India, China Push for National Climate Goals Ahead of Copenhagen Meeting
With hope of the US Climate Bill being cleared before the Copenhagen Summit in December there are substantial doubts over the successful negotiation of an international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. However, the pressure on developing countries to do their bit has resulted in announcements of many national climate goals and regional cooperation deals. It would be interesting to see if these regional agreements infuse momentum into the negotiations for a global climate treaty.
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The Indian and Chinese officials recently signed a memorandum of understanding which aims at increased cooperation in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The two countries also agreed to jointly study the impacts of global warming and climate change in the Himalayan region. The deal is crucial since it is the first major deal between the two countries after China broke ranks from other developing countries and expressed intentions to take up voluntary sectoral emission cuts.
Pressure Tactics: In the recent months there has been virtually no significant activity on the part of the developed countries with regard to emission reduction goals being set up or announcement of financial aid to poor and developing countries. There is still no consensus on the technology transfer and intellectual property rights issue. These issues are central to the goal of reducing carbon emissions worldwide. The developing countries demand adequate funds and technology as they see mandatory emission cuts to be financially non-feasible for there growing economies.
With these regional deals the developing countries seek to increase pressure on the developed countries not only to agree to bold mitigation measures but also provide for adequate resources to the developing countries to reduce their own emissions.
Alternative to Climate Treaty: The developing countries have been under tremendous pressure from the developed countries who have described there behavior at international negotiations to be ‘destructive’. After year long negotiations with American officials, the Chinese government agreed to sectoral emission cuts and announced its goal to reduce energy intensity.
As the rigid stance of developing countries diluted India, too, was seen shifting to a proactive approach to reduce carbon emissions. The Indian environment minister said that his country would like to adopt an approach similar to that adopted by China and announced that a domestic bill to control emission levels of the five most polluting industries in the country would be tabled in the Parliament soon.
Such deals and agreements are supposedly aimed at giving momentum to a new school of thought – the coexistence of national, non-binding mitigation measures for the developing countries with much stricter mandatory emission reduction targets for the developed countries. While the developing countries are against mandatory emission targets they seem to be coming on board for stricter international monitoring of mitigation measures.
It would be beneficial to the international effort to reduce carbon emissions if the developing countries, especially India and China, agree to cut their emission reductions. Their economies are still not strong enough to absorb any eventualities arising as a result of mandatory mitigation measures. But it is important that the developing countries reduce their carbon emissions as they will be engines of global economic growth in this century.
While setting national laws the developing countries must also agree to mandatory international monitoring. The steps taken to reduce carbon emissions and their actual impacts must be reported to the United Nations. This practice would also negate the inefficient and unproductive measures of the Kyoto Protocol. Since it is virtually impossible to achieve a global consensus on uniform emission reduction targets the only way forward now is the conjugation of international climate treaty and national/regional laws and agreements.
The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.
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About the Author
Mridul Chadha currently works as Head-News & Data at Climate Connect Limited, a market research and analytics firm in the renewable energy and carbon markets domain. He earned his Master’s in Technology degree from The Energy & Resources Institute in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management. He also has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering. Mridul has a keen interest in renewable energy sector in India and emerging carbon markets like China and Australia.
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