India can learn lessons from China, says Ramesh

Betwa Sharma

United Nations, Sept 23 (PTI) Environment Minister Jairam
Ramesh commended the commitments made by Chinese President Hu
Jinato during the high-level Climate Change Summit here and
said India can learn lessons from China to help save the
planet.

"The Chinese are trying to be very specific and proactive
in conveying the message that they will be aggressive
mitigators and all this has lessons for India," he told PTI.

"We cannot hide behind any excuses and we have to be
aggressively taking on voluntary mitigation outcomes," he
added.

In his address to the General Assembly, Chinese President
Hu Jintao pointed out that China was implementing its National
Climate Change Programme, which includes mandatory targets for
reducing energy intensity and discharge of major pollutants,
and increasing forest coverage and share of renewable
energy for the period of 2005 through 2010.

"Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and
people across the world. China fully appreciates the
importance and urgency of addressing climate change," Jintao
told the General Assembly.

"We will endeavour to cut carbon dioxide emissions per
unit of GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from 2005 level. We
will endeavour to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in
primary energy consumption to around 15 per cent by 2020," he
added.

The high-level summit, which featured more than 100 world
leaders was convened to mobilise political will and momentum
before the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The
meeting in the Danish capital is expected to yield a climate
treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

India was represented by External Affairs Minister S M
Krishna and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh at the Summit.

"We may not take on binding targets internationally but
whatever we do domestically must have some degree of
credibility internationally as well and that's the big
challenge between now and Copenhagen," the minister said.
"That's what we're going to be working on."

India and China will be having a technical workshop in
Delhi, next month, where both countries will make
presentations on their respective national action plans on
climate change.

"We are thinking of ways and means establishing an
agreement between the two for having a continuous dialogue on
issues related to climate change," Ramesh said.

The first meeting between India and China will be held on
Oct 21, and will be attended by where the Chinese delegation
will be led by the Xie Zhenhua, the Vice Chairman of The
National Development and Reforms Commission of China.

The minister also had a number of bilateral meetings with
several nations including Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Denmark
and Germany."The informal meetings in the UN are much more
useful than the formal meetings," he noted. PTI BS