No miracles likely at climate change summit: Ramesh

India has rejected the United States and Australia’s request of not to press for Kyoto Protocol-type agreement on climate change for future, saying Kyoto protects the interests of the developing world.

Updated on: Sep 21, 2009, 01:48:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India has rejected the United States and Australia’s request of not to press for Kyoto Protocol-type agreement on climate change for future, saying Kyoto protects the interests of the developing world.

This could possibly mean no agreement at Copenhagen in December on climate change beyond 2012, when Kyoto, aimed at greenhouse gas reducing emissions, ends.

The United States and Australia, the two big greenhouse gas emitters not part of the Kyoto Protocol, had made the demand ahead of the United Nation’s conference in New York and G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, both in the US, next week.

“We should not expect miracles at Copenhagen,” Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday in New York, indicating that the control limit being sought by developed nations were too high. “We must aim for low hanging fruit.”

India is at present fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, but is expected to be third biggest emitter by 2020, by when China would be top greenhouse gas emitter. But, because of its huge population, India and China’s per capita emissions would be still less than that of the developed world. The US per capita is expected to be three times higher than that of India by 2020.

Ramesh, who has raised tempo against developed countries on climate change issues, had made it clear that both India and China want to strengthen Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen.

Both the countries want consensus on the existing Kyoto stipulations of afforestation to promote carbon sequestration, strengthening the Clean Development Mechanism and technology sharing.

But, it is not agreeable to the developed world, which is insisting on the developing countries to agree to emission cuts, not a condition in Kyoto Protocol. “We will pursue voluntary measures to reduce emissions but will not accept any mandatory emission cuts,” Ramesh 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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