Jayanthi Natarajan happy at India's success at Rio+20 summit

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by New Delhi’s success at the Rio+20 summit, Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan summed up the mood in the Indian camp at Rio de Janeiro, “One significant development has been the restoration of the centrality of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the environmental discourse.”

“Equity and its manifestation, the principle of CBDR, are at the heart of international cooperation for sustainable development and we are glad that we have collectively agreed on this key issue, which is of great significance to developing countries, not least in the climate change context,” she explained.

She said, “The outcome document also clearly recognizes poverty eradication as the greatest global challenge. In doing so, it places this squarely at the centre of the global development agenda.”

She also took a swipe at the developed countries, “We remain disappointed with the weak political will in developed countries to provide enhanced means of implementation to developing countries,” she said while commenting about the attempt by the rich nations to walk away from their existing obligations to provide finance and technology to the poor countries.

She added, “It was ironical that we not only faced a global meltdown — but simultaneously staring at a total environmental meltdown.”

With equity and CBDR squarely back on the global agenda, Natarajan said, “The rich countries grew, developed and polluted the world. Consequently, when the environment movements came, they had the money to clean up. Our nascent growth and economy start our growth trajectory with the problems of a polluted world.”

She was alluding to the belief in India and other emerging economies that the developed countries are using ‘environment’ more as a tool to set competitive disadvantages for the new rising powers.

Taking on the spin that the European Union had given to their tactics at Rio+20, the minister said, “When we talk of the Green Economy, India is committed to a Green World Economy but, I must hasten to add, a real green economy — not a Green Washed Greed Economy, as our environmentalist says.”

The EU has pushed a one-size-fit-all green agenda as the priority for the summit and advocated global targets on environmental themes while diluting its own responsibilities and bringing down the firewall between developed and developing nations.

Natarajan is leading the negotiations that has produced the final declaration — “The Future We Want” — that will be adopted by the heads of states in the Brazilian city on Friday. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also addressed the gathering on Thursday.