Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's address at the High level segment of the 18th meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol

"I am delighted to be here at your meeting. On behalf of the people and Government of India, and on my own behalf, I extend a warm welcome to you all to this High Level Segment of the 18th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. I hope we are able to provide you a conducive environment for a purposeful and fruitful conference.

India's approach to the challenge of the protection of our environment was shaped by the very wise and perceptive observations of our former Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who told the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 that "poverty was the worst polluter".

In saying so, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched a global debate on the relationship between poverty alleviation, economic growth, and environmental conservation. In the years since then, an organized structure of multilateral agreements and institutions for realizing the goal of sustainable development has been developed.

It is this perspective of Indira Gandhi that also defines our own National Environment Policy, which we adopted earlier this year. Our policy says, "while conservation of environmental resources is necessary to secure livelihoods and well-being of all, the most secure basis for conservation is to ensure that people dependant on particular resources obtain better livelihoods from the fact of conservation, than from degradation of the resource".

To liberate people from poverty, to ensure the well being of all citizens, to provide employment for all, and yet pursue a sustainable development path that preserves and protects our common natural heritage - that is the challenge before humanity as a whole.

India has participated in major international events on the environment, since 1972. We have contributed to, and ratified several key multilateral agreements on environmental issues recognizing the trans-boundary and global nature of environmental problems and concerns, and their implications for long-term development. We have also participated in numerous regional and bilateral programmes for environmental cooperation. Environment is something which unites the entire humankind because the entire humankind faces a single common environment. We also provide assistance to other developing countries, particularly for scientific and technological capacity building. We seek to help other countries meet their commitments under various international and regional environmental treaties.

At the national level too, we have set up an effective regime of policies, regulations, programmes, and scientific capacity for addressing sustainable development issues. Our national regime for sustainable development seems to have had a positive impact on our development process. Consider the fact that while in industrialized countries, key environmental parameters reversed their decline at per-capita incomes of $ 6,000-8,000 in Purchasing Power Parity terms, in India, this decline has been reversed at a per-capita income of $ 2,000 in Purchasing Power Parity terms. This is by no means a mean achievement.

The depletion of the Ozone Layer has emerged as a significant global environmental concern in the last few decades. In 1985, the Vienna Convention established mechanisms for international cooperation in research into the Ozone Layer and the effects of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODSs). Thereafter, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was agreed upon on 16th September 1987. It was a binding multilateral treaty to protect the ozone layer by reducing to predetermined levels, global emissions of Ozone Depleting Substances. However, ratification by developing countries did not proceed rapidly, until the Protocol was amended in London in 1990.

We believe that the Protocol is successful in implementing a global phase-out plan for Ozone Depleting Substances. By and large, the national action plans and phase-out schedules have been adhered to. India has fulfilled, without exception, all our obligations under the Protocol. Indeed, we have done so in the case of all other multilateral environmental agreements we are party to. This has been done within the timetable laid down and, in some aspects, before the promised schedule.

What are the reasons for our success in this arena? What lessons does our experience hold for the design of other multilateral agreements on the global environment?

First, the treaty was preceded by strong scientific consensus about the causes of the problem; clarity about responsibility for the problem; the availability of mitigation technologies at reasonable cost; and, fairly accurate knowledge about the extent of resources needed to address the problem.

Second, and this is the key shift that occurred in the London amendment, the eventual entitlements to Ozone Depleting Substances on a per capita basis between developed and developing countries are identical.

Third, there are explicit financial arrangements set out, for meeting the incremental costs of changes in technology in, and transfer of technology to, the developing countries. These contributions are generally in line with the Principle of "common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities", and contributions from developed countries are voluntary.

However, in terms of the realization of broader goals of sustainable development in developing countries, which must be a principal objective of multilateral environmental agreements, the Protocol could have done better.

I say this because technology transfer has not occurred to any significant extent. I am not referring to the simple sale of capital equipment embodying the technology, and related training in operations. Rather, I am talking about the development of capacity in developing countries to manufacture and further develop capital equipment they require.

A provision in the Protocol that enables the use of trade restrictions to ensure compliance is also a source of concern. While fulfillment of commitments in multilateral environmental agreements by all Parties must certainly be ensured, the use of trade restrictions is in my view, not advisable. Such restrictions may adversely impact economic growth prospects and poverty alleviation efforts. We need to be more creative and less adversarial in our approach to compliance.

Let us not seek trade advantages through the instrument of environmental treaties. This would nullify gains for developing countries accomplished after strenuous negotiations in the World Trade Organisation regime. Let us not trim the flow of multilateral and bilateral resources for poverty alleviation to accomplish unrelated environmental objectives. Let us, instead, ensure that the financial and technological resources needed to accomplish agreed environmental objectives, consistent with growth and poverty alleviation strategies, are indeed additional. And that they are administered efficiently through dedicated and well tried out mechanisms. I urge you to approach the global environmental agenda keeping in mind these lessons.

India is a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic nation, a country of over a billion people seeking their salvation within the framework of an open society and an open economy committed to respect for all fundamental human rights and also committed to the rule of law. The success of our experiment in nation building within the framework of a democratic polity, I believe, is vital to the future of mankind. If we are able to eliminate poverty, provide gainful employment to all and do this while protecting the environment, we would have shown a new path to sustainable development. It is therefore, imperative that we make the process of economic development more inclusive, make processes of globalisation more inclusive and make our societies and polities more inclusive. In doing so we can, I daresay, ensure that the harmony between man and nature is sustained for all times.

I do hope that the key Principles of sustainable development that inform the negotiations of the Meeting of Parties recognize the vital importance to humankind of finding a consensual means to address our common problems. I started by saying that the environmental concerns unite the entire humankind. I wish you all success in your deliberations, which have a vital bearing on the future evolution of humankind in this 21st century that we are going through".