Warsaw: India Monday said it will push the industrialised nations to take a leadership role to tackle global warming, even as there was no breakthrough in sight on key issues after week-long negotiations at the UN Climate Conference here.
India and other developing countries including China are upset with countries like Australia, Japan and Canada for abandoning the greenhouse gas emission targets set by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
Japan recently announced that it will let emissions rise 3 per cent above 1990 levels by 2020.
"We are very critical of that. Because you are not committing anything under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). You want to take actions outside the UNFCCC. It sends a wrong signal. Many other Annexe I parties (industrialised nations) will also think of similarly lowering the target," an official said on the condition of anonymity ahead of ministerial level talks.
"Annexe I parties have the prime responsibility in climate change to take the leadership role. When they are not pledging how did we expect the developing country parties to enhance their emission?" the official said.
As the week-long official-level talks failed to clinch an understanding, all hopes are now pinned on the ministerial level discussions set to begin today in Warsaw, the Polish capital.
Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan is expected to arrive here tomorrow to attend the ministerial level talk.
The Kyoto Protocol is a global treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
At the negotiation level talks, India has expressed its disagreement with the European Union (EU) on the refrigerant gas hydroflurocarbons (HFCs), saying that the country is still not sure about alternative technologies, its cost and how it is going to impact millions of consumers.
According to EU, HFCs should be phased out from 2014 as it is instrumental in global warming. EU is saying that the damaging refrigerant gas should be included in the Montreal Protocol process that eradicated ozone destructive CFCs.
The developing countries are expecting that the developed countries would agree to some USD 20 to 30 billion annual aid to assist poor nations in adapting and mitigate efforts to meet the emission targets.
Indian officials attending the United Nations Climate Conference (COP 19), however, said that there had been talks about enhanced action in the field of adaptation, mitigation, finance and technology transfer in various sessions of the negotiations, but there was no progress in terms of action.
"We have not seen much coming further in terms of implementation of the earlier decision that have already taken. We have not seen much movement," an official said on the condition of anonymity.
