India may feel climate heat

[JANA]

 

Sapporo, Japan, July 8: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is expected to counter US pressure to commit India to a 50 per cent cut in greenhouse emissions when he meets the US President, Mr George W. Bush on Wednesday by telling the Americans that developed nations should go first because had created the problem.  The political declaration of the G-5 nations (India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa) issued here on Tuesday evening took a strong stand on various issues, including energy and food security.

On climate change it spoke of the "historical responsibility" of developed nations in any long-term plan to reduce greenhouse gases.  The G-8 wants all nations to commit to a 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050. India rejected this demand earlier.  "It is for those who have generated greenhouse gases to take initiative to reduce pollution. It's not for developing countries (to do so). Our emissions are minuscule. It is not for us to make long-term binding commitments," the foreign secretary, Mr Shivshankar Menon said to reporters on Tuesday after the Prime Minister held a series of meetings with world leaders.

Meanwhile leading industrial nations on Tuesday endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, edging forward in the battle against global warming but stopping short of tough, nearer-term targets. The Group of Eight countries, the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy, also called on all major countries such as China and India to join in the effort to stem the potentially dangerous rise in world temperatures.  "This global challenge can only be met by a global response, in particular, by the contributions from all major economies," the G-8 said in a joint, five-page communiqué