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.
We dumped Kyoto because of the US - but even the diluted US-inspired Copenhagen accord is in peril.
Equating the accord with the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement between India and Pakistan, Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley accused the government of 'spin doctoring' and trying to interpret the agreement differently.
Minister of Environment Magnus Heunicke urged for national unity in the wake of the assault, emphasising the importance of collective responsibility in safeguarding one another, irrespective of "political disagreements, election campaigns."
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.
He described how India had negotiations with US for almost 36 hours over the words of the Accord.
The Accord was finalised at a meeting between the heads of India, China, South Africa, Brazil and the US in Copenhagen last Friday.
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.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rejected the UN deadline of January 31 for submission of emission targets and climate actions under the Copenhagen Accord.
India caved in to a bad deal at Copenhagen, says Praful Bidwai.
The group was constituted by the Planning Commission to achieve 20-25 per cent reduction in emission intensity by 2010 on 2005 levels as was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year at Copenhagen climate meet.
India has said it was under pressure from some developing nations to accept the Copenhagen Accord prepared at the UN meet on climate change last month at the Danish Capital.
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.
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).
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."
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
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances