India on Sunday said there was no question of taking any binding carbon emission cuts, indicating the coordinated approach major emerging economies including Beijing and New Delhi are likely to adopt at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, which is just a week away.
“There cannot be any emission cuts... that is what we have said and this is also which is something what the developed countries have said that they (industrialised nations) don’t expect countries like India, actually to sign on to emission reduction target but rather to sign to a deviation from business as usual,” the country’s top climate negotiator Shyam Saran told a private channel, NDTV , at Port of Spain.
Mr. Saran’s views have come a day after India and China along with other developing nations forged a common front to put a pressure on the developed nations at the UN summit that begins from December 7.
Mr. Saran dismissed notions that there was any pressure on India to taken on legal emission cuts at the forthcoming meet and instead referred to various voluntarily steps taken by it whether it was in terms of renewable energy or improvement in energy efficiency.
The steps have actually added up to a very major contribution to the global efforts on mitigation, the special envoy to Prime Minister on Climate Change noted.
He maintained that, “it is a question how this (mitigation steps) has to be reflected at Copenhagen. And what we have stated is that we are in a position to reflect whatever we are doing in the form of our national communication to the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”
Mr. Saran also equated China's recent pledge to reduce carbon intensity with India's various steps taken to improve energy efficiency across the sectors in the country.
"China has essentially not announced an emission reduction target but has announced a slowing down of its emission growth.
"It is reducing the energy intensity and then the carbon intensity of its future growth, it means its (rate of) emission will grow slower than they would normally have," he explained adding that now what India is also doing is that its emissions will rise, but less than economic growth.
"That (what China is doing) is not very different from what India has been saying that even though its energy efficiency is already quite impressive, it is in position to continue with this improvement in its energy efficiencies and probably reach a figure of about 25 per cent by 2020."
He reminded that "the country has delivered 8-9 per cent growth in the last ten years or more with only a 3.8 or 3.9 per cent growth in our energy per annum, which means energy intensity growth is coming down and this trend is expected to continue."
If you want to convert it or avoid the emission, that amounts to a very significant deviations (from business as usual).
The statement prepared by India and China along with other key developing nations in Beijing has said the Kyoto Protocol should remain in force, with rich countries taking responsibility to cut emissions in accordance with the protocol's second commitment period from 2013.
