A leading Indian advocacy group today termed "regressive" the statement of Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar here at the Climate meet that India would not support ex-ante review of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).
The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said review of INDCs is one of the ways in which the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility and respective capability (CBDRC) can be brought back into the climate change negotiations.
"But India is neither supporting the review nor proposing any alternative mechanism," said climate expert and deputy director general of CSE, Chandra Bhushan.
According to him, currently, INDCs do not guarantee fairness, ambition or adequacy.
They also -- de-facto -- remove the differentiation between developed and developing countries as every country will now decide on and give their own domestic targets, said Bhushan.
INDCs are the main building block for the future climate treaty. Each country has to report by next year what it intends to do to contribute to the fight against climate change.
Bhushan said at present there is no provision to hold countries like the US accountable, which is proposing just 12-14 per cent emission reduction by 2025 from 1990 levels.
Noting that developed countries have refused to link INDCs with finance or technology support to developing countries in the present mechanism, Bhushan said there is, therefore, no equity in INDCs; neither are they going to be based on (CBDRC).
Sunita Narain, director general of CSE said, "India should demand that countries should justify their INDCs based on equity and CBDRC."
"Instead of opposing, India should give alternative proposal on how it wants countries to take action based on equity and CBDRC.
"Otherwise, it would seem that India is using the issue of equity to block a consensus," she said.
