India Won’t Accept Emission Caps, Minister Reiterates (Update1)

India won’t accept emission caps as part of a global plan to curb global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh reiterated.
India is “conscious” that emissions in the world’s second fastest-growing major economy will increase significantly in the next few years and has pledged to keep per-capita pollution low, Ramesh said in New Delhi today.
“The world has nothing to fear from India’s development,” Ramesh said. “An artificial cap is not desirable and not even necessary as we haven’t been responsible for emissions in the first place.”
India is committed to a global climate treaty in Copenhagen, where almost 200 countries are scheduled to gather in December to debate the terms for a new accord to combat rising temperatures and sea levels. The minister said there is a “misplaced” conception that India’s isn’t doing enough to ease climate change.
India spends 2.6 percent of its $1.2 trillion gross domestic product on mitigating the effects of climate change, according to the government’s survey of the economy this month. The country has resisted demands from the U.S. to adopt legally binding caps on carbon emissions, arguing that rich nations fueled their growth for decades and were responsible for today’s global warming.
Forest Cover
“There is simply no case for the pressure” considering India produces among the lowest per-capita emissions in the world and 500 million of its citizens have no access to commercial energy, Ramesh told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a closed-door discussion July 21. He later distributed his remarks to the press.
India plans to increase its forest cover by 15 million hectares in the next six years, Ramesh said. The country at present has about 70 million hectares of forests. Forests and tree plantations can act as carbon “sinks” that absorb carbon- dioxide emissions.
“The most significant carbon sinks are being created in India,” Ramesh said. “Our forest cover is rising, whereas in many countries it’s shrinking.”
U.S. President Barack Obama’s concern for global warming has improved the chances of an accord being reached in Copenhagen to succeed the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012, the chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said in an interview on July 8.
At a summit of world leaders in Italy this month, the richest countries and developing nations such as China agreed for the first time to limit the rise in average global temperature. They failed to reach an accord on goals for reducing greenhouse gases.