Thursday 29 December 2011

The reality of Durban: India will not sign any legally binding agreement

The celebrated Durban "agreement" is clearly a "road map" to nowhere. India is definitively not intent on signing any legally binding agreement to reduce its CO2 emissions:

India will not sign any legally binding global agreement for emissions reduction, as the country needs to eradicate poverty through economic growth, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said today.

"There is no question of signing a legally binding agreement at this point of our development. We need to make sure that our development does not suffer," Natarajan said in Rajya Sabha.

She was responding to clarifications on her December 21 statement in the House after she returned from the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban early this month.

Seeking clarification, Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley said if India was made legally bound to cut emissions, the country's economic growth would suffer.


Natarajan said, "Our emissions are bound to grow as we have to ensure our social and economic development and fulfil the imperative of poverty eradication."


Read the entire article here

Poverty eradication as an imperative is clearly the only sensible policy for India. And it should be supported by the rich industrialised countries.

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