India sets terms for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions

 India has offered to place a "cap" on the "per-person greenhouse gas emissions" at a level equivalent to a "cap" that the developed countries would be willing to agree upon.

Conveying this to the leaders of the East Asia Summit (EAS)  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his "first priority is India's economic growth" and climate change issues would be looked at under that prism. India's greenhouse gas emissions were now "much smaller" than those of the developed countries, especially when measured on a "per-person basis."

 

Eloquent presentations

 

India being "entitled" to the same standards as those that the developed bloc applied to itself, he would be prepared to match any commitments that might be made by the industrially advanced nations within the framework of economic growth.

 

Summing up India's stance on these lines, EAS Chairman and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, at a post-summit press conference, that he did "not know whether that is the position which will be negotiated in an international agreement" on climate change.

 

China and India made "eloquent presentations" on why economic development was a priority for them, Mr. Lee pointed out. The leaders of the 16 EAS countries later signed a Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment. At the signing ceremony, Mr. Lee was flanked by Dr. Singh and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, as if to convey the political symbolism of the relevance of these two countries to the global discourse on climate change.

 

Mr. Lee described the EAS document on this issue as "a declaration of intent, not a negotiated treaty."

 

On the cross-linkages between economic development, energy security and climate change, Mr. Lee quoted Dr. Singh as having told his EAS colleagues that he had "no time to worry about global warming" after reading headlines suggesting that Venezuela would like crude oil prices to double from the current level of $100 a barrel.

 

The issue of civilian nuclear energy was discussed during the in-camera EAS meeting, but the United States-India agreement on this issue did not figure, according to Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who was with Dr. Singh during the deliberations.

 

Of some resonance to this U.S.-India issue was a comment that Mr. Lee made at his press conference while outlining the need for ratification of the new charter of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

 

He said: "Some of the legislatures do not always ratify everything which the executive puts before them."

 

The leaders of the EAS, a forum that links India with China as also Japan among others, declared their intention to cooperate for "the development and use of civilian nuclear power." This would apply to "those EAS participating countries which are interested."

 

 The Hindu, November 22^nd   2007