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As negotiators gather for global climate talks in Denmark this week, India is resisting steep binding cuts in greenhouse emissions. Reporter Miranda Kennedy tells us why. (Photo of Kolkata factory: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images)
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH/Boston.
FEMALE VOICE: Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, a warm welcome to Copenhagen and to the opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009.
WERMAN: It’s official. The International Climate Conference opened today in Denmark. After months of growing anticipation, delegates from almost 192 countries were told that the Summit will write history. But the U.N. Climate Chief Yvo de Boer warned that it needs to be the right sort of history. De Boer said the negotiators must set ambitious goals to tackle global warming. Delegates will be trying to strike a new deal on climate change during the next two weeks. The Senior U.S. Delegate at the Conference, Jonathan Pershing, outlined what the Obama Administration is doing to help reach a deal.
JONATHAN PERSHING: At the center of these efforts, the Administration is working with Congress to pass domestic clean energy and climate legislation as quickly as possible. That’s what we’re bringing to the table, an unprecedented level of effort, a commitment to act domestically and internationally.
WERMAN: Back in Washington, meanwhile, the Administration upped the ante on that domestic commitment today. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will use its power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and power plants. CO2 is the main human contributor to global warming, and the move was a big symbolic gesture to the world. It was also a warning to Congress that the Administration will act on greenhouse emissions with or without Congressional support. President Obama himself will attend the final day of the Climate Conference next week. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also head to Copenhagen next week. India’s position could influence the outcome of the talks and the future of the global climate. The country’s booming economy could soon produce a huge spike in climate pollution. India has pledged to voluntarily reduce some of that growth and emissions, but as Miranda Kennedy reports, the country is resisting calls for mandatory cuts.
MIRANDA KENNEDY: Indian diplomats have arrived in Copenhagen expressing hope for reaching agreement with the West on a global climate accord. But back in New Delhi, not many people are being diplomatic about climate change diplomacy.
LEENA SRIVASTAVA: I don’t think that the western countries actually have a right to point towards China or India.
KENNEDY: Leena Srivastava runs the Energy and Resources Institute. She says that the West sees only part of the truth about India. They see a rising economic giant, soon to be the world’s biggest country, and already the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. But what she sees is an India that still has one of the lowest per capita emissions rates on the planet.
SRIVASTATVA: The basic problem is our perspectives don’t match.
KENNEDY: You could say the dispute boils down to a disagreement over which is more important the past or the future. Most future pollution is expected to come from India and the rest of the developing world. That’s why some in the West say these countries must agree to reduce their emissions. But industrialized nations are responsible for 80% of past carbon emissions, and Srivastava speaks as one with official India when she says it is unfair to ask India to curtail its growth to deal with a problem it did not cause.
CHANDRA BUSHAN: You’re essentially saying no more electricity to your house, close your factories, and go back to the fields. I don’t think that’s a position which any country will accept.
KENNEDY: Chandra Bushan is a Climate Researcher with the Center for Science and the Environment. He’s passionate when he says that a cut in emissions would mean a cut in economic growth, so passionate that sweat broke out on his forehead, even under the fan in his Delhi office. The Indian government has refused to accept any internationally binding emissions caps, and Bushan makes it clear that this is a matter of national pride and sovereignty.
BUSHAN: Our emissions will increase. That’s why the developed countries’ emissions must come down. If the world is not worried about a moral position, then India will have to harden its position.
KENNEDY: India believes this position protects the interests of all developing countries. That’s why emissions targets should be based not on hard dates but on developmental levels, according to Sunjoy Joshi, a Policy Analyst in Delhi.
SUNJOY JOSHI: The principle of negotiations has to be raised and one has to accept the basic fact that today it is India, tomorrow it is going to be Africa, and a whole host of other nations waiting. All lifestyles have to converge, and then there should be binding targets for everyone, once lifestyles converge.
KENNEDY: Joshi doesn’t expect developing countries to catch up with the rest of the world for another 40 years. Meanwhile, he says, the U.S. should cut its own so-called luxury emissions from things like SUV’s and central air conditioning systems. But there are voices in India who consider this high-minded moralism and finger pointing dangerous.
BITTU SAHGAL: In terms of India’s own self interest, the position that you’ve polluted so therefore we should pollute is the equivalent of suicide.
KENNEDY: Bittu Sahgal is editor of the environmental magazine Sanctuary Asia.
SAHGAL: The ethics of India’s position might be justifiable, but the science is completely wrong because India may not have caused the climate problem, but India will be the first and worst victim of climate change in the world.
KENNEDY: Whether India will be the first or worst victim is debatable, but there’s no doubt it’s already suffering consequences like devastating floods, rising sea levels and a shrinking Himalayan snowpack, which feeds the country’s major rivers. And those realities have prompted something of a turnaround on India’s official hardline negotiating position. This fall, India proposed sweeping new legislation that would set internal targets for renewable energy use, and prescribe efficiency standards for vehicles and buildings. And on the eve of the Copenhagen meeting it announced that it would cut emissions growth by at least 20 percent over the next ten years. But not everyone is satisfied.
VINUTA GOPAL: If we could put international negotiations aside, and if India just took stock for its own self, I think that India would react actually probably differently. It is with the pressure of international negotiations that India is posturing.
KENNEDY: That’s Vinuta Gopal of Greenpeace India. Gopal thinks the government should move more aggressively to cut emissions and worry less about its negotiating position at Copenhagen. But India is holding fast to its position of no binding emissions caps. Economic policymaker Montek Singh Ahluwalia says what matters most to him is a simple principle, emissions equity.
MONTEK SINGH AHLUWALIA: We are willing to guarantee that our per capita emissions will never exceed of those of the industrialized countries. If as a result of technology and self-denial and whatever determination, they were to cut their emissions 50%, we are in effect willing to let you set the cap. The moment you achieve it yourself, we will accept that cap.
KENNEDY: Of course, India knows just how unlikely it is that the U.S. will cut its emissions that much anytime soon. Right now, the average American is responsible for nearly 20 times the emissions of the average Indian. But pledging emissions equality is good for India. It allows it to retain its moral authority even while appearing to be a deal maker. For the World, this is Miranda Kennedy, New Delhi.
WERMAN: That report was produced with the assistance of the International Reporting Project. Tomorrow, Miranda Kennedy reports on India’s promises and record on renewable energy.
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