'It's a lifetime opportunity to cook for the most high-profile table of India. It's a matter of honour for me.'
Being one of the most ecologically modernized state in the world, Japan heads to Copenhagen with its ambition of green leadership in the post Kyoto regime. Japan has nurtured this ambition through smart diplomatic endeavors, ecological restructuring of policies and technological innovations.
Unhappy with the move, India said it will not accept any changes or extension to the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only legally-binding document that imposes emission reduction targets on industrialised countries, excluding the US.
Chairperson of Ad Hoc Working group on Kyoto Protocol, John Ashe, said parallel negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol are being carried on at the conference and will be wrapped on December 15 after which a report will be presented.
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.
A 35-member team represents India at the world's biggest climate change conference at Copenhagen.
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.
In a bid to derive benefits of trade and technology transfer, the government on Tuesday decided to ratify two amendments to the Montreal Protocol on protecting the ozone layer from depletion.
Pledging to reduce its emissions intensity by 20-25 per cent as done by China, India led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is ready to play a leadership role at the global climate summit at Copenhagen slated from Tuesday. Singh will join United States President Barack Obama and over 100 world leaders at the summit with the likelihood increasing of a consensus on a new global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires 2012.
One hundred-and-ninety-two countries have signed the climate change convention.
Amid no signs of a breakthrough, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit may fall short of expectations and warned against any dilution of the principles of UNFCCC, particularly of 'common but differentiated' responsibilities.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh along with his counterparts from Brazil, South Africa and China walked out to meet Connie Hedegaard, the Danish President of the COP, and convey their protest.
India's top-ranked singles player Ramkumar Ramanathan, of late, has developed a decent serve and volley game and comeback-man Yuki Bhambri is also comfortable playing on grass courts.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said a major achievement was that it was a 'non-legally binding' accord and negotiations would continue under the Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan to be completed at the end of 2010.
Five top United Nations officials have urged world leaders to "seal the deal" at Copenhagen in December on an ambitious new climate change pact aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Conference of Parties must come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
The overall climate negotiations are moving under two tracks -- the first track is LCA under Bali Action Plan that requires parties to produce a legally binding treaty before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
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.
A survey of 40 firms suggests that there's money to be made fighting climate change.
Rejecting allegations that India has succumbed to US pressure at the historic meet, Rajni Ranjan Rashmi, joint director in environment ministry, maintained that the way the direction of the talks were going at the Danish capital, India was expecting nothing but equity.
Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh said he was 'happy' at the development and believed it to be the result of 'sustained pressure brought to bear by developing countries'.
When it comes to growing the economy the most with the least energy, 10 nations lead the way.
Defending champion Lakshya Sen pulled out of the SaarLorLux Open Super 100 tournament after his father-cum-coach D K Sen tested positive for COVID-19 in Saarbrucken.
Trump's diatribe against India in his speech on the Paris Agreement is hard to explain, especially when a Modi-Trump meeting is supposedly on the cards, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
We lost the gains of Rio and Kyoto in Copenhagen and Paris, but it would have been worse, if any mandatory restraints were imposed on our green house gas emissions, says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
New text is "ambitious and balanced"
The new agreement, will be negotiated and once it is sealed it will also be judged
'By his very presence in Delhi on Republic Day, Obama is revisiting the most defining relationship of the 20th century after a period of stagnation,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
EU operates as one block at the climate change negotiations and takes a single greenhouse gas emission reduction target under the Paris Agreement
COP 21 is about how much carbon space is left and who gets how much of that space
Senior journalist Darryl D'Monte reports exclusively for Rediff.com from Paris.