India will never accept internationally binding emission reduction targets, environment and forest minister of state (independent charge) Jairam Ramesh said on Tuesday.
According to a report in a leading daily on Monday, Ramesh, “in a confidential letter to the Prime Minister, had suggested that India junk the Kyoto Protocol, delink itself from G77, the 131-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.”
Congress had immediately distanced itself from the statement.
The minister on Tuesday said the news item quoted him only partially and selectively, thereby completely distorting and twisting its meaning.
“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,” he said in a statement.
“We will never agree to the elimination of the distinction between developed (Annex I) countries and developing (non-Annex I) countries,” he said.
“Internationally legally binding emission reduction targets are for developed countries and developed countries alone, as globally agree under the Bail Action Plan,” he added.
Ramesh said that India, like other developing countries, fully expects developed countries to fulfil their obligations on transfer of technology and financial transfer that they committed to under the UNFCCC and the Bali Action for both mitigation and adaptation actions.
“I have never at any stage considered or advocated abandoning the fundamental tenets of the Kyoto Protocol, as was stated in the article,” he asserted.
Environment ministers and officials of both the rich and developing nations are meeting from Dec 7 in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate conference to agree on a new mechanism to replace the Kyoto protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .
These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
The Copenhagen talks are part of an annual series of UN meetings since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which aimed at coordinating international action against climate change.
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