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India Says Climate Talks' Success 'Remote' If Kyoto Not Extended
2010-12-02 14:03:47.69 GMT
By Natalie Obiko Pearson and Abhijit Roy Chowdhury
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- India said the success of global
climate talks in Mexico would be "remote" unless countries
agree to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
"If the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is
not there, then I'm afraid the prospects for any positive
outcome at Cancun are very remote," Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh said today in an interview at his office in New Delhi.
Countries failed last year in Copenhagen to write a
successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty
that created an emissions-trading program and awarded hundreds
of millions of euros in tradable credits to projects in India to
help reduce greenhouse-gas pollution.
The survival of that trading program, known as the United
Nations' Clean Development Mechanism, rests on envoys hammering
out an accord that extends the binding emission limits imposed
on 38 developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol, Ramesh said.
"Without that, there's no CDM," he said.
UN-sponsored climate talks that began Nov. 29 in the
Mexican resort of Cancun are due to end Dec. 10. India will be
delivering two "concrete proposals" involving international
monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and cooperation on clean
technology-sharing, the minister said.
"At Cancun we need to go beyond goody-goody statements,"
Ramesh said. "We need some commitments," including details on
how developed nations will share clean technologies with their
developing counterparts and what an international agreement to
protect forests will look like, he said.
India would support a forestry agreement even if it didn't
include all the countries that have adopted the Kyoto Protocol,
he said.
Ramesh also said it was important to ensure that the U.S.
remains closely involved in climate negotiations in spite of
disappointment at its failure to play a leadership role.
"We want the U.S. in. I'm not interested in U.S.-
bashing," he said.
For Related News and Information:
Climate-change news: NI CLIMATE <GO>
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Most-read environmental news: MNI ENV <GO>
--Editors: Randall Hackley, Mike Anderson
To contact the reporter on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at +91-22-6612-9107 or
npearson7@bloomberg.net
Abhijit Roy Chowdhury in New Delhi at +91-11-4179-2020 or
achowdhury11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at +44-20-7330-7862 or landberg@bloomberg.net
