India rebuffs US carbon call

20/7/2009
Source ::: FINANCIAL TIMES

BY JAMES LAMONT, JAMES FONTANELLA-KHAN & DANIEL DOMBEY

India last night rebuffed an appeal by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, to embrace a low-carbon future in which the two countries would work together to devise new ways of consuming and producing energy.

Clinton, on a five-day visit to the country, said that low-carbon emissions would not jeopardise India’s high economic growth rates and its goal of lifting millions of people out of poverty.

She offered a technological partnership to secure the fast growing nation’s energy supplies and help boost the livelihoods of its farmers.

“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister told Clinton.

“And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”

In spite of the two countries’ battles in global trade talks and fears of India’s slipping down the US’s priority list, Clinton vowed that Washington would not do “anything” to stand in the way of the world’s largest democracy’s economic progress.

Speaking in Delhi yesterday, Clinton said: “We believe that economic progress in India is in everyone’s interest and not just in the interest of Indians.”

“There is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainably that will lower significantly the carbon footprint of the energy that is produced and consumed to fuel that growth.”

Her comments come as global leaders try to agree a course of action to combat climate change and to break a deadlock over the Doha round of trade talks at the World Trade Organisation.
New Delhi has sided with Beijing to oppose binding caps on its carbon emissions. They argue that developed nations should take responsibility for global warming.

India has also clashed with the US over the terms of the global trade deal. The Indian government welcomed the US’s partnership but refused to agree to emissions caps.
Clinton is the most senior official of President Barack Obama’s administration to visit India since his election at the end of last year.

The Indian government had close ties to the Republican administration of former president George W Bush. Bush helped end decades of isolation for India’s nuclear programme by striking a civil nuclear agreement between the two countries.

Some Indian officials express anxieties that a Democrat administration may turn to more protectionist measures in an economic downturn and also revisit earlier attempts during the presidency of Bill Clinton to find a settlement for Kashmir, disputed territory between India and Pakistan.

Clinton, who meets prime minister Manmohan Singh today, has done her best to reflect a fast-improving relationship that promises to yield co-operation in defence, nuclear power and regional relations.

In a symbolic act of solidarity, she began her visit in Mumbai, staying at the Taj Hotel, one of the targets of the devastating terror attacks on India’s financial capital last November.

“The visit takes place amid a pervasive sense of unease in India that the Obama administration is less enthusiastic about the bilateral relationship than its predecessor,” said Seema Desai, an analyst at the Eurasia Group.

“There have been nagging concerns in India that the non-proliferation focus of the Obama administration as well as its desire for an intensified dialogue with China has reduced India’s importance and leverage with the US.”

Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong pours water as attends a meeting between Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers and the the high level legal experts group ASEAN Human Rights Body at a hotel in Phuket, southern Thailand on July 19, 2009. Asian foreign ministers have gathered ahead of the continent’s biggest security dialogue, under the shadow of the Jakarta bomb attacks and North Korea’s nuclear programme. Political repression in Myanmar and the region’s economy will also be on the agenda for days of talks in the Thai resort island of Phuket culminating in the annual ASEAN Regional Forum. AFP PHOTO/POOL/FRANCIS R. MALASIG/POOL