Jairam admits climate shift, but says no sell-out

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh accepted India deviated from its original stand on international verification of emission mitigation actions but said, It will not affect India’s sovereignty. Chetan Chauhan reports. Did India give away too much? 'Copenhagen deal not legally binding' | Copenhagen accord outwitted Govt | PM briefs President on Copenhagen accord | Special Covergae

Updated on: Dec 23, 2009, 02:24:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday accepted India deviated from its original stand on international verification of emission mitigation actions but said, “It will not affect India’s sovereignty”.

By signing the Copenhagen Accord, India has agreed to “international consultations” and “analysis” of its domestic mitigation efforts.

“We allowed it but did not accept review, scrutiny and verification asked by (US President Barack) Obama. We suggested consultation and analysis to which he agreed,” Ramesh said.

He also downplayed comments of White House senior adviser David Axelrod, that the Copenhagen Accord had committed India to international verification, saying the remarks were that of a “spin doctor” aimed at domestic consumption.

But Axelrod was the least of Ramesh’s worries on Tuesday as he faced an aggressive opposition in the Rajya Sabha — where the minister was making a statement on talks in Copenhagen — and sceptical climate experts outside.

“Not wanting to be consider-ed the fall guy and wanting to please someone, we allowed our interests to fall,” said Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley.

“Rich countries came out as winners from Copenhagen,” said Sunita Narain, director of Cen-tre for Science and Environment, “They made us agree to too much without giving away a handful.”

So, what did India give away, or didn’t?

Before leaving for Copen-hagen on December 11, Ramesh told Parliament India will resist any attempt to force it to accept international verification of its emission mitigation efforts.

But by signing the accord, India did concede some ground.

International verification would bring UN inspectors marching in to verify each or any mitigation action claimed by India — cutting emissions at the Badarpur power station in Delhi, for instance.

“International consultations”, on the other hand, means Indian claims will only be questioned and analysed, but politely, without threat of legal action.

But the opposition wasn’t buying. Isn’t “international consultation” a pseudonym for a legally binding condition being imposed on India relating to emission cuts, asked CPM’s Sitaram Yechury.

Ramesh didn’t agree. “It was part of our flexible approach,” he said. Besides, he added, consultation takes place routinely on information provided to the WTO and IMF. Implying therefore, why refuse consultation on emission mitigation then?

The minister also said India was very much with the poorer nations and there was a difference in targets. While India and China were looking to work towards ensuring warming did not exceed 2ºC by 2050, the small island nations were pressing for 1.5ºC.

A target of 2ºC allows India a few decades of economic development free of emission worries. But 1.5ºC would force India to start cutting emissions right away.

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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