Addressing at the 3rd MEA-IISS Seminar on Perspectives on Foreign Policy for a 21st Century India, Ms. Nirupama Rao said: Climate change is one of the most important global challenges facing us. For India, it is not merely an environmental issue, but is intrinsically linked with the growth prospects and developmental aspirations of our people. Its impact on the pace of our development is a very clear and continuing concern.
Our developmental imperatives project a general trend of growth in energy consumption in India. We expect that fossil fuels will remain an important element of our commercial energymix. The emerging paradigm of global action on climate change must, therefore, acknowledge every humans claim to global carbon space and take account of our differential capacities, said Ms. Rao.
Despite 17% of the global population, our own GHG emissions today are currently only 4% of the global total. Even with 8-9% growth per annum, our energy use has been growing at less than 4% per annum. We are concerned that the developed countries tend towards ignoring, implicitly, the huge adaptation challenge that we face with climate change, she said.
Today, we spend 2% to 2.5% of our GDP on meeting adaptation needs. There is need for stable and predictable financing from the developed countries, and this we believe should not rely on market mechanisms but, rather, on assessed contributions. There is also need for a global mechanism whereby climate friendly technologies can be disseminated to the developing countries, she added.
Ms. Rao said that as a country vulnerable to and already suffering from the impacts of climate change, India has an important stake in the success of the ongoing multilateral negotiations
We are aware of our responsibilities as citizens of the globe and have participated in the negotiations in a constructive manner. It is in this spirit that we conveyed our voluntary mitigation obligations to the UNFCCC in January this year, she said. Read the full report here.
Source: Cynthia Chandran, Asian News International, London.
