[Marxistindia] Clarify Positon on Climate Change Negotiations

[news from the cpi(m)]

                                                       December 05, 2009


Press Statement

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued
the following statement:


The Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, has over the
last two weeks been repeatedly introducing modifications and caveats to
India’s fundamental negotiating position on climate change. These are
per capita emissions as the basis of negotiations, differentiating
between the Annex 1 and non Annex countries, the actions of the
developing countries being predicated on the financial and technology
transfers from the rich countries. On each of these points, the Minster
is now deviating from India's position and even from position that the
PM has taken on these issues.

At the end of the debate in the Lok Sabha, the Minister was dismissive
of India’s stand on per capita emissions as the basis for equitable
burden-sharing at Copenhagen. Calling India’s low per capita emissions
an “accident of history’’, he added that India’s biggest failure was our
inability to control population growth. These remarks go against India’s
stated positions on both climate policy and population policy. It is
well-known that the Minister has modified the Prime Minister’s stated
position on climate policy that India’s per capita emissions would not
exceed that of the developed countries by replacing the words “would not
exceed’’ by the words “will stay below’’ making it open for rich
countries to negotiate India well below rich countries per capita
emission levels. When queried in Parliament as to why the modifications
have been introduced, he has dismissed such queries claiming that the
two phrases ``mean the same thing.’’ 

In an interview to the Times of India today, the Minister has stated
that India would be willing to accept monitoring, reporting and
verification of mitigation actions in India even if they are not
supported financially and technologically by the developed countries. He
has dismissed the earlier position as a negotiating tactic and not an
operational strategy. He has specified that even unsupported actions
would have IMF/WTO style reporting. 

He has also declared in the same interview that the question of
Intellectual Property Rights is not a major issue in the part of the
climate negotiations that relate to technology transfer. He has further
downplayed the entire issue of technology transfer itself, stating that
the issue real issue is technology development and not technology
transfer. This is unacceptable, considering that the official language
of the UNFCCC and the negotiating documents at climate negotiations use
the specific term technology transfer (together with technology
development, application and diffusion). 

On both these issues the Minister is going against the officially stated
negotiating positions of the Government of India. This is clear from the
documents regarding India’s position that are available on the
Ministry’s website itself. 

Ahead of the crucial negotiations at Copenhagen, here is a Minister who
publicly and repeatedly keeps modifying accepted policy positions. The
Minister has also made derisive remarks about the G77 leader, Sudan. He
has also stated soon after joining with China, Brazil and South Africa
that he is not sure about China and Brazil. He has argued that India
should distance itself from G77 states. Before the Indian delegation
leaves for Copenhagen, the UPA government should categorically clarify
what India's negotiating position will be.