India’s strategy at
the Paris Climate Change summit will be to work with emerging economies and
press the developed world to concede that responsibility for cutting carbon
emissions after 2020 cannot be shared equally by rich and poor nations.
Two major issues that New Delhi will focus on at the
Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) are failed ambitions on transferring low carbon technologies to
the developing world, and the lack of support for a plan to fund mitigation and
adaptation efforts.
The UN Convention on Climate Change has followed the
principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), reflected in
the Kyoto Protocol and reinforced last year at Lima. Under this, poor countries
were not required to cut emissions. India is emphasising this again, informed
sources in the Ministry of Environment and Forests said, and demanding that
developing nations be allowed greater room in cutting emissions beyond 2020, as
they seek to eliminate poverty through fast-paced economic growth.
Low per capita
emissions
The Modi government is approaching the CoP with the view
that the domestic actions proposed under the Intended Nationally Determined
Contributions (INDCs) submitted to the UNFCCC are truly progressive. National
per capita emissions are very low at 1.56 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent
(about a tenth of some developed nations), and India’s share of cumulative
global emissions only 3 per cent.
Given the large green cover in the country, these emissions
are already accounted for in terms of absorption of greenhouse gases. One
independent assessment of the INDC recently described India’s offer as
exceeding its fair share.
Yet, there is a concerted attempt to bring India under
pressure on the eve of the CoP, including by the United States, to paint the
country as ‘obstructionist’. “This is unfair, uncalled for and deliberate,” an
official said, pointing out that the UNFCCC had welcomed the INDC submitted by
India.
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