July 1, 2009 – India has refused to accept the pressure emerging from the developed countries to take on emission cuts ahead of the G-8 summit scheduled July 8-10 in L’Aquila, Italy. Leaders of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum will meet on July 9 in Italy on the sidelines of a G8 summit to try to find ways to slow warming which may bring more floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
India sources say that it will not accept the draft conclusions for the Major Economies Forum, a group launched by United States President Barack Obama. The draft was tabled by the US and Mexico at talks in Mexico without reaching agreement.
India’s stance has been that the developed nations should help the developing nations to cut the emissions. Also, India sits on the edge of the fence in this whole argument on climate change. India is the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases; however its emissions are projected to treble by 2050. The country has no obligation under KP and has denied any right to per captia energy on a par with that of the current major emitting countries. India’s per captia carbon-di-oxide emissions 1.1 tonnes per annum against 20 tonnes in the U.S.
For long, the developed nations such as US, Europe and Japan has asked India and China to accept emission cuts while India maintains that the rich countries are shy of either taking deeper short-term targets or discussing technology and funds transfer for adaptation to poorer nations
The draft Text envisages emissions cut by 50 percent by 2050, with developed countries reducing emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. The text also enforces the developed economies such as US, Europe and Japan to “robust aggregate and individual mid-term reductions in the 2020 timeframe.”
The draft says that the major economies account for 80 percent of all emissions and an agreement among them would go a long way to settling a U.N. climate treaty to be agreed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Emissions reduction targets for industrial countries for 2020 is a major focus of U.N. negotiations for a successor to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The talks are scheduled to conclude at a key U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009.
“The peaking of global and national emissions should take place as soon as possible, recognizing that the timeframe for peaking will be longer in developing countries,” it said.
( The above article was written by Balaji Chandramohan, an international journalist. He can be contacted at mohanbalaji20032004@yahoo.co.in, mohanbalaji2003@gmai.com )
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