Chauhan reports. Key points | What climate talks agreed to

Updated on: Dec 11, 2011, 23:16:22 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Durban climate agreement has buried India's reluctance to take emission cuts and has got three years to decide how much carbon emissions reductions it would be willing to take after 2020.

India has agreed to reduce its emission intensity by 20-25 % of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2020 in business to usual scenario and Durban platform, the term of the agreement, is a step forward. The impact of emission cuts on India's economic and how it makes life costlier for an average citizen will be an issue of debate in the coming years.

The new emission reduction regime will be decided on basis of equity, which could mean much lower emission reduction for India as compared to China, whose per capita global warming causing carbon release is almost double of India's.

"It is clear from this conference that the fight to reduce emissions effectively in an unequal world will be even more difficult in the years to come. But it is a conference, which has put the issue of equity back into the negotiations. It is for this reason an important move ahead," said Sunita Narain, Director General of NGO Centre for Science and Environment.

But, the next three years -- till 2015 -- are crucial as during this period country wise emission reductions will be decided based on review of the pledges of the rich nations, voluntary mitigation action of the developing world and of fifth assessment report of UN's scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Durban platform fits well for rich nations have been demanding ---- common but differentiated responsibility with respective capabilities, enshrined in the United Nations climate convention. The European media has hailed the conference outcome as major victory for European Union, which on Monday had proposed a timeline based roadmap to operationalise binding climate treaty by 2020.

India and China were able to get long term finance to adapt to climate change, transfer and development of clean technologies in Durban outcome but failed to get a legally forceable treaty beyond 2020. The United States came on board as transparency of climate actions and it has emission reductions for all countries was included.

India, China and United States were under immense pressure to accept the European Union roadmap as the poor nations including Bangladesh and Maldives backed the roadmap. There was also division in the biggest group of 132 nations in the UN climate conference of G-77 plus China with African island and least developed nations supporting the EU proposal.

The outcome means that India has abandoned its stand of not agreeing to emission cuts till its per capita emissions rise above average per capita emissions of the developed world. As per modelling studies, India's per capita emissions will be less than that of rich nations even in 2030.

The found of the new approach will be laid dow in the 12th five-year plan, which would start from the next financial year.

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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