By IANS,
New Delhi : “I had gone to Copenhagen not to save the world but to protect India’s right to development,” Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh declared Tuesday.
Summing up his experiences at the Dec 7-19 climate summit in the Danish capital, Ramesh said India had ensured there was “no limit on development. We were afraid of this. There had been talk of 2025 being a peaking year for developing country emissions. We have removed the danger for now”.
He was referring to a proposal for emerging economies like India and China to stop raising their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) – which are warming the earth. At the same time, he said: “We have to peak emissions this century, or there will be no 22nd century.”
Addressing a crowded press conference in his ministry, Ramesh said: “Without the unity of BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) and their meeting with (US President Barack) Obama, there would have been no Copenhagen Accord.”
Next year, “we’ll make our best efforts to strengthen the BASIC grouping at ministerial, official and heads of state and government levels for climate negotiations. President Lula (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) of Brazil has invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the PM has said he will consider the invitation.
“In March, we are holding a BASIC meeting in Delhi, in preparation for the next round of (climate treaty) negotiations in Germany scheduled in June.”
Ramesh had been under attack in parliament earlier in the day for India having agreed to international “consultations and analysis” of the actions it took to mitigate its GHG emissions.
He explained: “The US president came to us with four words – review or scrutiny or verification or assessment. Our answer was consultation and analysis, within clearly defined guidelines that would not affect national sovereignty.”
“No single country can impose guidelines on us,” the minister said. “We carry out annual consultations with the WTO and the IMF. That does not hurt our sovereignty in any way. We should not be so defensive.”
Ramesh referred to media reports quoting senior Obama administration official David Axelrod, who had said the US could now ensure that China and India now reduced their emissions.
Describing Axelrod as the “spin doctor of the US president”, Ramesh said: “Obama has not said it. He has not threatened us. Maybe Axelrod’s statement is due to domestic pressure. We needn’t worry about it.”
But the minister had sent an e-mail to Axelrod Tuesday, mentioning that his statement went against those of Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Asked what he thought the Copenhagen conference had achieved, he described it as “just a milestone”. Later, he called it a “small step, but there’s danger that there’ll be pressure. We’ll confront it bravely”.
The minister added that negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol – the current treaty to tackle climate change – would continue. Agreeing that many industrialised countries wanted to bury the protocol, he said: “We’ll confront this. We’ll ensure the Kyoto Protocol is not killed. We don’t want to carry out its last rites.”
Asked to comment on widespread unhappiness among other members of the Group of 77 countries at India’s stand in Copenhagen, Ramesh said: “We’re in the G77 and in the BASIC group and in talks with industrialised countries. Many of our gods have three feet. We should do the same.”
Later on he said: “We should be like Nataraj. Doesn’t he have four feet?”
He admitted that some G77 countries – especially those in the 43-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) – blame India and China for not doing enough to tackle climate change.
“Bangladesh and Nepal also want us to reduce emissions more strongly; some African countries. In G77, there is not the 100 percent same point of view over everything.” Later he said: “It is unfair to say India abandoned G77. It’s simply not true.”
The group, which actually has 135 countries, combines with China to negotiate climate treaties as a bloc.
Ramesh was happy that India had not emerged as a deal-breaker in Copenhagen and had “played a constructive role”, while admitting that many European countries were very unhappy because the BASIC countries and the US had stitched the accord together, leaving the Europeans out.
In his turn, Ramesh was critical of the role played by host country Denmark. “From Day one it appeared that the whole process was not transparent. There were communication gaps all around. The Danish presidency (of the conference) did not take the larger international group into confidence.”
The minister admitted that India was not likely to get much of $30 billion promised over the next three years to help poorest and vulnerable countries adapt to climate change effects. “India should not be a beggar,” he said. “We’ll mobilise money when necessary.”