India: US Should Aim At Reducing Carbon Emissions By 40%

India’s climate change envoy Shyam Saran has said that his country would like the United States to set ‘high-end’ emission reduction goals. Leading the Indian delegation into a gathering of largest polluting nations in Washington, Saran said that United States should aim to emissions targets between 25 to 40 percent.

In comparison, President Obama has called for a 14 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 while the European Union has set a 20 percent reduction target. China and India, world’s largest and third largest polluters respectively, have set no reduction targets and are not expected to agree to even lower targets at the Copenhagen meeting to discuss the next climate treaty.

Calls for the United States to recognize its historical responsibility and take bold actions to reduce its carbon emissions have risen significantly in recent times. Countries around the world have realized that President Obama intends to go the extra mile as far as environmental and climate change reforms are concerned and they various governments are pressing the Obama administration to transform his promises into real actions.

Secondly, there have been calls, especially by the EU, that India and China agree to some kind of emission reduction. It has proposed that advanced developing countries should agree to implement less stricter targets than the developed countries but they must exhibit the intent to act on the issue of rising carbon emissions from their industries.

US to Have a National Climate Registry; Will India & China Follow?

Environment Protection Agency has announced that the US government would maintain a registry of all carbon emissions produced from some 13,000 high polluting industries. Companies emitting more than 25,000 metric tonnes of carbon emissions yearly will be required to report to this registry.

The plan to have a climate registry has been doing the rounds since 2007 and although a Climate Registry exists covering various American, Canadian and Mexican states, this would be much broader and mandatory in nature. Terming the decision as ‘critical step towards protection of health and environment’, the  that emissions data is essential in order to tackle the problem of climate change. The registry would require the companies to report their methane emissions also, another major greenhouse gas. 

United States is not bound by any international treaty to maintain a national climate registry unlike the Annex 1 countries under the Kyoto Protocol. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the developed nations (which ratified the treaty) were mandated to create and maintain an annual climate registry so as to monitor any increase or decrease in the carbon emissions and to determine, on the basis of tonnes of emissions, the number of emission allowances and carbon credits the countries (or the companies) are entitled to. The United States is a signatory to the treaty but has not ratified the same.

Al Gore Hopes Obama’s Radical Measures Would Bring the World Closer to Climate Deal

Al Gore in a scene from his documentary An Inconvenient Truth

Speaking at the International Climate Change Congress, the former US Vice President and imminent environmental activist Al Gore expressed hope that a broad consensus on a new and ground-breaking climate deal would be reached soon. Al Gore pointed out the new steps initiated by the current US President Barack Obama, to promote renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions, as one of the main reasons for an emerging possibility of successful negotiations for a new climate deal. 

President Obama has been quite aggressive in breaking away from the policies of his predecessor, President George W. Bush. His administration has answered to the critics of United States’ climate policy (or the lack of it!). No doubt the confidence among the environmental activists, like Gore, is high given the revolutionary measures announced by President Obama. 

The European Union has been eagerly waiting for some kind of cap and trade scheme from the United States so that the much needed credit to finance the technology transfer from developed nations to poor nations could obtained. 

The European Union is also looking at the United States to pass a carbon tax bill which eventually could form the foundations of a global carbon tax effective enough to replace the current Clean Development Mechanism of offsetting carbon emissions. A national carbon tax in the United States would put pressure on rest of the world and especially the advanced developing countries like India and China to agree to a global carbon tax, and possibly mandatory emission reduction targets. 

The Obama administration has also pledged billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy in the form of direct infrastructure spending in building wind farms and solar power plants, tax rebates to families who wish to install solar panels and in research & development of new and affordable forms of renewable energy. 

The steps taken by the United States may very trigger steps from the European Union to adopt stricter carbon emission reduction targets potentially laying foundations of long-term targets. 

For the first time in almost a decade the United States has acknowledged its responsibility as being the one of the largest polluters in the world. India and China have long accused United States of being negligent towards its duty to act decisively on critical environmental issues. Now that the times have changed the pressure to act is now on the developing nations.

Image: Juampe López (Creative Commons)

EU Wants US to Take Bold Actions on Climate Policy to Put Pressure on India, China

President Obama during his inagural address to the Congress

The European Union wants President Obama to act on his promise of introducing a new climate change policy and work out the modalities of a cap-and-trade policy before the Copenhagen Talks in December. Doing so, EU ministers say, would send a clear signal to the world and especially the developing countries about the change in America’s environment policy.

The European Union already has clear renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction policy in place but that has yet to make any difference in the stance of the developing countries like India and China. The Asian neighbors continue to resist any demands to reduce their carbon emissions claiming that their contribution to the overall global carbon emissions is very less as compared to that of the developed nations especially the United States which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

In these circumstances, the EU fears that, the Copenhagen talks aimed at reaching a broad consensus regarding the next set of targets and participants to those emission reduction goals is could see a fate similar to the WTO talks held at Doha, Qatar.

India to Developed Countries: Recession Should Not Stop Investments in Renewable Energy

India’s special envoy on Climate Change has demanded that developed nations invest more in renewable energy projects and do more to reduce their carbon emissions.

The Indian government wants the developed nations to ‘re-double’ their efforts on funding clean energy projects and not let the current economic crisis be a roadblock in those efforts. The envoy also reiterated that his government was not yet in a position to pledge to any mandatory emission reduction goals. He reminded the developed nation of the ‘historical responsibility’ to bring down their carbon emission levels.

Continuing with his hawkish tone, the envoy added that the developed countries should carry on with their effort to reduce carbon emissions but should not expect the same from developing countries. He said that any efforts to pressurize developing countries to sign up for mandatory emission cuts under the next climate treaty could jeopardize any international treaty. 

It is highly unfortunate to see India’s envoy use such hawkish tone to address such sensitive issue. The Indian government wants the developed nations to act while it wants no share of the ‘common but differential’ responsibility of reducing carbon emissions.

Europe Plans $200 Billion Climate Tax on Developed Nations

With eyes on the Copenhagen talks for discussion on the next climate policy, the European Union plans to propose a tax on the carbon emissions of the developed nations, a move which could generate more than $200 billion by 2020. These funds will be used in helping developing and poor nations move from fossils fuels based energy systems to those based on renewable sources.

The European Union proposes that carbon offsetting through the trade of carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism be phased out and replaced by a scheme under which the developed nations would commit to cut their but would also pay taxes for extra emissions. The proposal also calls for a similar scheme for the ‘advanced developing nations’ like India and China but fails to clarify its nature.

Carbon offsetting cannot be pursued as a long term solution to mitigate the global carbon emissions and thus the Clean Development Mechanism should be seen only as a transformational step and not the solution to the problem. Replacing carbon offsetting with binding emission reductions seems to be the obvious next step but one has to ask if the world can afford a climate tax at this time of economic meltdown.