By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : India cannot compromise on economic growth but it was equally determined not to let its greenhouse gas emissions increase beyond those of industrialised nations, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Thursday.
“The key issue for India and other developing countries is developing the ability to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change and adapt to it,” he said at a US sponsored meeting of the world’s 17 major economies to search for a new framework for energy security and climate change.
“This requires technological and financial resources that can only come through development, which, without doubt, is the best form of adaptation,” Mukherjee said suggesting the “time is not ripe for us to take on quantitative targets of emissions limitation.”
“These would be counter-productive and have a negative effect on our development process,” he said asking the developed countries to continue to take the lead in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
“The imperative of meeting our people’s aspirations for a better life demands that India grow rapidly at around 8-10 percent each year in the coming decades.
“India needs to substantially increase per-capita electricity consumption and cannot compromise on this,” said Mukherjee noting that rapid economic growth and concomitant energy production and electricity consumption will increase CO2 emissions.
“However, we are determined that even as we pursue economic growth, our per-capita GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions will not increase beyond those of the industrialised countries,” he said.
Opening this first in a series of meetings aimed at developing a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed hopes of combating global warming without stifling growing economies.
“It is our hope that we can make progress toward that goal in this meeting … and that in doing so we will support and accelerate the broader processes now underway in the UN framework convention,” she said.
Rice stated the consistent US position that individual nations should set their own goals to curb climate-warming emissions, especially carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and petroleum-fuelled vehicles.
Thanking US President George Bush for his timely initiative on energy security and climate change, two of the most daunting challenges confronting the world today, Mukherjee said it allows for exploration of opportunities for large-scale cooperative action among major economies on energy security and climate change.
Further global warming is inevitable as a result of the accumulated concentration of GHG in the atmosphere caused by emissions from the industrialised countries, the minister said.
India, he said, was thus happy at the meeting’s emphasis on technology as any long-term solution to climate change requires the development and diffusion of technologies for adaptation.
Urging research and development in clean technologies that could be advanced through programmes of collaborative R&D between institutions in developed and developing countries, Mukherjee said the sharing of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is crucial.
“A more fair balance between rewards to the innovator, and the global imperative of sustainable development, is essential, if large-scale deployment of advanced, clean technologies is to occur.
“Technology control regimes need to be dispensed with for advanced clean technologies. Standards and priorities should reflect the developmental context to which they apply,” he said.
The minister said he is confident the meeting, which is bound to throw up a rich variety of diverse ideas, “will greatly facilitate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”.
India has a very small individual carbon footprint with per-capita CO2 emissions being just about a quarter of the world’s average, he said, but “our willingness to engage in finding practical, pragmatic solutions, and cooperating in advanced clean technologies for the benefit of entire humankind are second to none.”
These meetings are intended to accelerate discussions under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and contribute to a global agreement under the Convention by 2009 to take effect when the Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012.
Apart from India and China other participants are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union (Portugal as current EU president plus the European Commission), France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and Britain, plus the United Nations.