Natarajan evokes Gandhi to seek an equitable pact

Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan evoked Mahatma Gandhi's historic association with South Africa to seek an equitable and development oriented climate agreement. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 7, 2011, 23:57:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan evoked Mahatma Gandhi's historic association with South Africa to seek an equitable and development oriented climate agreement.

Speaking at the plenary of the high level segment, Jayanthi said : "We gave South Africa Mohandas Gandhi the attorney. South Africa gave us Mahatma, the great soul".

She asked the nations to work with Gandhi's spirit to "insire our journey of climate stablisation."

Embarking on India is low carbon emitter and will remain so, she said that modelling studies sow that even in 2030 with a growth rate of 8-9 percent, India's per capita emissions will not exceed 3.7 tonnes. As of now, India annual per capita emissions is 1.7 tonnes.

"Our Prime Minister has already stated that we will follow a growth path that will help us remain sustainable and not emulate the fossil fuel intensive growt path followed by the developed countries in the past," she said.

On India's low efforts to check emissions, she said, there has been a 30 % dip in the amount of oil India takes to produce a dollar of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Taking a strong line, Natarajan said India was fulfilling its obiligations in taking new mitigation actions and reminded the developed world of their failure to meet their commitment under United Nations climate convention and Kyoto Protocol, the existing climate treaty.

She wanted Durban to deliver a ratifiable decision on second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and said failure will undermine credibility of any future legally binding agreement.

The minister also urged the rich nations to provide resources to capitalise the Green Climate Fund and ensure a long term financial structure for the fund.

She also spoke about equity in relation to access to global atmopsheric resources, unilateral trae measures in name of climate change and discussion in intellectual property right issues to facilitate technology development and transfer.

"I have come to Durban with an open mind ad a constructive spirit," she said, asking the countries participating in the conference to ensure that regime of climate change is anchored in the framework of existing climate convention.

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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