India today strongly hit out at developed nations for putting “conditions” and “adding dimensions” such as carbon tariff and trade competitiveness for action on climate change.
“Action on climate change cannot be based on conditions. Once we start going in that direction, it means we start going for protectionism under green label and it is harmful to India’s interest-seeking sustainable development,” Shyam Saran, India’s special envoy on climate change said.
He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Business response to climate change’ organised by the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development.
“So in that context, we see issues coming up, sometimes in the form of carbon tariff or greater tariff change or opening up of markets which the developed countries want to impose on us on the pretext of tackling climate change,” Saran added.
Sharing the concern of corporates that imposition of carbon tariff would go against the interest of business and industry here, he said "this is what we have been resisting. Collaborations become irrelevant when competitive tendencies prevail.”
“In international negotiations, we have taken the position that climate change is a challenge which must be dealt on its own and through supportive global regime,” he said, while indicating India’s stand to be taken at Copenhagen at the end of the year, when countries will meet to discuss a global policy on climate change.
“And whatever global action is taken must be based on the principles already incorporated in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which seek greenhouse gas emission cuts by the parties in Annexure I (developed nations),” he said.
Noting that climate change was not due to the current level of GHG(Greenhouse Gases) emissions but mainly due to the result of carbon-based industrial activity, he said that UNFCCC stipulates deep and significant cuts in the emissions of industrialised countries as fulfilment of their historic responsibility.
However, the developed nations are seeking to project that India is resisting the setting of a specific emissions cut target on a global basis, he said.
Positioning India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change as a new strategy for sustainable development, Saran said the issue of climate change for India is closely linked to development.
Saran also elaborated in detail about various missions documented in the Climate Change Action Plan to tackle global warming.
