Top Emitters China and India in Climate Change Deal

China and India have pledged to work together in tackling climate change – a move that ties up two of the dominant global greenhouse gas emitters.  News of this collaboration emerged on October 21st 2009, when it was announced that among the areas that the two nations will cover will be new environmental technologies and greenhouse gas reduction strategies.  Specifically, these will include:

• Energy conservation measures
• New energy efficient technologies
• Developing new clean fossil fuel technologies
• Creating new efficient modes of transport
• Recycling greenhouse gases

They will also collaborate with each other in terms of the more immediate goal of forging a replacement Kyoto Protocol deal – with a major global climate change meeting on this subject set to take place in Denmark in less than two months time. 

Climate Change in India

The issue of climate change in India and China is regarded in similar ways.  For example, both highlight how putting a ceiling on emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will prohibit economic growth, and both are adamant that developed countries should do more in respect of the global climate change picture. 

“There is no difference between the Indian and Chinese negotiating positions, and we are discussing further what the two countries should be doing for a successful outcome at Copenhagen [the host city for the December ’09 Kyoto Protocol replacement talks]”, Jairam Ramesh – India’s Environment Minister – was quoted as having said by news organisation the Press Trust of India.  The same agency also printed comments supplied by Chinese climate change official Xie Zhenhua, who highlighted how his country’s and India’s agreement to interact would “...usher in a new scenario and take cooperation on climate change between the two countries to a new high.”

Chinese, Indian Climate Change Agreement

The terms of the new Chinese and Indian climate change MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) will see a Joint Working Group established, through which yearly meetings will be held where national climate change representatives will discuss the latest issues and what might be done about them.

A news release issued by the Indian Environment Ministry in relation to the MOA stressed that the UNFCCC (the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol represented “the most appropriate framework for addressing climate change.”

When the Kyoto Protocol was introduced in 1997, the US rejected its terms on the grounds that it did not cover developing nations, like China and India.  More recently, arguments have erupted over the extent to which developed nations should fund climate change initiatives in undeveloped nations, and one of the main impulses of the Copenhagen meeting will be to find a middle-ground which all countries are satisfied with. 

See also:

EU Proposes Funding Carbon Capture Technologies for China