Copenhagen: India on Tuesday favoured a legally
binding climate change agreement from the developed countries
saying a political pact will not be "enforceable", even as it
asserted that its voluntary reduction of carbon emission
intensity was not announced under pressure.
Stressing the importance of a treaty at Copenhagen,
the Prime Minister's Climate Change envoy Shyam Saran said it
was too early to "preempt that the negotiations would fail to
produce legally binding commitments and governments would have
to settle for a political agreement."
India decided to cut down its carbon emission intensity
by 20-25 per cent by 2020 in the run up to the Copenhagen
summit, shortly after a similar declaration by China.
Asked if the recent announcement on emission reduction
indicated flexibility in India's position Saran said: "We are
not required by the convention to do this but we are doing
this in order to facilitate and promote a successful outcome."
Saran highlighted the need to work towards "an agreed
outcome" as was mandated by the Bali action plan, and only if
the countries failed to arrive at a "substantive outcome" on
those lines then "we can take a call on the outcome that we
now aim for."
"But to say that we should only aim for a politically
binding document does not really mean very much to us because
politically binding means that commitments that are taken will
not be enforceable," the top Indian Climate Change official
noted. "What we would be looking for are enforceable
commitments," he said.
Saran stressed that in India a legally binding
commitment from developed nations would carry more weight than
a politically binding one. "We must not preempt the results of
these negotiations," he told agency.
"As far as India is concerned and also other members
of the G 77 and China we have argued that we have a week of
negotiating time left before the high-level segment.
"Before the Heads of state/government arrive for the
High Level Meet before December16th the two ad hoc working
groups – the Ad Hoc Working group on the Long Term Cooperative
Action under the Bali Action Plan and the Ad Hoc Working Group
on the Kyoto Protocol will be continuing their work from where
the negotiations left off in Barcelona.
At the same time, a second track of negotiations are
being for conducted for the extension of the Kyoto Protocol
into its second commitment period following the end of the
first commitment period on December 31, 2012 under which
industrialised nations are obligated to legally binding carbon
emission cuts.
When asked by agency that in the last minute momentum
of getting a deal done India would be forced to sign a broad
political agreement that may be against some its positions on
Climate Change, Saran emphasised that New Delhi would not get
hustled.
He also highlighted that India would not be "isolated"
since it was working with a large group of G 77 and China and
all decisions would be based on "consensus." "India is working
together with a very large number of developing countries. It
is not a matter of India getting isolated or India getting
hustled into something," Saran said.
"I think it is a little odd to talk about getting
isolated if you are part of a vast majority of countries who
are represented here. Why should anyone think we're getting
isolated?" he added.
Any consensus that emerges has to be something that
everyone agrees upon it is not merely a question of India
agreeing." He said yesterday mitigation action being taken
voluntarily by developing countries should be supported by
financial resources and technology.
The fundamental elements also include a mechanism for
technology transfer as well as a financial mechanism that
provides for large-scale mobilisation and deployment for
financial resources on a stable and predictable basis.
The 12-day long climate change conference kicked off
yesterday with strong calls for action by Denmark's Prime
Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, UN's top scientist R K Pachauri
and UN's top climate change official Yvo de Boer.
The negotiators are expected to produce either a
legally binding document or at least a document that captures
an agreement on key political fronts to tackle climate change
that will be worked into a legally binding treaty next year.
A politically binding commitment seems more likely
–signed by the leaders of 100 countries who arrive next week
for the last week of the conference including Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, US President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao.
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon said that these political commitments
must include emission reduction targets from industrialised
countries, mitigation action from developing countries and aid
for them for clean economic growth.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 08, 2009, 18:54