India talks tough at Paris climate summit, warns against restrictions
Prime Minister says no to any restriction on use of convention energy and unilateral restrictions in name of climate change abatement at the Paris conference.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi enumerated India’s tough stand at the Paris climate conference, saying any agreement without differentiation would be “morally wrong” and asked rich nations to ratify the second commitment period of the existing climate treaty, Kyoto Protocol.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers a speech during the opening session of the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, France. (Reuters Photo)
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Modi’s crisp and short speech after a series of meetings with leaders of advanced nations, such as US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron, underpinned India’s unwillingness to budge from its stand and that it would stand up for the poor across the world.
“World’s billions are at the bottom of the ladder and are seeking a place to grow,” he said, addressing the high-level segment of the Paris climate talks.
“India needs to grow as 300 million people are still without access to energy. We are determined to do so.”
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Unlike other world leaders, he mentioned that India would not agree to a Paris agreement without a clear differentiation in responsibilities and action between the rich and developing worlds in all elements of the proposed deal such as mitigation, adaptation and transparency.
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Unlike other world leaders, he mentioned that India would not agree to a Paris agreement without a clear differentiation in responsibilities and action between the rich and developing worlds in all elements of the proposed deal such as mitigation, adaptation and transparency.
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Rich nations are keen on diluting differentiation in the Paris agreement and, instead, have a universal agreement for all 196 nations who are party to the climate convention.
Modi spoke on all elements of the proposed deal from mitigation to adaptation to technology transfer to proposed transparency mechanism, putting forth India’s point of view. In all, he made India’s stand clear and it may not ring pleasant bells in the ears of negotiators from rich nations.
Their attempt to put curbs on use of coal fuel received a clear no from the Prime Minister. He said conventional energy — coal — was needed for growth and warned against any attempt to impose “barriers to economic growth” in the name of climate change.
Modi’s refrain on Monday was clear that rich nations need to do more to fight climate change and provide enough of the “remaining” carbon space to the developing world to grow and meet aspirations of billions of poor people living there.
Carbon space is the amount of emission that can be added to the atmosphere without huge implications.
“Climate justice demands carbon space and this also means aggressive mitigation action before 2020, including ratification of second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” he said, holding the developed world responsible for global warming.
Also, the Prime Minister underscored India’s assistance to the fight against climate change, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), saying it was doing much more than its capability.
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.
