Global warming – Developed countries cornering India?

Some studies reported in Nature have indicated that the global warming will be stabilized at 2 degree Celsius above the “below pre-industrial era levels” if CO2 emissions are halved by 2050. The UN Panel of climate scientists has predicted that the average global temperature rising above the threshold of 2 degree will have catastrophic impact on the climate.

Is is understood that India has accepted this as the global limiting level at the Major Economies Forum meeting held recently in Italy. The rich countries which participated in the meeting also agreed to reduce the emissions by 7-14% below 1990 levels by 2030. It looks too small for the countries which have been polluting the environment with green-house gases for so long. The CO2 emission from US was 6.049 billion metric tonnes in 2004 with per capita of 20.4 metric tonnes! Compared to this, India’s emissions stood at 1.342 billion metric tonnes with per capita of 1.2 metric tonnes. China’s emissions were about 4 times higher than that of India.

A United Nations agency in one of the survey reports (2009) rightly pointed out that the industrialized nations should take deep emission cuts of the order of 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% cut by 2050. In a global carbon budget scenario, the share of industrialized countries should be of the order of 21%. Any consumption of the budget exceeding this by the developed countries would be at the cost of developing countries, which need industrialization in a big way in the coming years.

India should not or should not be made to accept any such discriminatory or legally binding proposals on emission-cut targets in the forthcoming United Nations Conference at Copenhagen in December this year. In support for the global concerns on climate change, India also should develop and employ emissions-free technologies in its future industrial developments.