Shame on the UPA for Succumbing to US’s Imperialist Diktats and Betraying India’s Poor at the Climate Change Talks at Cancun!

Jairam Ramesh Agrees To Legally Binding Emission Standards at Climate Change Talks!!

Yet another round of climate change negotiations has ended – and yet again, the negotiations in Cancun have resulted in a shameful betrayal of the interests of the poor across the world. Right from the beginning, the imperialist forces of the world led by an arrogant United States have been forcing the poor and developing countries to compromise at each and every step. However, the Cancun talks represent compromises of epic proportions for the poorer countries.

The developing countries have till now held a principled position that the rich, industrialized countries are primarily responsible for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, because of the historic role they have played in causing the global warming crisis. Today, the industrialized countries, led by the US, argue that countries like India and China contribute as much to greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere as they do. What they deliberately do not point out is the fact that if one were to calculate the total greenhouse emissions in history (all of which lead to global warming), the US alone is responsible for a whopping 26.4% of the total emissions – while India and China account for a mere 2% and 7% respectively. Conveniently ignoring this, and projecting India and China as ‘major contributors’ to the climate change problem by citing the present emission levels of these two countries, the imperialist powers are attempting to do away with having to make reparations for their historic role in endangering the very future of life on earth.

Also, for any negotiations to be democratic and meaningful, they have to be based on per capita emissions rather than the total emissions of a country, and a clear distinction has to be made between survival emissions and luxury emissions. Based on this principled position, for all these years India has refused to commit itself to legally binding emissions reductions.

And now, at Cancun, Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has shamefully sold out India’s interests by stating that India is now willing to take on legally binding emissions! This is exactly what industrialized and rich countries, particularly the US, have been demanding from India. Even before the negotiations began, it was clear that the US desperately wants to dissolve the Kyoto Protocol, which makes a clear distinction between the responsibilities of developing and developed countries based on the historic debt of the industrialized countries towards contributing to the climate crisis. The US has been aggressively pushing for a new model, wherein all countries will be held equally responsible, and wherein even the poorest or the poor countries will be forced to accept legally binding emission standards. India’s U-Turn at Cancun is nothing an open and shameful ‘yes’ to this imperialist agenda.

Jairam Ramesh’s statement is however not surprising, coming as it does in the wake of a series of shameful capitulations to US imperialism. This statement essentially absolves the industrialized countries of their historic responsibility towards causing the climate crisis. And in return for this massive capitulation and betrayal of the poor, what has India got? Apart from removing the distinction between developing and developed countries, it avoids legally binding global emission targets for wealthy nations. Developed countries have agreed to transfer funds to developing countries – fast-track funding of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion dollars a years by 2020. However, this funding package (which sees the funds not as historical reparations on part of the developed countries for having created the climate crisis, but as some kind of a ‘dole’) is riddled with enough loopholes and ambiguities to severely restrict its scope and potential.

Also, the so-called technology transfer for climate change mitigation related projects will happen only under the IPR regime – which means that the poor countries will not have access to technology unless they pay for these technologies through their teeth! In short, the Cancun negotiations have ended in a historic loss for the poor and developing countries of the world.

Also, the Cancun Agreement ensures that the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) scheme will be implemented, under which rich countries and their companies can pay developing countries to preserve forests and ‘capture’ carbon in these ‘carbon sinks’. This scheme has already come under a lot of opposition, since it will inevitably lead to land grab and alienation across forest and adivasi belts, as well as heightened corporate control over forestland and a consequent reduction in the access of tribals to their traditional sources of livelihood.

As the UPA tries to justify this shameful sell-out of India’s interests at the climate change negotiations, it is necessary that the democratic and progressive voices in the country strongly oppose this abject know-towing to imperialist interests.