India to Stick to its Position on Climate Change: Ramesh
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that India will not compromise on its basic positions on climate change while playing a constructive role for developing an effective and equitable pact on emission cuts.
On his first day at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, Ramesh said that national domestic measures announced by India to deal with global warming are not subject of scrutiny by international community and their progress have to be checked by country’s Parliament.
Speaking to media persons, he said that his discussions were focused on the various drafts of potential treaty from the Working Groups on Kyoto, the African group and Alliance of Island States (AOSIS) that have been circulating at the climate meet here.
“In all these discussions I have had … the basic objective was to highlight not only what India has done in recent weeks pro-actively, voluntarily but also to underscore the basic positions India will not compromise on even as it engages in constructive negotiations,” he said.
Ramesh rules out any dilution of previously-stated ‘red lines’ drawn by India and made it clear that it would not agree to the concept of ‘peaking’ year as it would have negative impact on the development of rural electricity in the country which is already confronted with a huge backlog.
India has asserted that every individual has a right to an equal atmospheric space and feels the rich countries are trying to deny this to poorer populations of Asia and Africa.
It says that there cannot be an international treaty which creates a group of haves and have-nots.
