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India’s environment minster has announced that his government plans to invest $200 million in the conservation of forests in the country. His ministry will also measure and report the amount of carbon the forests capture.
While announcing the scheme, the minister reiterated his government’s stance that conservation and protection of forests is one of the most important aspects in the global fight against climate change. In addition, stopping deforestation and reforestation are the simplest and one of the most cost efficient methods of offsetting carbon emissions.
The Indian government carefully timed the announcement of such plan given the increasing pressure from developed countries to commit of some kind of emission reduction goals. China is already in talks with the United States for a potential deal on reduction of sectoral carbon emissions and India, being the other major developing country, is feeling the mounting pressure.
Dodging Demands for Emission Cuts
Being one of the top five greenhouse gas emitters, India has been under international pressure to agree to emission reduction targets. During her recent visit to the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the Indian government to reconsider its opposition to emission cuts. The environment minister bluntly rejected the idea.
While the developing countries urge developed countries to adopt 25 to 40 percent emission reduction targets in accordance to the recommendations of the IPCC, the developed countries have their hands tied given their domestic constraints. It is difficult for them to convince their people to agree to increased economic burden when the governments of developing countries are not willing to promise any action on their part.
United States has long maintained that it will be party to an international climate change agreement only if the developing countries agree to take some measures to reduce their carbon emissions. Till now the Indian government that the per capita emissions in India are much less than those of the United States and thus their is no case for India to agree to emission reductions. However, with China seemingly softening its stand and the group of advanced developing countries is losing strength to counter international pressure.
And thus we have seen numerous announcements about renewable energy and environment protection from the Indian government in the recent few months. These include the proposal of providing $100 billion in solar subsidies for the next 20 years.
Cashing In REDD Credits
No detailed or concrete plans for forest conservation were announced last year when the Prime Minister announced the National Action Plan which contained eight long terms goals but no timeline or funding mechanism was announced for any of the goals. The top most priority in the National Action Plan, expansion of solar energy infrastructure too did not receive any funding in this years Union Budget.
India is one of the largest players in the CDM carbon trading scheme and, like many other countries, has reaped benefits aplenty by selling credits for even those projects which were financially strong enough to afford the clean technologies. For example, the Delhi Metro is one of the handful subway projects which manage operational profit still it has applied for earning Certified Emission Reductions. In addition, the DMRC is also planning to gain approval to sell carbon credits for reducing emission levels in Delhi by providing a cleaner transport option.
The Environment minister made it clear that he seeks to attract funding from other countries for offsetting their carbon emissions through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program. It should be noted that only a week back the Supreme Court of India released $2.3 billion to boost forest density and wildlife habitats. This money had been collected from the companies in the form of compensation as they received forest land for industrial purposes.
Even with ample financial resources available the Indian government wants the developed countries to pay for protecting and expanding its forests.
The Indian government needs to open minded and thoughtful of its actions and proposals. In these times of economic and environmental urgency it is important to cooperate with international partners and make crucial agreements work and to recognize responsibility and use one’s full capacity to contribute to the global endeavor to reduce carbon emissions.
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This article seems to suggest that we in India are reaping millions out of thin air; the Delhi Metro is profitable not out of operations, and nobody seems to bring to light the fact that the project has been funded through international finance; should we, in that case, stop using CDM to promote public transportation, which has several problems of start up in a country like India? Also, while the developed countries want us to take emission targets, they are not willing to help us with finance for the same so that we can manage a leapfrog in technology. This is nothing but plain hypocrisy on the part of rich countries. We are not responsible for creating this mess in the first place, so why should we try and placate other countries’ domestic political compulsions????