India to fight warming, but won't accept emission caps
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday admitted that India had for the first time
In a debate that for the first time saw climate change politics echo so deep in Parliament, Singh said the controversial Major Economic Forum declaration adopted at L’Aquila in Italy was “not a declaration of climate change policy by India”.
Singh was speaking against the backdrop of suspicion in certain quarters that India’s agreeing to be part of the endeavour to adhere to the 2 degree threshold would lead to its acquiescence to pressure from the US-led developed bloc to take binding emission cut targets.
He described such an interpretation as “misleading” and “one-sided.”
The MEF is a US-backed initiative with 16 countries, including the G8 and emerging economies, to build political consensus for a global deal on climate change at the United Nations meet in December in Copenhagen.
Singh justified acceptance of the “scientific fact” that others have claimed binds India into a corner. “Drawing attention to the seriousness of global warming does not automatically translate into a compulsion on the part of India or other developing countries represented in the Major Economic Forum to accept emission reduction obligations,” he said.
Seeking to point out the alliance and similarity of positions between China and India in the emission front. PM Manmohan Singh said in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, “I would like to mention that our position and the Chinese position are nearly identical, and we have been coordinating with that country.”
From the BJP, Yashwant Sinha warned, “If India accepts the peaking order (sic), then its per capita emissions would be restricted to three tonnes while in the US it is 20 tonnes.”
He was referring to the MEF declaration where India had agreed along with others to the statement that “developing countries among us will promptly undertake actions whose projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from business as usual in the midterm”, and the “peaking of global and national emissions should take place as soon as possible”.
The two statements along with the 2 degree clause, some experts have claimed, takes away the focus from discussing equitable burden sharing towards getting a global deal to cut emissions even at the cost of equity. But Singh defended the move saying, “Greater the threat from global warming, greater the responsibility of developed countries to take on ambitious emission reduction targets.
agreed to join the effort to cap the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees from the pre-industrial level. But he strongly denied that it was a climbdown from its position not to accept binding emission cut targets.
In a debate that for the first time saw climate change politics echo so deep in Parliament, Singh said the controversial Major Economic Forum declaration adopted at L’Aquila in Italy was “not a declaration of climate change policy by India”.
Singh was speaking against the backdrop of suspicion in certain quarters that India’s agreeing to be part of the endeavour to adhere to the 2 degree threshold would lead to its acquiescence to pressure from the US-led developed bloc to take binding emission cut targets.
He described such an interpretation as “misleading” and “one-sided.”
The MEF is a US-backed initiative with 16 countries, including the G8 and emerging economies, to build political consensus for a global deal on climate change at the United Nations meet in December in Copenhagen.
Singh justified acceptance of the “scientific fact” that others have claimed binds India into a corner. “Drawing attention to the seriousness of global warming does not automatically translate into a compulsion on the part of India or other developing countries represented in the Major Economic Forum to accept emission reduction obligations,” he said.
Seeking to point out the alliance and similarity of positions between China and India in the emission front. PM Manmohan Singh said in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, “I would like to mention that our position and the Chinese position are nearly identical, and we have been coordinating with that country.”
From the BJP, Yashwant Sinha warned, “If India accepts the peaking order (sic), then its per capita emissions would be restricted to three tonnes while in the US it is 20 tonnes.”
He was referring to the MEF declaration where India had agreed along with others to the statement that “developing countries among us will promptly undertake actions whose projected effects on emissions represent a meaningful deviation from business as usual in the midterm”, and the “peaking of global and national emissions should take place as soon as possible”.
The two statements along with the 2 degree clause, some experts have claimed, takes away the focus from discussing equitable burden sharing towards getting a global deal to cut emissions even at the cost of equity. But Singh defended the move saying, “Greater the threat from global warming, greater the responsibility of developed countries to take on ambitious emission reduction targets.
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