PM: India’s carbon emissions will not exceed levels of developed countries

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said India stood committed to ensure that its per capita carbon emissions would never exceed the average levels of developed countries and would adopt purpose domestic actions to enhance its climate change management.

He also said that climate friendly and environmentally sound technologies should be viewed as global public goods.

“Equating GHG emissions across nations on a per capita basis is the only just and fair basis for a long-term global arrangement on climate change which is truly equitable,” Dr Singh said in his inaugural address to a High Level Conference on “Climate Change: Technology Development and Transfer” here.

The conference has been organised by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

The Prime Minister said he had no doubt that if developed countries made a serious effort to bring their per capita emissions within tolerable levels, they would unleash large resources directed towards research. This , he said, would generate an upsurge of technology that would make it much easier for other countries to follow suit.

He said that India was, meanwhile, acting to do what it could within its limited capacity.

“We are committed to further evolving and pursuing our sustainable growth strategy for reasons of our own vital national interests. India will adopt purposive domestic actions to enhance its climate change management. The focus of our efforts will be targeted towards achieving time-bound outcomes related to the energy efficiency of our economy, the share of renewable in our fuel mix and several other sector specific initiatives,” he said.

Dr Singh said these objectives were reflected in India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change which contains eight National Missions focussing on both mitigation and adaptation.

He said that a comprehensive, balanced and an equitable outcome at Copenhagen would enable the country to do much more in all these areas.

“As we move towards Copenhagen, we must keep to the mandate for our deliberations agreed upon by consensus at Bali. Our objective is to enhance the implementation of the principles and provisions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),” he said.

He said there was need to work towards a significantly enhanced and scaled-up set of arrangements for technology under a multilaterally supervised mechanism.

“We need to act across all the stages of the technology cycle – from research leading to new breakthroughs, to the development & adoption of new technologies and to the transfer of existing & mature technologies.

“We should endeavour to create a global platform to bring together the best scientific and technological resources from across the world in a collaborative effort to deliver transformational technologies for the future. We have good examples to guide us, including the ITER project or fusion energy project and the work of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),” he said.

Dr Singh assured the gathering, which included Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed, that India would do its utmost to play a constructive role in global efforts to combat climate change.

He said President Nasheed had been a most eloquent champion in raising awareness across the world of the threat to the survival of small island states from global warming.

The Prime Minister said India was deeply conscious of the vulnerability faced by least developed countries and island states.

He said India, too, had large and vulnerable populations living in its island chains and in low-lying coastal areas.

“Whatever modest capabilities we possess to tackle this problem will be at the disposal of countries like the Maldives,” he said.

According to him, the challenge before the developing world is how to achieve developmental goals while at the same time minimising ecological costs.

“Developing countries cannot and will not compromise on development. But as responsible members of the global community we also do recognise that we, along with other members of the global community, must do our bit to keep our emissions footprint within levels that are sustainable and equitable,” he said.

Dr Singh said technology and its diffusion would be a key element in meeting the challenge of climate change.

“The key issue before us is that of developing the appropriate technologies and then collapsing the time from their first commercialization to their large-scale adoption in poorer developing countries. We need technology solutions that are appropriate, that are affordable and that are truly effective,” he said.

“They have to be backed by the establishment of appropriate financial arrangements to facilitate technology transfers. Industrialized countries have the capacity to shift to new energy efficient processes even if it involves additional costs. Developing countries do not have this capacity and it is therefore only appropriate that the shift in their case should be facilitated by adequate financial support. Hopefully as the new technology spreads more widely the costs involved will fall making it much more affordable. Initially however, the transition in developing countries will need critical financial support,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the UNFCCC should play a leading role in directing effective and collaborative actions in this vital area.

He said India believed that continuation of the process of incentivizing the adoption of climate friendly technologies in developing countries in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol should be a priority global concern.

According to him, the Clean Development Mechanism (CFM) under the Kyoto Protocol had proved to be an effective vehicle for promoting sustainable development in many developing countries, while helping developed countries accomplish the abatement of their green house gas (GHG) emissions at lower cost. CDM revenues often take some of the sting out of the risks associated with the introduction and adoption of newer and cleaner technologies, he pointed out.

“Climate friendly and environmentally sound technologies should be viewed as global public goods. This implies that the IPR regime applied to those goods should balance rewards for innovators with the need to promote the common good of humankind. Suitable mechanisms must be found that will provide incentives for developing new technologies while also facilitating their deployment in developing countries at affordable cost,” he said.

Dr Singh pointed out that such an approach had been adopted successfully in the case of pharmaceutical technologies for the benefit of HIV/AIDS victims in developing countries. The moral case of a similar approach for protecting our planet and its life support system is equally compelling, he said.

He said that an important barrier to technology adoption was the poor absorptive capacities of large number of developing countries.

“This situation cannot be remedied through forced harmonization of standards. We have to strengthen the limited innovation capabilities in many countries to realize the potential of these new technologies,” he said.

The Prime Minister said India had proposed the setting up of an international network of Climate Innovation Centres (CICs) which should act as vehicles for enhancing technology innovation and capacity building in developing countries.

He said these centres could assess and identify locally-relevant key technologies and support their successful and faster development and deployment.

“Each such centre could focus on a key technological product that addresses climate change. Their task may also include addressing the diverse range of capacity, business and regulatory barriers to the development and diffusion of the specific technologies. The CICs in different countries may also cross-fertilize each other by sharing of “learning-by-doing” experience,” he said.

Dr Singh said India’s development path had been relatively benign from the climate change perspective thus far.

“Our per capita consumption of primary energy is less than one-fourth of the world average and our per capita emission of CO2 is among the lowest in the world. Moreover, the energy intensity of our output has been continuously declining in the last 30 years.

“Nevertheless, as GDP rises, our energy use and total emissions will rise unless new technology enables us to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions intensity,” he added.

The conference is meant to be a step forward in the process of the international policy dialogue on technologies needed to address climate change. It is expected to advance the discussions on technology development and technology transfer initiated at the Beijing High-Level Conference in November 2008.

The conference is expected to define a road map for technology development and transfer by bringing together the key players in the international climate change community. Its outcome is expected to support the UNFCCC process and also help pave the way for a successful outcome in COP-15 to be held at Copenhagen in December, 2009.

Participants in the conference and exhibition include representatives of Governments, senior officials of UN bodies, climate change negotiators from developed and developing countries, industry, academia, civil society and other organisations.