India to keep a close watch on Lima climate change talks
India will be focusing on the Lima conference after the US and China agreed on reducing carbon emissions and a United Nation’s climate panel report said Mumbai and Kolkata are most vulnerable to climate change-induced coastal flooding.
India will be focusing on the Lima conference after the US and China agreed on reducing carbon emissions and a United Nation’s climate panel report said Mumbai and Kolkata are most vulnerable to climate change-induced coastal flooding. A lot has changed in global climate geo-politics in the recent months with United States agreeing to reduce its carbon emissions by 26-28% of 2005 level by 2030 and China announcing its emissions peaking year of 2030.
The deal, termed as historic, was announced this month after a meeting between US President Barack Obama and Chinese premier Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Obama in September made India agree to discuss refrigerant coolants, called HFCs, under the Montreal Protocol that provides for incentives to phase out gases and not under UN climate convention, India’s stand for years. In return, India got a US$1 billion aid to push the renewable sector.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
Another twist to the tale has been India’s keenness to move away from its old climate ally China. At G-20 summit in Brisbane, India insisted discussion on climate change despite resistance from China.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
Another twist to the tale has been India’s keenness to move away from its old climate ally China. At G-20 summit in Brisbane, India insisted discussion on climate change despite resistance from China.
{{/usCountry}}
“Hanging on with second biggest carbon emitter (China) will not help up in climate talks,” said G-20 sherpa Suresh Prabhu. “Our per capita emission is one-third of China’s, the number of poor in our country is much more and we have more vulnerable areas to climate change than China.”
The developments in recent months will come to play at the big climate talks at the Peruvian capital city, where the nuts and bolts of the new agreement expected to be signed in Paris in December 2015, will be tightened.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The biggest question raised at Lima would be whether the American commitment to reduce emissions by 2030 and China’s peaking year would be enough to restrict the temperature rise by two degree Celsius by turn of the century.
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.
