Africa to pressure India

New Delhi, Nov. 21: The threat of the 53-member African Union (AU) taking a unified stance in climate change negotiations to walk out of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen next month has put pressure on the Indian government not to agree to a legally binding treaty for putting a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking at a discussion, ‘Beyond Emissions- Integrating Climate Change with Agriculture, Forests, Water and Energy,’ activist, Ms Vandana Shiva, pointed out that with Africa suffering the consequences of climate change, they are sending one delegation to Copenhagen which has threatened to use its numbers to block any proposals that do not include adequate financing for mitigation and adaptation.

“Their walk-out threat would seriously damage the possibility of any accord. This has acted as a trigger on the Indian government, which was earlier doing flip-flops on this issue to state categorically that emissions should be measured on a per capita basis,” she said.

Mr Jairam Ramesh, the minister for environment and forests, had reiterated the African nation point of view when he had also stated last week that India too would “walkout” of Copenhagen if industrialised nations pushed for legally binding emissions reduction treaty. Experts are of the view that it would be better not to conclude negotiations this year than to end up in failure.