Date: 02-Mar-09
Country: INDIA
Author: Krittivas Mukherjee
India Lauds Obama Climate Plan But Sees Concerns Photo: B Mathur
Shyam Saran, India's chief climate envoy, speaks to the diplomats and strategic affairs experts in New Delhi January 10, 2007.
Photo: B Mathur
NEW DELHI - India's chief climate envoy said on Friday he welcomed President Barack Obama's policy on climate change but warned there would be no global deal if rich nations insisted on emission targets for all.
"There is no doubt that Obama has brought a renewed focus," Shyam Saran, the Indian prime minister's special envoy on climate change, said in his first comments on Obama's policy speech.
But Saran said negotiations at a key Copenhagen climate summit in December would not yield any results if Western nations linked any cut in their emissions to targets accepted by developing countries.
"Then, of course, we have a problem," he said, adding that the setting of a reduction target for 2050 must also specify interim targets for rich nations.
Developing countries want rich nations to set robust targets by 2020 from 1990 levels as a sign of their commitment to fighting global warming.
Saran repeated India's stance that it was not in a position to commit to an emissions target.
About 190 countries are trying to craft a broader climate treaty by December to replace the Kyoto Protocol that only binds wealthy nations to emissions targets between 2008 and 2012.
Rich and poor countries remain divided over funds for clean energy investment and technology transfer, as well as new targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for causing droughts, floods and disease.
Developing nations such as India and China -- among the world's worst polluters -- are exempt from adopting emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol because they need to burn fossil fuels to lift massive chunks of their population out of poverty.
Obama's election has raised hopes of an agreement.
He spoke of a "planet in peril" and said he would cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, followed by far deeper cuts of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
His plans are far more ambitious than those under former President George W. Bush and include a $150 billion renewables package. But any optimism for a pact in Copenhagen is in sharp contrast to a gloomy outlook forecast by some experts who say the financial crisis has affected the ability of countries to pay for climate measures or agree to emission cuts when jobs were being lost.
Saran said as climate change was a global crisis it required a global regime for technology transfer. "I would add that it requires a collaborative R&D regime as well."
Asked if the global financial downturn was being made an excuse by rich nations to dilute their climate commitment, he said the rhetoric was encouraging as most countries have spoken of the opportunity in the crisis.
"But what we find is in the negotiation itself when it comes to how finance transfer will take place, what the scale of transfer would be, we have not seen this translated into substance for negotiations."
(Editing by Surojit Gupta and Valerie Lee)
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