Bonn: India wants the new global climate
change agreement to ban trade barriers targeting nations that
refuse to accept limits on their carbon emissions, the chief
Indian climate negotiator said on Friday.
As some 180 nations work on drafting a new climate
accord, India proposed adding a clause to bar any country from
taking action against another country's goods and services
based on its climate policy.
The clause is largely directed against efforts by US
Congress to impose trade penalties on countries that do not
commit to specific action against greenhouse gases.
Chief delegate Shyam Saran said such measures looked
like "protectionism under a green label" and were complicating
the latest round of climate negotiations in Bonn.
Trade issues are "extraneous to what we are trying to
construct here, which is a collaborative response to an
extraordinary global challenge," Saran told The Associated
Press.
The talks in Bonn adjourn today after five days of
meetings, and resume next month in Bangkok with the aim of
reaching a new agreement by the December conference in
Copenhagen. The new accord would succeed the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol.
Officials at the talks said delegates have made no
attempt to settle outstanding differences on key issues, and
there has been little progress in whittling down a 200-page
draft accord.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, August 14, 2009, 20:27