India caved in to a bad deal at Copenhagen, says Praful Bidwai.
India and China on Wednesday formally backed the Climate Change Accord hammered out in Copenhagen last year calling for voluntary cut in greenhouse gas emissions.
Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) says that Sino-Indian cooperation at the Copenhagen climate summit is the sign of things to come.
Indians are born conspiracy theorists, okay? We live on conspiracy theories and we die as conspiracy theorists. Conspiring of theories is our karma! The fact of the matter is that climate change is an important issue with a larger development impact. It is also a strategic issue. For us, India's interest is paramount. Nothing else matters.
A 35-member team represents India at the world's biggest climate change conference at Copenhagen.
Speaking at an event in New Delhi, jointly held by National Thermal Power Corporation and the Confederation of Indian Industry, he added that developing countries should also not expect any financial or technical assistance from developed nations to help reduce their carbon footprint.
Pushing for a legally binding substantive outcome at the Copenhagen climate change meet, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said India is willing to sign on to an ambitious global target for emission reduction or limiting temperature increase, if it is accompanied by an equitable burden-sharing paradigm. He denounced attempts by some developed nations to junk the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Asserting that the world does not have much time to correct the mistakes of the last century, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a 'Green Credit Initiative' focused on creating carbon sinks through people's participation and also proposed to host the United Nations climate conference in 2028, or COP33, in India.
Experts have challenged UN to produce convincing 'observational evidence' to establish the human-caused global warming.
A controversy -- described as climategate -- has broken out regarding the authenticity of the data provided by the prestigious East Anglia University of the United Kingdom that formed the basis of the United Nations report on climate change.
Seeking a constructive approach to move forward in the global efforts to combat climate change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that India is willing to do more provided there are 'credible' arrangements from rich nations on financial support and technology transfers.
Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said India will forward its domestic goals on climate change as its action plan under the Copenhagen Accord to the Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
As the negotiations in Copenhagen appeared to have entered a deadlock, the Obama Administration has insisted on "transparency" of any operational agreement on climate change at the ongoing summit meeting in the Denmark Capital.
On Monday, the Conference will kick off in the Danish capital, and in two weeks, negotiators from over 100 countries are expected to produce a document that captures agreement on key political fronts to tackle climate change that will be worked into a legally binding treaty early next year.
The US President is scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen early Friday morning local time. Obama will attend the morning plenary session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference and is expected to deliver brief address on the issue.
The CO2 emission figure is based on the calculations from the Poznan Conference in December last year and extrapolated for 15,000 participants, according to the website of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
We dumped Kyoto because of the US - but even the diluted US-inspired Copenhagen accord is in peril.
Negotiations to hammer out an 'equitable and fair' deal on climate change were deadlocked on Wednesday, even as hundreds of climate activists were tear-gassed, beaten up and detained for trying to break into the UN-sponsored Climate Summit in Copenhagen and establish a 'people's assembly', accusing the 193 participating countries of not trying to reach a new deal to combat the menace.
There is no way the Copenhagen Accord can be billed as a climate change agreement. It is simply an agreement to legitimise the right to pollute.
If India wishes to lead the environmental battle for the developing world, it must come out in the open with a clear outline of goals.
At Copenhagen, attempts to arrive at a fair deal on climate change were deadlocked with countries refusing to budge from their positions on sticky issues like emission cuts. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who is leading the Indian delegation, said the BASIC group -- comprising India, China, South Africa and Brazil -- "is united and we would like to reiterate that we want an equitable and fair agreement to emerge out of the summit".
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the Copenhagen Summit on climate change on December 18, reflecting the seriousness attached by India to the meet where it is expected to play a crucial role.
The Climate Change conference in Copenhagen last year yielded the contentious and non-binding Copenhagen Accord.
The international climate change talks, which started in Copenhagen today, will see a 35-member official delegation from India. The attempt will be to negotiate a new global climate treaty to replace or extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Even if the leaders can't negotiate a binding agreement, many countries hope to work out commitments to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions and provide assistance to poorer countries likely to be hardest hit by the effects of global warming.
Proposals are being worked upon at the Copenhagen summit to cut the greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, prominent among which is the use of nuclear energy.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived at Copenhagen on Friday morning to participate in the concluding session of the Climate Summit amid a ray of hope for a political statement on combating climate change.
India and China seemed to be on the same side at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, while the United States had to gatecrash to join hands.
China and India are on different sides of the climate debate and, after the United States, Beijing has to make the most cuts.
With three days left to seal a deal at Copenhagen, climate change champion Al Gore has called on developed and developing countries to reach "compromises" on their key differences for the sake of future generations.
Some 80 presidents and premiers are expected to attend the final days of the conference on December 17-18. Obama might use his December 9 drop-by at the Copenhagen conference on his way to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway to announce a US offer on financing.
A day into the Copenhagen climate change meetings, the Union ministry of new and renewable energy has indicated that it has no definite roadmap to implement its ambitious target of 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022.
Government on Friday said it will not compromise India's interest at the Copenhagen climate change summit, but a dissatisfied opposition walked out in the Rajya Sabha.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and to Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, the industry body has outlined its view on the climate change negotiations based on Indian industry's feedback and called for the prime minister to urge the developed world to provide technology transfer and funds to help mitigate the crisis.
The Republicans' call came against the backdrop of the climate gate scandal, wherein hackers gained access to documents of the climate research centre of the UK-based East Anglia University and leaked confidential data, including thousands of e-mails and documents between scientists in UK and US over the past 10 years which led to accusations that researchers had exaggerated the crisis.
Laying out a road map for reducing the "trust deficit," between the two blocs on climate negotiations, Ramesh said there must be some visible triggers that get activated very soon to ensure that Cancun does not repeat Copenhagen.
A key UN climate change summit that will be attended by nearly 150 world leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicks off on Monday under the shadow of the deadly Paris terror attack to try to craft a long-term deal to limit carbon emissions.
The Accord was finalised at a meeting between the heads of India, China, South Africa, Brazil and the US in Copenhagen last Friday.
Sending encouraging signal to the rest of the world, a bipartisan group of powerful US Senators on Friday agreed on a framework for a climate change bill.
The CPI said there was neither any agreement over technology transfer nor any commitment for additional financial resources to fund adaptation and mitigation in the developing countries. In a similar statement, the Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo said on Sunday: "The political leaders who gathered in Copenhagen have failed their people by not delivering an effective and equitable climate change agreement."
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances