India said Tuesday it would reject any global pact legally binding it to cut greenhouse gas emissions as such a move could stifle economic growth needed to eradicate poverty.
India
said
Tuesday it would reject any global pact legally binding it to cut greenhouse
gas emissions as such a move could stifle economic growth needed to eradicate
poverty.
Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan's statement came after a UN conference
in
Durban
earlier this month agreed for the first time to seek to negotiate a legally
enforceable agreement to control all nations' emissions.
"There is no question of signing a legally binding agreement at this point
of our development. We need to make sure that our development does not
suffer," Natarajan told the upper house of parliament.
"Our emissions are bound to grow as we have to ensure our social and
economic development and fulfil the imperative of poverty eradication,"
the minister said.
Some 42% of Indians, or 455 million people, live on less than $1.25 a day,
according to the World Bank.
The marathon UN climate conference in
Durban
approved a roadmap towards an accord that for the first time would bring all
major greenhouse-gas emitters blamed for climate change under a single legal
roof.
If approved as scheduled in 2015, the pact will be operational from 2020 and
become the prime weapon in the fight against climate change.
But emerging Asian giants
India
and
China
,
which have become huge emitters of carbon over the last half-dozen years, have
long resisted calls to reduce emissions.
The fast-growing economies said the burden of cuts should be on developed
countries and that they cannot commit to binding targets which might hurt their
ability to improve living standards.
India
and
China
do
not fall under existing 1997 Kyoto Protocol constraints aimed at fighting
global warming as they are developing countries.
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