FACTBOX - India Sets Out Demands In Climate Change Fight
Date: 02-Dec-08
Country: INDIA
Dec 1 - India, the world's no. 4 greenhouse gas emitter, joins about 185 nations in Poznan, Poland, from Monday to work on a new UN climate pact meant to curb global warming.
Following are some of the main points India has made in submissions to the United Nations ahead of the talks, which are part of a two-year drive to replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.
The United States, China, India and Brazil are currently outside Kyoto's first phase till end-2012. Kyoto only commits 37 rich nations to binding emissions targets.
FAIR SHARE
With greenhouse gas levels rising quickly, India has said any stabilization target should be decided on the principle that each person on the planet has an equal right to the atmosphere.
But India believes industrialised nations have a historic responsibility for the bulk of the greenhouse pollution and should curb their own emissions first and help the developing world clean up their economies without harming development.
"Equitable sharing of the carbon space, therefore, needs to be urgently agreed by the international community," the government said in an October submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto's parent treaty.
CALL FOR CASH, TECHNOLOGY
"There is a critical and urgent need to provide access to technology for adaptation at a regional and national level," the government said in the same submission.
It was crucial to have new and additional funding to meet the costs of integrating adaptation into national development plans and adaptation projects, the government said.
GETTING THE RICH TO PAY UP
India has called on the developed world to contribute the equivalent of 0.5 percent of total GDP annually to pay for the costs of adaptation and mitigation.
Individual country contributions could be decided on the basis of historical responsibility for greenhouse gas concentration, current emission levels or per-capita GDP.
China said in October it wanted rich nations to commit one percent of their economic worth to help poor nations fight global warming.
VENTURE CAPITAL FUND
The Indian government says money could be channelled into a series of funds, such as a venture capital fund for emerging green energy technologies, an adaptation fund and a technology acquisition and technology transfer fund.
MID-TERM TARGET
India has expressed alarm at the steady increase in emissions by the 37 rich nations bound by Kyoto's first phase and has called on them to adopt deep 2020 cuts and promote less wasteful lifestyles that "promote sustainable patterns of consumption".
India wants mid-term cuts of more than 25-40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, excluding lifestyle changes.
NATIONAL CLIMATE PLAN
India released its first National Action Plan on Climate Change in mid-2008. It laid out 8 "national missions" running to 2017, including development of solar power, promoting energy efficiency and afforestation. It sets no caps on emissions but pledges that India's per-capita greenhouse gas emissions will "at no point exceed that of developed countries". India's per-capita emissions are about two tonnes, compared with 20 tonnes for the United States.
(Reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)