India cannot accept emission reduction targets: Special Envoy

V S Chandrasekar

Pittsburgh, Sep 25 (PTI) India Friday made it clear
that it cannot accept any emission reduction targets in the
climate change negotiations heading for a climax in Copenhagen
later this year, but expressed the hope that there would be
consensus on financing emission control programmes in
developing countries aided by technology transfer.

New Delhi also rejected the possibility of phasing out
subsidies on energy pricing saying while it was an objective
it would not be implemented at the cost of poor people.

India’s position was enunciated on the sidelines of
the G20 Summit here by the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on
Climate Change, Shyam Saran, who attended the just concluded
conference in the United Nations and the Major Economies Forum
last week in Washington.

"We will not be able to undertake emission reduction
targets of the kind the developed countries are obliged to
take under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. However, it is not that India is not taking mitigation
action," Saran told reporters.

Saran also rejected suggestions that India was phasing
demands or threats to undertake emission reduction targets. In
fact, there is recognition that India was doing its best to
contain carbon emissions and also taking up programmes for
encouraging production of green energy through various
methods. (MORE) PTI