Jairam wants to ‘redefine’
climate stand
Angry Negotiators Cry Foul
 New
Delhi: Within a couple of days of the Prime Minister’s Office
announcing that Shyam Saran, the PM’s special envoy on climate
change, was quitting, there’s turmoil in the Indian climate
team.
Indian negotiators are up in arms against minister of state
for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh commissioning a study
and proposing a meeting of experts that could redefine India’s
fundamental principle of ‘per capita emissions’ norm while
negotiating how the burden of reducing greenhouse gases is
shared.
The exit of Saran, who was seen to have resisted the move to
alter India’s traditional red lines in climate change, has
caught Indian negotiators off guard and deepened their suspicion
of Ramesh’s ‘flexibility’ mantra.
Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, the seniormost Indian negotiator
and member of the PM’s council on climate change, told TOI, “I
am deeply concerned that the per capita equity approach, which
provides the foundation for India’s position on climate change
negotiations, is being questioned at the level of minister of
state (Ramesh).’’
He pointed out that “equity demands the per capita emissions
of developed countries should be sharply reduced so that they
converge over a period of time with rising per capita emissions
of developing countries. Accordingly, the PM has offered that
our per capita emissions will not at any stage exceed those of
developed countries.’’ Climate Equity
Atmosphere has finite capacity to absorb greenhouse gases
after which climate catastrophes may follow. However, emissions
are necessary to fuel economic growth Every person has equal
right to economic development and therefore to emission space
Rich nations, with 20% of world population, account for 76% of
global carbon emissions till date These nations need to reduce
emissions to give the rest space for development. Or, they
should compensate poor countries with costlier clean
technologies to ensure CO ² limit isn’t crossed CLIMATE CHANGE
‘Tweaking basic norm to hit stand’
New Delhi: The per capita norm, embodied in the Kyoto Protocol,
has been backed by successive governments and reiterated by the
PM himself.
Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, the top Indian negotiator said,
“Questioning this basic principle weakens India’s position. If
the per capita principle is sacrificed, it would amount to
‘decapitating’ equity.’’
Dasgupta, too, has earlier expressed misgivings over Jairam
Ramesh’s approach. He, along with another negotiator—former
environment secretary and member of the PM’s council, Prodipto
Ghosh—had initially refused to attend the Copenhagen talks over
their differences with the minister. Dasgupta relented only
after Ramesh had clarified his position. Shyam Saran’s exit is
being seen as heralding a swift change in India’s stance on
climate change. A pointer to this is seen in Ramesh’s decision
to commission Arvind Subramanian, an economist with the Peterson
Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think
tank, to undertake a study to define equity in the context of
climate change.
Sources said, on the basis of this study, the minister is
keen to call a meeting of experts to discuss ‘equity’. What has
caused consternation is Subramanian’s view on the subject—in his
published work, he has discarded the long-standing Indian
per-capita argument and the country’s stand that national
responsibilities must be divided on this basis. “The principle
was first enunciated by India when Kamal Nath was the
environment minister. It became the foundation stone for all
developing countries and G77 for two decades, with
industrialized countries refusing to accept it. Why does India
need to revisit a principle and claim it’s too fuzzy right
now?’’ another senior Indian negotiator, not willing to be
named, told TOI.
Subramanian, in a paper he co-authored, has rubbished the
equity stance, saying it amounted to India asking for a right to
pollute. “Not only are these proposals (of per capita equity of
emissions) mostly arbitrary on burden-sharing, they are framed
in our view from the wrong starting point, i.e., starting from
the assumption that what is fundamental is the right to pollute
or the right to the atmosphere in its capacity as a global
sink.’’
The US, too, has been categorical in rejecting the principle
in the past, most famously at Copenhagen. “There was an attempt
at Copenhagen to remove even the mention of the phrase ‘equity’
from the
Copenhagen Accord. If we now redefine it, it would become
redundant even while we retain it on paper,’’ said a negotiator
who was part of the Indian delegation. Subramanian redefines
‘equity’ in a way that would require India and China to take far
greater leaps in carbon efficiency than the world has done so
far. It would demand that India limit its per capita emissions
to 2.62 tonnes per capita by 2050—well below the existing
average of the industrialized world of roughly 11 tonnes per
capita.
While he asserts that this would not compromise India’s
energy needs, the new thesis that could unsettle the developing
countries’ claims to be compensated by technology and finance by
the rich nations has not gone down well with Indian negotiators.
The negotiators TOI talked to warned that Subramanian’s stance,
if followed by the government could take away India’s central
plank. “To demolish or diminish the per capita emissions equity
principle is to suggest that some human beings are more equal
than others,’’ one of them said. Subramanian did not respond to
TOI’s emails. TNN
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