)
The pact on the power sector between the US and India, to be signed when Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets US President Obama, has hit a logjam. The US has pushed hard to link a parallel agreement on climate change with the power pact, which the Indian side has refused to do till date. India has pointed out that the climate change agreement the US wants to ink involves multilateral negotiations with other countries involved and unresolved costs for the Indian industry linked to intellectual property rights of alternatives.
The continuing stand-off between the US and India has put the cabinet note the Indian government would have to ratify for signing the agreement between the two countries in a limbo.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries on power is primarily about sharing of knowledge and technical know-how about areas such as energy efficiency and smart-metering, but the US wants to include another element to do with phase-out of refrigerant gases that add to global warming.
In an array of meetings held over the past month with the power, environment and external affairs ministries US delegations and officials have insisted that India agree to a bilateral pact that bans India’s use of a particular set of refrigerant gases which lead to global warming. India has asked for resolution and clarity over alternatives, related costs and the issue of patents over the alternate technology before it inks such a pact at the international level. Additionally, India has disagreed with the US’ push to undertake the ban on these gases under the Montreal Protocol which deals with ozone depleting substances instead of the UN convention that deals with climate change. The Montreal Protocol obliges the rich countries to pay a lesser cost for transition of technologies to poor countries as compared with the climate convention.
“We have seen some belligerence from the US side on this, which was unexpected. They seem to have hinged the entire MOU on the power sector to the separate issue of climate change. It is unfortunate,” said a senior government official party to the negotiations.
The US negotiators raised the issue with the power ministry also initially but the power minister, Piyush Goyal, conveyed clearly that while he was not in favour of such linkages in the MOU, the decision on climate change issues lay with his colleague Prakash Javadekar, heading the environment ministry, sources told Business Standard. “The US continues to press hard on this count, even though the ministers have repeatedly expressed India’s views,” said the official.
When asked about India's stand in general on the refrigerant gasses issue, on Friday Environment Minister Javadekar said, “We also want to resolve this but the alternative has to be a reality. You cannot negotiate in hollow. Costs and intellectual property rights are issues. But, we shall continue to discuss it.”
Internally the government had assessed earlier that some of the alternatives are yet untested for safe use across different sectors and yet others are extremely costly with the patents held by select US-based companies. It had also assessed that agreeing at the moment to ban the gas under the Montreal Protocol would also break the negotiating balance under the UN climate change convention where a new global agreement has to be signed by 2015.
“We are happy to look at phasing out of these gases that cause climate change but why are some countries not willing to let that happen under the UN convention that regulates climate change and insisting on the Montreal Protocol?” said a second government official acknowledging that the US had not backed off on the move. “There are several other countries which have expressed reservations about this proposal from the US and we continue to discuss it with everyone. At the same time we are also undertaking the exercise to understand the costs and alternatives for these gases,” he added.
India had categorically stated its position on the issue of these refrigerant gases to the US when its special envoy on climate change Todd Stern had visited India in July. But sources said that the visit of the deputy national security advisor, Caroline Atkinson, in September brought the prickly concern back on the table and the differences continue to persist.
The US President has made it one of his priorities to get a global compact on the refrigerant gases under the Montreal Protocol. The Indian government assesses that helps Obama to claim leadership on climate change globally while shifting the costs and burden of action on to the developing countries in the short run.
Reacting strongly to the on-going lobbying by the US, an official said, “The overall agreement has to be do with capacity building and sharing of technical know-how specifically for the power sector. It is unacceptable to us that this be tied up with a completely different issue and an attempt be made to bypass the environment ministry in this process as well. In this government this is not acceptable.”
The official added that conversations between the negotiating teams of two countries had, at least on one occasion, hit a rough patch, with the Indian delegation pointing out that the recent experience at the WTO should make it clear that India was willing to stand alone for its national interest.
On Friday Javadekar when asked about his views on the phase-out of the refrigerant gases said the government wanted a resolution but only keeping the national interest in mind.
On Friday evening sources told Business Standard that the two sides continued to talk to resolve the impasse.
