Javadekar raises concern on feasibility of carbon market mechanism

A proposal to have a global carbon trading mechanism or carbon tax and a “lean” negotiating draft by October saw India raising eyebrows at the St Petersberg Climate Dialogue that ended without meeting its objective of building a consensus on a draft for the Paris climate conference this winter.

Updated on: May 19, 2015, 21:05:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Berlin

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A proposal to have a global carbon trading mechanism or carbon tax and a “lean” negotiating draft by October saw India raising eyebrows at the St Petersberg Climate Dialogue that ended without meeting its objective of building a consensus on a draft for the Paris climate conference this winter.

Both German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande spoke of carbon pricing -- based on the 'polluter pay' principle -- finding a place in the Paris agreement to encourage investments in cleaner technologies.

“Devise new instruments to get more funds to encourage investments. There is a question of carbon pricing. We can build a world market for carbon,” Hollande said.

The European Union (EU) in 2012 had suspended its proposed carbon tax on emissions from airlines crossing Europe after stiff resistance by India and China. The EU plans to revive the plan and embed it in the Paris climate deal on the grounds that the revenue generated from the mechanism would be provided for climate adaptation in the most vulnerable, least developed and island nations.

Hollande described it as a “financial resource to compliment” the $100-billion contribution assured by wealthy nations to the developing world by 2020, apparently aimed at isolating India and China but winning over poorer nations.

Indian environment minister Prakash Javadekar was quick to ask whether the suggested market mechanism, whose contours were not clear, was a “feasible” way out and how it would pan out in the near future.

Hollande replied that it would help maximise public finance to fight climate change. Later, his foreign minister Laurent Fabius invoked high pollution levels in the developing world (read India and China) to justify the proposal.

Javadekar sought a separate two-day session before the negotiating draft for the Paris climate summit is finalised. India wants clarity on the tricky issues surrounding the Paris conference such as the binding nature of the new agreement and what the differentiation among rich and developing countries would mean. India is against its domestic commitments becoming binding and open to review by the global community.

The dialogue had environment ministers from 35 countries, who discussed the nature of the new climate agreement for 13 hours over a day. But, they failed to narrow down their differences as countries stuck to their old stands. The only consensus was on trying to have a negotiating text ready for negotiations by October.

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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