Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the historic Earth Summit, India made out a strong case against restrictive trade barriers imposed by rich nations in the name of climate change and insisted that “sustainable development goals” have to be “voluntary, aspirational and non-binding.”
In circulation for quite some time now, sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a suite of proposals, which may get discussed and adopted at the United Nation’s Rio+20 summit at Rio de Janeiro, to make Planet Earth cleaner and greener.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would lead the Indian delegation at the Brazilian summit where heads of state would meet on June 20-21 to review the progress made since the 1992 Earth summit. Singh will travel to Rio after attending the G-20 summit at Los Cabos in Mexico on June 18-19.
Conceived in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals for social indicators like health, employment and education, the SDGs are being seen as a “potential deliverable” at the Rio summit.
But the proposal has already generated widespread controversy as many countries are up against the idea fearing a back-door entry of mandatory emission cuts, which in turn will affect their economic growth.
“Any attempt to make SDG binding would be opposed. It should be voluntary and aspirational, and has to be supported by means of implementation, including funding and removal of trade barriers,” said union environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan, India’s chief negotiator at the Rio+20 summit.
The minister said poverty eradication is a priority for India, which would override green concerns.
On the environment front, Indian thrust would be on equity in carbon space that allows the developing world to grow within the maximum permissible ceiling on global warming as well as the principle of common but differentiated responsibility enshrined in the original Rio convention.
Twenty years down the line, she said, time had come to take stock of the implementation of Rio principles that fast track funding to allow poor nations adapt to green technologies on a large-scale.
But the Green Climate Fund created for the purpose is empty with little contribution from rich nations. “We need to find out new, additional, predictable public finance for developing countries to adapt to and mitigate consequences of climate change,” Natarajan said.
India has voluntarily taken a number of steps to reduce its carbon footprint, she said adding that for the first time climate change issues had been integrated with the Plan process in the 12th Plan. “We need to balance growth, social equity and environment protection,” she added.