India won't commit to reducing emissions

FIRM IN BALI: India says it will not accept any conditions that could interfere with its economic growth.

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New Delhi: It's been a week since the climate change conference began in Bali, Indonesia. Now, high level ministerial discussions are coming up, and India's stand is clear - no commitments on reducing emissions at the expense of growth.

Come Monday, high-level delegates arrived at Bali to work out a suitable successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The pressure on developing nations though is already mounting. Developed nations like the US, Japan and even Australia which just signed into Kyoto Protocol, are pushing for the existing global treaty to be trashed for a new one.

This is being seen more as a move to get countries like India and China to make binding commitments to cut greenhouse gases or at least put a break on rising emissions as part of the new pact — something top Indian delegates like Union Minister for Science & Technology, Kapil Sibal, hope to stringently oppose in Bali.

Sibal says, "We are not going to be condemned to poverty by committing ourselves to a framework which says you will not be allowed to increase your emissions, or you will have to cap your emissions."

Developing nations like Brazil, India and Pakistan are also opposing the US and European Union's latest proposal to remove trade barriers, to allow for clean-energy technology transfers.

Kapil Sibal also adds, "We can't have non-tariff barriers of this nature on technology transfer. What is the technology that they want to bring? And we believe that there should be an easy roadway especially in the context of clean green technologies."

The ministerial talks at Bali begin on 12 December and India wants to stick to its stand that it will not accept any conditions that could interfere with its economic growth.

But delegates do plan to highlight measures that the country will take to mitigate climate change internally.