By IANS
New Delhi : India’s exports to the 27-member European Union may be hit if New Delhi does not play a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a senior member of European Parliament warned Tuesday.
Neena Gill, chairperson of the European Parliament committee in charge of relations with India, told reporters that the parliament made rules governing imports to the EU and “climate change is very high on our agenda”.
The parliament has a climate change committee whose members have been meeting policymakers and civil society groups here for the last two days.
On Tuesday, they met a group from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).
Ficci sources confirmed that they had got the message of “go green or else” loud and clear from the committee members though it was never said in so many words.
Committee chairman Guido Sacconi said India had “a great role” in tackling climate change although Indian policymakers have been repeatedly saying that New Delhi should not be asked to do much to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The Indian argument is that industrialised countries should be blamed for most of the GHG in the earth’s atmosphere.
“We understand that India is worried that mitigating greenhouse gas emissions could have an adverse impact on its development,” Sacconi said. “But we feel the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they must go together for sustainable development.”
GHG emissions – mainly carbon dioxide – are leading to global warming that is already affecting farm output, worsening the frequency and damage potential of droughts, floods and storms, and raising sea levels, mainly in the tropics and sub-tropics.
Sacconi agreed that for India to mitigate its GHG emissions, “we have to provide incentives and technical cooperation”.
He hoped that after 2012, when the current global treaty to tackle climate change – the Kyoto Protocol – ends, countries around the world would go beyond the commitments they had made under the protocol.