Indian Official Rules Out Global Action Plan on Climate Change
As the parties to the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol on global warming prepare to meet in Poznan, Poland next month, India's Minister of Science and Technology weighed in today to voice little interest in a global action plan on climate change.
In a statement that strongly favored initiatives tailored to suit local needs, Minister Kapil Sibal told attendees at a climate change conference, "You cannot have a global action plan on climate change. You can only have a global commitment."
Minister Sibal, who been representing India at international climate negotiations, said the issue of climate change has to be addressed at national, regional and local levels as each part has different sets of problems.
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"Solutions to deal with climate change will not be the same for the Himalayan region, the vast coastline, central India and the northeastern areas," Sibal said, stressing that different plans were required for different regions. Identifying small and medium enterprises as the most polluting sector, he pitched for low-cost technologies to be made available to them to help reduce their carbon footprint."India is at the cusp of a new technology revolution and global warming provided an opportunity to excel in the field," Sibal said. He said the infrastructure, the industry and other sectors are poised for a giant leap and India can make correct choices on technologies to ensure that all such initiatives are energy efficient.
India has unveiled the National Action Plan on Climate Change which seeks to address the issue through eight missions -- solar, enhanced energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, water, sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, a green India, sustainable agriculture and strategic knowledge for climate change.
The Indian National Action Plan on Climate Change emphasizes the overriding priority of maintaining high economic growth rates to raise the standard of living for Indian citizens. According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Action Plan calls for assistance from developed countries to support their eight action areas, and pledges that India's per capita greenhouse gas emissions "will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue our development objectives."
India, China and other developed nations have consistently made it clear that the will not - and should not be asked to - sacrifice their efforts to improve the standard of living of their citizens in order to meet climate change goals. And yet, if India or China's per capita emissions rise to the levels of the United States or even the EU, climate stabilization goals will be impossible to reach.
Therein lies the challenge I call "the Development Trap". Without readily available and affordable clean energy technologies to power sustainable global development we are faced with a terrible dilemma: either sacrifice our climate and environment in the name of development, or condemn billions to energy poverty and a permanently lower standard of living in the name of climate stability.
Breaking out of the Development Trap will no doubt be the greatest challenge of the 21st Century.
If the UN Convention of the Parties negotiations on Climate Change in Poznan this December and in Copenhagen next year hope to make any progress, they should focus explicitly and centrally on international cooperation to rapidly accelerate the development and deployment of clean and affordable energy technologies that can break out of the Development Trap.