PM yet to decide on attending Copenhagen climate summit

New Delhi, Nov 30 (PTI) With US and French leaders
asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the Copenhagen
Summit on climate change, he is weighing options to
participate in the meet where India is expected to strongly
pitch for legally binding substantive outcome to deal with the
challenge posed to the world.
On his part, Singh told reporters on his way back home
after attending the CHOGM Summit in Port of Spain, that he has
not made up his mind yet on attending next month's crucial
summit.
US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas
Sarkozy had during meetings with Singh suggested that he
should take part in the global meet.
"I have not decided yet. It is pre-mature to say,"
Singh said.
After talks with Singh on the sidelines of the just
concluded CHOGM summit in Port of Spain, Sarkozy had said,
"India has nothing to lose and everything to gain by being in
Copenhagen. If India is to be heard, it needs to be present."
According to present plans, Environment Minister
Jairam Ramesh is due to represent India at the summit that
will kick off on December 7.
Some 80 presidents and premiers are expected to attend
the final days of the conference on December 17-18.
Obama might use his December 9 drop-by at the
Copenhagen conference on his way to receive the Nobel Peace
Prize in Oslo, Norway to announce a US offer on financing.
Ahead of the meet, India has made it clear that there
was no question of taking any binding carbon emission cuts.
It has also indicated that there will be a coordinated
approach among emerging economies including Beijing and New
Delhi.
"There cannot be any emission cuts... that is what we
have said and this is also which is something what the
developed countries have said," the pointsman on climate
change Shyam Saran said.
"That they (industrialised nations) don't expect
countries like India, actually to sign on to emission
reduction target but rather to sign to a deviation from
business as usual," he said.
Saran's views came after India and China along with
other developing nations forged a common front to put pressure
on the developed nations at the UN summit.
He dismissed notions that there was any pressure on
India to take on legal emission cuts at the forthcoming meet
and instead referred to various voluntarily steps taken by it
whether it was in terms of renewable energy or improvement
in energy efficiency.
Heated debates are expected to dominate the summit
with developing nations coming with their own draft to
pre-empt developed nations' likely move to insist on binding
carbon emission cuts.
"What China and India besides other key developing
nations have done is consolidating their position anchored in
the UN Framework on Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),"
a senior official said.
The countries had said they had reached an agreement
on major issues, including the need for the West to provide
finance and technology to help developing nations combat
global warming.
"But still, we have shown our intention to be
flexible, for instance ready to report and verify mitigation
action in case they are backed by requisite finance and
technology," he added.
The Prime Minister had said that "India is willing to
sign on to an ambitious global target for emission reduction
or limiting temperature increase if it is accompanied by an
equitable burden-sharing paradigm." PTI AJ
SKT