Difference between revisions of "India"

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==India's perspective on Copenhagen ==
==India's perspective on Copenhagen ==
shift away from growth patterns based on fossil fuel use requires massive resources, both financial and technological. The more rapid the shift, the greater the scale of resources required. The crucial question, therefore, is: Who will pay?
India accounts for 5% of the current global GHG emissions. Even if this was reduced to zero, it would hardly have any effect on averting climate change. Unless other countries those responsible for much higher levels of emissions, such as the U.S. and China, with 20% each, were to achieve much more drastic reductions, the threat to India from Climate Change would remain undiminished. The glaciers would still melt and there would still be more frequent droughts or unseasonal rain. The Indian islands and low-lying coastal plains, would still get submerged due to sea-level rise.


The argument at the multilateral negotiations is about something quite different. The issue is about burden-sharing relating to a global issue, subject to positive and negative external economies.
India sees this as a classic external economy dilemma: what I invest cannot be directly related to the outcome. It is equally possible that I benefit from what others invest in, since I stand to enjoy a global public good being created. Therefore, in dealing with cross-cutting, global issues such as Climate Change, it becomes necessary to align the external economies being generated with a burden-sharing arrangement that makes economic sense to the countries participating in the multilateral regime.


Let me explain this a little further. India accounts for 4% of the current global GHG emissions. Supposing we were, by some miracle, able to reduce this to zero. Unless other countries, in particular, those responsible for much higher levels of emissions, such as the U.S. and China, with 20% each, were to achieve much more drastic reductions, the threat to India from Climate Change would remain undiminished. Our glaciers would still melt. There would still be more frequent droughts or unseasonal rain. Our islands and low-lying coastal plains, would still get submerged due to sea-level rise. Here is a classic external economy dilemma: what I invest cannot be directly related to the outcome. It is equally possible that I benefit from what others invest in, since I stand to enjoy a global public good being created. Therefore, in dealing with cross-cutting, global issues such as Climate Change, it becomes necessary to align the external economies being generated with a burden-sharing arrangement that makes economic sense to the countries participating in the multilateral regime.
India feels that nothing that China said or did at Copenhagen represented any noteworthy change in its stand on Climate issues and yet it was projected as the villain which stood in the way of a meaningful outcome. India believes, this had to do less with Climate Change and more with the disappointed expectations of the US and the .


Nothing that China said or did at Copenhagen represented any noteworthy change in its stand on Climate issues and yet it was projected as the villain which stood in the way of a meaningful outcome. Why was this the case? Again, in my view, this had to do less with Climate Change and more with the disappointed expectations of the US and the European Union that
It appears to Indian negotiators that there there was any offer either technology or financial resources to enable India to scale up its own ambitious efforts to deal with Climate Change. Therefore, India maintains that if it is being in any case tarred with the same brush as China was, does it not make sense for us to work with China
 
There If we were being in any case tarred with the same brush as China was, does it not make sense for us to work with China?


= Facts And Figures =  
= Facts And Figures =  

Revision as of 16:26, 22 August 2010