By IANS
New Delhi : India may not want to commit to mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions after 2012, but what does it want to do to combat climate change? That is what Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), wants to find out during his stay here.
“I want to hear from the government and from businesses to get a better understanding of India’s position. The government says what India does not want to do on climate change. I want to know what India wants to do,” de Boer told reporters Wednesday.
The UN’s top climate change official was even more blunt in his criticism of developed countries. “The US is not doing enough to combat climate change. Not a single industrialised country is doing enough.”
De Boer is in Delhi to attend the Sustainable Development Summit organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) on the theme of climate change here Feb 7-9. He has just attended a meeting of major economies on the same subject in Honolulu.
“The Honolulu meet was far more positive than the previous meet of this group,” de Boer told IANS. “But addressing climate change remain a very difficult process. The European Union wants legally binding GHG emission reduction targets, while the US is still opposing it.”
GHG emissions are warming the earth’s atmosphere and leading to climate change that is already affecting farm output, leading to weather extremes and raising sea levels, mainly in the tropics and sub-tropics. Power generation in thermal plants is the single biggest source of carbon dioxide – the major GHG.
Industrialised countries account for almost all extra GHG in the air today. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, between 2008 and 2012, these countries (except the US) have committed to reduce their GHG emissions by five percent, compared to 1990.
While few industrialised countries are likely to meet this target, they have been asking growing economies like China, India, Brazil and South Africa to commit to GHG emission reductions after 2012, a position strongly opposed by India.
De Boer, the man at the centre of these international negotiations, predicted that the next treaty to address climate change “would be one of the most complicated international agreements ever”.
The previous UN conference on climate change in Bali last December gave a two-year timeframe to complete the negotiations.
“The Bali roadmap calls for boldness,” de Boer said, “because it affects energy pricing, energy security, industrial competitiveness and air quality leading to increased health costs”.