Climate change: Minister is all for shift, not surrender
Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has denied suggesting a radical shift in India’s position on climate change, but he does advocate taking a more nuanced position, reports Chetan Chauhan.
Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has denied suggesting a radical shift in India’s position on climate change, but he does advocate taking a more nuanced position.
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“There is no question of India agreeing to emission cuts targets or junking the Kyoto Protocol,” Ramesh, told Hindustan Times, after a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “We want emission cut targets only for the developed world, not for developing nations.”
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However, in a note to the PM, Ramesh has suggested that India be willing to talk about commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, provided developed countries give the funds and technology required.
The note also suggests a domestic law on climate change management, which has emission mitigation targets for efficiency in energy sector and non-fossil based energy supply by 2020/2030. The proposed law, which the environment ministry wants to introduce in the winter session of Parliament, will quantify India’s emission reduction targets for the first time.
“The question of subjecting what we do to reduce our emissions from our own resources will not be open for international scrutiny. The information will be available for discussion, not verification,” he said.
In the note, Ramesh said India must maintain flexibility in negotiations and be seen as “pragmatic and constructive” and not “argumentative and polemical” so that the country is not treated with disfavour or resented as that could affect India’s aspiration to be permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
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.
