Pachauri urges PM to attend summit

NEW DELHI: With barely five days to go before the Copenhagen summit on climate change, Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change chief R K Pachauri on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend the final two days of the Copenhagen summit.

Mr Pachauri also asked the government to quantify the National Action Plan on Climate Change in carbon terms. This, he said would signify that India is not a deal breaker. Suggesting that India put the NAPCC on the table, Mr Pachauri said, “The NAPCC can be a binding commitment on the part of India as a back-up if other commitments (from industrialised countries) fall in place.’’

The National Solar Mission Plan is the only one of the eight missions of the NAPCC that has been firmed up and approved by Cabinet. Mr Pachauri said that if the other missions were firmed up then the reduction in India’s GHG intensity could be worked out as an offshoot of NAPCC. “This will be important, as it will signify that India is a deal maker and not a deal breaker,’’ he said.

The IPCC chief said that the recent commitments made by the US and China would mean increased pressure on India to quantify steps it was taking to tackle climate change. Mr Pachauri said that “India is at the crossroads” on the issue of quantifying its climate change actions. “India must bargain at Copenhagen for large-scale resources to finance its solar mission,” Mr Pachauri said.