Just days before India takes a formal stand at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh categorically said there should not be high expectations from the conference. India was not going to be part of any binding cuts or global agreements on carbon emissions. But India would still adopt ruthless, aggressive and proactive measures to curb emissions.
Being aggressive and ruthless, he clarified, doesn’t mean being bound by international commitments. “It means shifting towards cleaner technology for cooking, transport and towards renewable energy,” he said.
“We are going for a long haul before we reach any international commitment. Climate change is more a domestic than international issue for us. We must be aggressive internationally... But the position we take internationally will be conditioned by global reality. What we do domestically is realistic. India is very vulnerable on the climate front. Nobody is more vulnerable than us, hence, it is really a domestic issue for us,” Ramesh said at the release of the State of World Population 2009 report by the United Nations Population Fund.
“There is abundance of evidence to show that climate change is not related in any way to population growth… though China was recording negative population growth during the 1990s, its emissions kept on increasing. Emissions are caused by consumption patterns.
“It has been seen that developed countries which eat beef have the maximum amount of emissions. They can cut down on emissions, if they stop eating beef. We haven’t reached that level mainly because India is not a beef-eating country,” the minister said.
“There is no iron law to say that India with its growing population has chances of increasing emissions. We are a developing country and we need to grow 23% by 2020. We don’t need to be defensive at the international level. We will be a high-developing low-emitting country,” he said.
The minister indicated that low carbon growth will be a part of the new five-year plan.
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