PM agrees to attend climate summit

On the day PM Manmohan Singh announced his decision to attend the heads of state meeting in Copenhagen on December 18, Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh issued a letter to most of the 24 ‘sulking’ Indian climate negotiators clarifying the country’s stand for the conference starting on Monday, reports Chetan Chauhan. Taking a stand

Updated on: Dec 6, 2009, 01:44:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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On the day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced his decision to attend the heads of state meeting in Copenhagen on December 18, environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh issued a letter to most of the 24 ‘sulking’ Indian climate negotiators clarifying the country’s stand for the conference starting on Monday. Taking a stand

Ramesh’s statement in Parliament on Thursday on an emission-intensity reduction of 20-25 per cent of India’s 2005 levels by 2020 and allowing verification

of domestic emission-mitigation action had caused confusion among the negotiators.

Ramesh issued a clarification after some unhappy negotiators threatened they would not go to Denmark.

“I’ve told them that the emission intensity reduction target is voluntary and not binding,” Ramesh told HT. “I’ve also said we’ll submit our domestic action under a ‘national communication’ to the UN and won’t open to international scrutiny. All of them (the negotiators) are going now.”

A negotiator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the last-minute emission-intensity cuts, without a road map to achieve them, would weaken India’s bargaining position. “The rich countries will ask us many questions for which we’ll have no answers,” he said.

Ramesh said the Planning Commission would announce the road map for meeting the targets after the Copenhagen conference.

Singh announced his visit a day after US President Barack Obama confirmed his participation in the crucial final part of the climate summit, where 70 world leaders are meeting, raising hopes for a binding climate treaty.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has already said he will attend the heads of state meeting, where an agreement — political or binding — is likely to be announced.

Swift developments in the last fortnight have created the possibility of a climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires by 2012.

India, the world’s fourth-biggest carbon emitter, on Thursday announced the reduction of its emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 and said it would consider international verification of domestic mitigation action.

On Friday, the US, the second-biggest emitter, declared a unilateral $10 billion (Rs 46,000 crore) fund by 2012 for climate mitigation and adoption of green practices by the developing world, after announcing an emission-reduction target of 17 per cent of its 2005 levels by 2020.

Last week, China, the biggest carbon emitter, said it would reduce its emission intensity by 40-45 per cent by 2020.

Emission intensity is a measure of emissions per unit of GDP. It means the emissions of India and China will grow but their pace will fall.

Encouraged by the Indian and Chinese announcements, the Obama administration on Friday said “progress is being made” towards a meaningful accord after the US announced an emission-cut target.

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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