Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

Explanatory note on accepting a global goal for emission reduction

This is explanatory to what PM said about targets for reduction in GLOBAL and not India's emissions. He was not indicating that India will take on emission reduction targets. On the contrary, he was explaining why a global target without an equitable burden sharing formula would implicitly require emission reductions by developing countries and which we could not accept

ON ACCEPTING A GLOBAL GOAL FOR EMISSION REDUCTION

There have been proposals for setting a goal for reducing global emissions.

There are also calls for us to accept a limit to temperature increase of 1.5 degree C or 2.0 degree C. India supports the setting of ambitious mitigation goals but not without a clear indication of how the burden of reaching this goal is to be shared among developed and developing countries. For example, if you set a goal of 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 with 1990 as the base year and developed countries commit to a 80%-85% cut in their emissions by that date, then developing countries will have to deliver on the inescapable residual obligation to cut their emissions by at least 30% to 40%. The scale of reduction would be greater the later their emissions peak. This will not be possible unless there is a large scale transfer of financial and technological resources to enable significant mitigation action by developing countries. Under the current dispensation, developed countries will be able to meet a large part of their mitigation obligations through offsets. This route is not available to developing countries. This is why we insist on the need to frame an equitable burden sharing paradigm otherwise there will be a severe constraint on our growth prospects.