As preparations for the Copenhagen Summit are in the homestretch, the European Union (EU) is of the view that developing countries should have the flexibility to set their own emission targets and that India should draw its own national action plan that could be part of a treaty.
EU Ambassador Daniele Smadja said at a roundtable media interaction with envoys of the EU member-states here that they did not expect India to bind its emissions reduction, but wanted it to have its own national plan that could be part of a treaty.
The EU, she said, was looking at quantifying targets and encouraged by Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh’s statement that New Delhi would be part of the solution.
She said an equivalent to the WTO-term NAMA, which elaborates as Nationally Appropriate Mitigating Action, was needed whereby developing nations could quantify the standards and put them on the table.
The EU representatives said India, China and Brazil would have a major role in joining the international effort to contribute towards mitigating the effects of climate change.
“The developed countries have a historic responsibility, and we agree. That is why the EU has committed unconditionally to cut its emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and take it to 30 per cent if other [industrialised] countries agree,” French Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont said.
The EU was not asking the developing countries to reduce emissions but to control their growth. If a developing country agreed to control emissions by a certain percentage, the goal should be binding. He suggested that verification could be part of the process with financial support and clean technology forming part of the negotiating package.
The EU, Ms. Smadja said, had accepted that by 2020, its member-states would affect a 20 per cent cut in emissions; use 20 per cent of the renewable energies; and improve energy efficiency by 20 per cent.
It also estimated that at least €100 billion would be needed each year under the financial package for the developing countries. Of this, 20 to 40 per cent would come from domestic funding, 40 per cent from global markets and the rest from international public finance depending on emission cuts and the capacity to pay.
