If EU has its way, water will be more expensive than petrol

The European Union has decided on a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels subsidies in the new climate agreement, to be readied by 2015 in Qatar, where water costs more than a litre of petrol.

Updated on: Dec 5, 2012, 24:16:18 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Doha (Qatar)

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The European Union has decided on a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels subsidies in the new climate agreement, to be readied by 2015 in Qatar, where water costs more than a litre of petrol.

It is ironic that Qatar, which has the world’s highest per capita carbon emission, is not a signatory to the Cancun pledges for reducing emissions and give huge fossil fuel subsidies, happens to be hosting the conference of around 200 countries.

It was in this context that EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard wanted the inclusion of a plan to phase out first subsidies and then fossil fuels, the biggest contributor to climate change, in the new agreement — to be framed by an ad-hoc committee on the Durban platform.

India and China, which oppose the plan, claim it is not feasible unless richer countries give a financial commitment on the phase-out plan in the developing world.

India, China, Brazil and South Africa made it clear on Tuesday that they will not agree on a discussion about key emerging sectors — upscale use of renewable energy sources, efficiency in domestic transport and production methods, low carbon economy and controlling farm emissions — without a specific commitment on the provision of funds till 2020.

The issue came up when the group of island nations proposed a specific agenda of items to be discussed under the Durban platform from next year. The proposal also said that the countries would have to make their submissions by March 15, 2013.

The Union cabinet did not give India’s climate negotiating team the mandate to finalise agenda items, and only agreed on a plan to decide the items for the agenda in the coming year.

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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