United Nations, Sep 23 (IANS) Asserting that India has not caused the climate change problem in any way, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said New Delhi will be part of the solution, but the outcome must be rooted in equity.
"We have a major interest in ensuring a substantive and constructive outcome in Copenhagen," he said ahead of crucial talks in Copenhagen in December, when nations will try to reach a new global treaty to address climate change.
"We will be part of the solution, even though India has not caused the problem in any way," he said at a Round Table during the Climate Change meeting at the UN Tuesday.
But "the outcome must be rooted in equity and respect the provisions and principles of the Convention, especially common but differentiated responsibilities and also historical responsibility," Krishna said.
"It must also ensure that developing countries can pursue accelerated development, also so that they have the resources to cope and adapt to climate change," he said noting India faces one of the most enormous development challenges in the world."
Underlining the fundamental fact that unsustainable lifestyles and patterns of production and consumption in the developed world have caused climate change, Krishna said: "This cannot continue."
"The way forward must ensure that developing countries can pursue growth and poverty eradication," he said. "Moreover, developed countries must commit and deliver on significant reduction in their emissions of at least 40 percent by 2020 from the agreed 1990 baseline."
"Climate negotiations should be focusing on the developed countries from where the problem has emanated and who are reluctant even to meet their commitments on emission reduction, let alone provide technological and financial support to developing countries on the vast scale that is required," Krishna said.
Instead, the onus for action is sought to be shifted to developing countries, which have contributed little to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses and face the huge burden of adaptation, he said.
Protectionist trade and border tax response measures, which basically seek to protect their competitiveness, are being talked about in developed countries under the garb of climate change, Krishna charged.
"There is a tide of change in world economic relations. Climate negotiations should not seek to stem this tide," Krishna said.