China & India want success at Copenhagen
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acVxg2zunvcE
India and China want an agreement at this year’s global climate change talks in Copenhagen and shouldn’t be viewed as a “negative or obstructionist force,” said India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.
“Both of us were of the view that we should be part of the solution,” Ramesh said in an interview yesterday evening in Beijing, where he met with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate- change negotiator. “We want an agreement in Copenhagen.”
China and India, the world’s two fastest-growing major economies, are key to a successful outcome for the Copenhagen conference in December, where an expected 192 nations will meet to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The existing accord, which sets emission targets for developed nations, expires in 2012.
Still, Ramesh rejected calls for binding carbon emission- reduction targets to be placed on developing countries such as India, and reiterated the nation’s stance that developed countries should reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. U.S. climate-change legislation passed by the House sets the goal of a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020.
Should developed countries agree to India’s stance, which Chinese Foreign Ministry climate-change official Yu Qingtai earlier this month called “quite fair,” India and China would have to “respond very positively.”
“That’s a game changer,” Ramesh said. “It would be very difficult for me, as an Indian minister, not to respond if developed countries accept this proposal. The fat would be in the fire, our bluff would be called.”
India requires $5 billion a year between 2012 and 2017, in addition to its current investment plans, to support a transition to low-carbon energy generation, the United Nations Development Program said in its Human Development Report 2007/2008, citing research by the Energy and Resources Institute.
Ramesh said he and Xie discussed the idea of when their two nations’ carbon emissions would peak. Last week, China released a report from government-run think tanks estimating that the country’s emissions would peak by 2030. The report also recognized that China had surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases.
The government in Beijing says it is increasing energy efficiency and promoting the use of renewable power to cut the amount of energy it consumes per unit of gross domestic product 20 percent by 2010 from 2005 levels.
India says it has one of the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the world and is responsible for 4 percent of output while the U.S. is responsible for 20 percent. The South Asian country is the fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, trailing China, the U.S. and Russia.
Developed countries must bear “historic responsibility” for industrial emissions of greenhouse gases they have produced, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on July 7. “It is the developing countries that are the worst affected by climate change.”
Ramesh said that China and India will announce a “major agreement” today to jointly study whether climate change is causing Himalayan glaciers to recede.
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if china and india dont play ball at copenhagen it will be a waste of time..i think its a waste of time anyway but i digress..if you cant get those 2 countries on board then there is point pushing on with the fraudulent climate change laws all countries attending will be asked to sign..india wants 40% reductions from developed countries..usa has agreed to 17%..cant see them agreeing on that 40% figure just for starters..meanwhile our pm, kevin rudd is in a mad panic to have our climate change bill all signed and sealed before copenhagen so he can arrive as the green messiah
