March 20, 2008 West Must Pay for
India's Clean Technology: UN Official
New Delhi
If a power plant coming up in India for $500 million can embrace
clean technology for an extra $50 million, developed countries must
pay the difference, a top UN official has said.
United Nations Development Programme Administrator Kemal Dervis said
developed and developing countries had different responsibilities,
but would have to strive together to reach a goal of two tonnes of
carbon dioxide emissions per capita, which would mean a global
warming of two degrees Celsius.
Scientists have warned any climate change beyond this level would
potentially have disastrous consequences.
Delivering one of the Talking Tomorrow lectures organised by
think-tank The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Wednesday
evening, Dervis said that since developed countries were responsible
for the stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that had led to
climate change, "it can't really be fair to ask developing countries
to take a leading role in solving the problem".
But the noted economist did want developing countries to play their
part, and said since reducing carbon dioxide emissions "would
provide a global public good, it should be financed
internationally".
The UNDP's Human Development Report last year, on the subject of
climate change, had been slammed by India's Planning Commission
Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia because it suggested that
developing countries take on the responsibility of reducing their
greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent while developed countries
reduce theirs by 80 percent between 1990 and 2050.
Ahluwalia had said such a move would hamper India's quest to provide
electricity to 400 million people who still lived without it in this
country. In its place, he had repeated Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh's suggestion that per capita greenhouse gas emissions be equal
throughout the world. Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are
responsible for global warming.
Dervis said the route to equal per capita emission was 80 percent
reduction by developed countries and 20 percent by developing
countries, though in this way the per capita equilibrium would be
reached 10 years later, in 2060.
This did not mean that developing countries should not increase
their energy generation or move towards the same standard of living
as in developed countries, Dervis hastened to add.
Only, the development path should be different, and the
industrialised countries should pay the extra cost of treading the
new path.
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