File Photo: Hillary Clinton and the Indian Environment Minister in New Delhi
..and then takes a U-Turn the very next day!
In a reported letter to the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, the Indian Environment Minister proposed a radical shift in India’s stand on climate change–away from its national position on climate negotiations–which India has backed since 1990 and which was defended robustly even in UN talks in Bangkok earlier this month.
Minutes after the news spread, political parties sitting in the opposition were quick to respond. Within the next few hours, the Environment Minister issued a clarifying statement for national media and the entire Nation!
“Yesterday, a leading newspaper had carried a news-item on a discussion note that I wrote on climate change. The news-item has quoted only partially and selectively from this note, and significantly added its own editorial interpretations, thereby completely distorting and twisting its meaning,” Mr. Jairam Ramesh defended his (and an entire Nation’s) stand in the statement.
According to the news item in question, the Minister had asked the PM to “junk Kyoto Protocol, delink itself from G77 member bloc of developing nations and take on greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under a new deal without any counter guarantee of finances and technology.” Since this came soon after Mr. Ramesh’s suggestion that India permit strict external scrutiny of mitigation measures it takes at its own cost, the report was not too hard to believe.
In the letter to the PM, as cited by the National Daily, Mr. Ramesh writes, “We must welcome initiatives to bring the US into the mainstream, if need be through a special mechanism, without diluting basic Annex 1/non-Annex distinctions. If the Australian Proposal of a schedule maintains this basic distinction and nature of differential obligations we should have no great theological objections.” Overlooking the entire debate of historic emissions and equitable development, the Minister has also been quoted asking the PM to “not stick with G77 but be embedded in G20. We should be pragmatic and constructive, not argumentative and polemical.”
Later, when the newspaper called him for a clarification, they could not get anything from a shocked Minister. “I am surprised that a privileged communication between me and the Prime Minister has found its way into the public domain. I am shocked. And whatever I had to say I have said to the PM.” is all that the newspaper quotes he replied.
In the statement issued to the national media, the Minister has clearly defended India’s national stand, which will be critical for a fair deal for the entire Global South. “While India is prepared to discuss and make public periodically the implementation of its National Action Plan on climate change, India will never accept internationally legally binding emission reduction targets or commitments as part of any agreement or deal or outcome.” the Minister ‘sealed the deal’ in his statement.
Image Source: AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi
[...] countries to do (much) more than just emissions reduction. The statement also comes shortly after media reports suggest India could change its national position on climate change to drop the ‘deal-breaker’ tag put on it by the [...]