December
8, 2007
Why India Gets the Blame, China the Praise By Joydeep Gupta
Bali (Indonesia)
China and India are both fighting climate disaster in their own
ways, but the former is smarter when it comes to talking about it.
The result - India is being seen here as a hard-line nation that is
against the Bali roadmap to fight climate change in a post-2012
world, while China is getting all the kudos.
As the Dec 3-14 UN climate change conference reaches the halfway
stage, many of the over 10,000 delegates from 187 countries are
wondering what India is up to. India is one of the few big countries
without a delegation office, and most government delegates usually
tell the media they are not allowed to talk. At best, they react
when India is criticised in public.
The message going out from India here: it will fight any attempt to
place any target on developing countries to cap their emissions of
greenhouse gases (GHG) that lead to climate change because such a
target will harm its development process.
China says the same thing, but says it very differently. It starts
by saying: of course China will play a major role in fighting
climate change. It has already done a lot. But in order to do more,
it needs help, just like other developing countries. Almost as an
afterthought, it says: there should be no GHG emission targets on
developing countries. And even that it says through the G-77 plus
China platform.
As a matter of fact, India has earmarked 2.5 percent of its GDP to
adapt to climate change during the 11th five-year plan (2007-2012),
higher than any other country. India has a large number of projects
promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. But few
people outside the country know about this.
The steps taken by China so far to fight climate change are similar.
But the Chinese government outlined its national climate change
programme early June and set itself some targets, which India has
failed to do despite setting up a prime minister's task force on
climate change.
Media reports say the task force met Nov 26 to discuss a position
paper that the country would have at the Bali summit, and there the
politicians rejected the paper prepared by the bureaucrats because
it did not say anything concrete about what India planned to do to
fight climate change. At that stage, it was too late to prepare
another paper.
So the Indian government delegation has come here with a list of
laws and policies that improve energy efficiency and promote
renewable energy sources. The list was prepared by a Federation of
Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) task force, whose
report goes on to seek a number of policy measures from the
government but is largely silent on what even the private sector
plans to do to fight climate change.
Contrast this with China, which has clearly outlined the main goals
in its national climate change programme - 15 percent of total
energy to be generated through renewable sources by 2020; 20 percent
improvement in energy efficiency by 2010; and increase in forest
cover to 20 percent by 2010.
The Chinese government has also announced it will close down 50 GW
of its most-pollution coal-fired power plants, without committing to
a deadline on that.
China already has fuel efficiency standards more stringent than in
the US, Canada or Australia.
Now India already has a forest cover of over 20 percent, its energy
efficiency goals are impressive and so are the many schemes to
promote renewable energy sources. Its Euro III fuel efficiency
standards are also more stringent than in the US, Canada or
Australia.
But few people outside the country know about it. When this is
pointed out to Indian bureaucrats here by Indian NGOs, they reply:
why should we bother to tell them?
(Joydeep Gupta can be contacted at joydeep.g@ians.in)
Boloji.com is owned and managed by Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer
No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
