India, China ignore UN climate change summit

Five years after over 150 heads of state cobbled up a rickety climate deal that fell through, the one-day UN Climate Summit is another attempt of rich nations to push India and China to accept some strong measures to check global warming.

Updated on: Sep 23, 2014, 24:49:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Five years after over 150 heads of state cobbled up a rickety climate deal that fell through, the one-day UN Climate Summit is another attempt of rich nations to push India and China – responsible for one-third of total carbon emissions in 2013 – to accept some strong measures to check global warming.

But the two Asian giants are not willing to take the bait unless the developed world anchored by the United States and the European Union offers substantial incentives to developing nations for adopting a cleaner growth trajectory, cutting down on emissions.

The rich nations’ commitment to provide US $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 for climate mitigation and adaptation is yet to fructify, resulting in the Green Climate Fund remaining a defunct body.

Officially, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese premier Xi Jinping are not attending the summit called by UN chief Ban Ki-moon because of conflicting schedules.

But it is, in fact, a snub to the developed nations for pushing climate talks outside the United Nations framework. “It creates confusion and we don’t agree,” environment minister Prakash Javadekar, who will represent the country at the summit, said without mentioning to the event.

Read:India to play hardball at UN climate summit

China has opted for a relatively senior functionary, vice-premier Zhang Gaoli, for the talks. While some island nations threatened by rising sea levels because of climate change expressed shock and disappointment, this will achieve little as India and China do not expect Obama to deliver generous green currency that would motivate emerging economies to revise their country-centric stands.

Neither the American president, nor the European leaders have the mandate to offer money at the summit like in Copenhagen, 2009.

New data shows carbon emissions in the atmosphere closing in on the threshold level to limit temperature rise by two degree Celsius, and India and China being the fastest-growing emitters, would put the two emerging economies under some pressure.

Read: Modi decides against attending UN climate summit

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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