Natarajan willing to discuss legally binding treaty with emission cuts

India has entered the debate on legally binding climate treaty with a set of questions but with a firm no to accepting any emission cuts.

Updated on: Dec 6, 2011, 15:06:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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India has entered the debate on legally binding climate treaty with a set of questions but with a firm no to accepting any emission cuts.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan is willing to discuss the issue provided rich nations accept India's concerns on equity, commitment for finance and technology, intellectual property rights issues and unilateral carbon tax imposed on aviation sector.

She also wants to know the nature of legally binding climate treaty, which has hogged the limelight and stalled progress at the 10 days of the climate conference of 195 nations at the port city of South Africa.

"I have come to Durban with an open mind," she replied when asked about India's stand on legally binding climate treaty at her first interaction with journalists. "But I would like to know whether it (legally binding treaty) would be binding only for mitigation and whether it will be same for Annex-1 and non-Annex1 countries."

With it, she re-affirmed India's stand, which was laid down by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with his recent meeting with US president Barack Obama. "We cannot take any legally binding emission cuts at this stage of our development," Singh had said.

At the time when there is pressure on India from rich and least developed nations to accept legally binding treaty, Natarajan said, at this time of "our development we need to keep the imperatives of a developing country" in mind and need to grow economically.

Throwing the ball in the court of rich nations on behalf of the developing world, Natarajan wanted to know how the ratification process of Kyoto Protocol would be resolved, if there is agreement on a legally binding treaty. The debate over extending Kyoto Protocol for second commitment period beyong 2012 is stuck, a concern for India.

She also wanted to know whether the legally binding nature will mean commitment of rich nations on finance and technology. "What will happen to equity?" she asked.

Non-government organisation Centre For Science and Environment said that equity has to be central to any climate agreement as the developed world continue to be the biggest polluter. "India's total emissions increased by 1.5 billion tonnes as compared to two tonnes for United States," said Sunita Narian, CSE director-general.

India's bid to get back issues left out of the Cancun agreement such as equity and historical responsibility of the rich nations to reduce emissions have been backed by several nations except Europe.

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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