New Delhi: India will not sign any legally
binding global agreement for emissions reduction, as the
country needs to eradicate poverty through economic growth,
Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said on Tuesday.
"There is no question of signing a legally binding
agreement at this point of our development. We need to make
sure that our development does not suffer," Natarajan said in
Rajya Sabha.
She was responding to clarifications on her December 21
statement in the House after she returned from the United
Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban early this month.
Seeking clarification, Leader of the Opposition Arun
Jaitley said if India was made legally bound to cut emissions,
the country`s economic growth would suffer.
Natarajan said, "Our emissions are bound to grow as we
have to ensure our social and economic development and fulfil
the imperative of poverty eradication."
On the Green Climate Fund, she said a decision was taken
at the Conference to set up a USD 100 billion corpus which
would start operations soon with an interim secretariat and a
Board.
"The fund will help a large number of vulnerable countries
in taking effective mitigation and adaptation actions. India
played a facilitating role in Durban in ensuring that the Fund
is established," she said.
Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) questioned the significance of the
Kyoto Protocol on the ground that the signatories account for
only 15 per cent of the total global emissions.
Admitting the shortcomings in the protocol, Natarajan said
for the first time the US, which is yet to ratify it, was a
participatory to the Conference.
The Durban conference, she said, has established a second
commitment period for the developed countries which are party
to the Kyoto Protocol. Targets, decided through a decision,
would now be converted into actual emission limits at the next
session in Qatar next year.
"A time-frame of five years till 2017 has been given to
the Kyoto Protocol parties for ratification of the targets and
the emission limits," Natarajan added.
PTI
