India won’t give new deal in UN Climate Summit

The Economic Times , Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Correspondent : Urmi Goswami

NEW DELHI: India is expected to stick to its tough stand on climate negotiation and make no new announcement at the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's climate summit in New York this month, which UN officials said would be a major turning point in the global approach to the issue.

The summit, which will bring together 125 heads of state and government including US President Barack Obama, as well as business and civil society, has been slated as the big event to mobilise political will towards finalising the new global compact to tackle climate change. Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not attending the summit, he would address the UN General Assembly four days later.

New Delhi is clear that the summit cannot become a forum to take decisions or make announcements as that would impact the ongoing negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The UN itself has emphasised that the summit is not a negotiating session but an effort to put the issue "back on top of the international agenda". Selwin Hart, director of the UN Secretary General's climate team told reporters this week that the summit "will be a major turning point in the way the world is approaching climate change," and would give leaders the opportunity to make key announcements and share steps their countries have taken to address climate change.

Officials said Modi's decision not to participate reflects the environment ministry's advice to the Prime Minister's Office on the desirability of an Indian participation at the highest levels of government. A senior official told ET on the conditions of anonymity that while several factors contributed to the prime minister's decision, the environment ministry had in its input stressed that UN Secretary General's initiative was not "important" as it was not part of the negotiations and that the Prime Minister "should not attend the meet."

It was felt that Prime Minister Modi's presence at what would be his first high profile UN engagement would put the pressure on India to make some new announcement on its efforts to deal with climate change.

The Indian stance on UN Climate Summit is in line with that of China — President Xi Jinping will not be attending the Summit either.

India and China's approach to the summit is reflective of the position taken by the Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group in climate negotiations. The LMDC is a group of developing countries which besides India and China includes Venezuela, Philippines, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia.

The LMDC maintains that the UN Climate Summit is not the forum to make any announcements on efforts to tackle climate change as it would prejudice ongoing climate change negotiations. There is a widespread feeling that the developed countries would like the UN Secretary General's initiative to be used to address and unlock contentious issues that have resulted in a logjam in the climate negotiations.

"There are many meetings on climate change, and this initiative by the UN Secretary General is one such effort. But it cannot be seen as a forum for negotiating a climate pact," a senior official said. While industrialised countries are keen that countries, particularly large developing countries, announce measures that they will take to tackle climate change at the UN Climate Summit, India and other developing countries see this as yet another attempt to dilute the differentiation between developed and developing countries.

Decisions and announcements outside of the UNFCCC are not bound by the principles enshrined in the Convention, which makes a distinction between the levels of efforts that developing and developed countries must make to tackle climate change.

Disagreements on this key political issue has contributed in some measure to the logjam in the climate change negotiations. India, sources indicated, is expected to reiterate the efforts it is making to deal with climate change, as well as call on industrialised countries to provide finance and technology to help developing countries tackle climate change.

 
SOURCE : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-wont-give-new-deal-in-un-climate-summit/articleshow/42573237.cms?prtpage=1
 


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