UN backs India's stand on emissions
For the first time, a UN agency has endorsed India and developing countries on the climate change front.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: For the first time, a UN agency has endorsed India and developing countries on the climate change front. In its World Economic and Social Survey Report 2009, the UN said rich countries had consumed more than fair share of their carbon space and needed to take deep emission cuts if the new climate agreement was to be equitable.
The survey said investments in energy infrastructure would have to be doubled from the existing $500 billion per year to $1 trillion and there was a need to spend approximately $20 trillion by 2030 to move the world to a low carbon growth path.
The report, released on Wednesday by Sunita Narain, director of Centre for Science and Environment, warned that industrialized countries had already emitted 209 gigatonnes of carbon. If the rise in global temperatures was to be kept below 2 degree centigrade, industrialised countries would have to reduce their emissions by more than 100% below 1990 levels by 2050.
At present, industrialized countries have not agreed to reduce their emissions by even 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.
Releasing the report, Narain said, "The report makes it clear that to avert climate catastrophe, industrialized countries have to take deep emission cuts and the developing countries have to participate. But in this new global deal, the participation has to be conditional on transfer of technology and funding."
The report, coming months before the critical UN negotiations lead to an agreement in December at Copenhagen, could provide another weapon in the Indian arsenal when it asks the rich nations to bear the burden of their `historic responsibility' in emitting greenhouse gases.
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The UN survey pointed out that in a fair deal, industrialized countries should only occupy 21% of the global carbon budget. But it recorded that even under the most ambitious proposal from the rich nations, they would end up consuming 48% of the budget, at the cost of the poorer nations. From the present emission stock of 209 gigatonne of carbon from the rich nations, they would need to alter the lifestyles of their citizens to come down to 137 gigatonnes by 2050 and leave the rest of the space for poorer nations to develop economically.
The report also pointed out the repercussions for poorer nations if an equitable global deal was not signed. Narain said, "The study points out that for every 1 degree increase in average global temperature, gross domestic product in poor countries decreases by 2-3 percentage points." The global average temperatures have already risen by 0.7 degree Celsius and it would shave off the GDP of poor nations as another 0.7-0.8 degree rise is now inevitable, she pointed out.
The poor countries already need investments to the tune of $25 billion in order to connect 1.6-2 billion people that live without access to produced power, the report mentioned.
The authors of the report recommended a global clean energy fund and a global feed in tariff regime besides a better carbon trading mechanism and forest-related financing mechanism to ensure that needed funds are transferred from the rich to the developing countries as part of the new deal.
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