India can learn lessons from China, says Ramesh

I / United Nations September 23, 2009, 11:07 IST

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh commended the commitments made by Chinese President Hu Jinato during the high-level Climate Change Summit here and said India can learn lessons from China to help save the planet.     

"The Chinese are trying to be very specific and proactive in conveying the message that they will be aggressive mitigators and all this has lessons for India," he told PTI.     

"We cannot hide behind any excuses and we have to be aggressively taking on voluntary mitigation outcomes," he added.     

In his address to the General Assembly, Chinese President Hu Jintao pointed out that China was implementing its National Climate Change Programme, which includes mandatory targets for reducing energy intensity and discharge of major pollutants, and increasing forest coverage and share of renewable energy for the period of 2005 through 2010.     

"Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and people across the world. China fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change," Jintao told the General Assembly.     

"We will endeavour to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by a notable margin by 2020 from 2005 level. We will endeavour to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 per cent by 2020," he added.  

The high-level summit, which featured more than 100 world leaders was convened to mobilise political will and momentum before the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The meeting in the Danish capital is expected to yield a climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.     

India was represented by External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh at the Summit.     

"We may not take on binding targets internationally but whatever we do domestically must have some degree of credibility internationally as well and that's the big challenge between now and Copenhagen," the minister said. "That's what we're going to be working on."     

India and China will be having a technical workshop in Delhi, next month, where both countries will make presentations on their respective national action plans on climate change.     

"We are thinking of ways and means establishing an agreement between the two for having a continuous dialogue on issues related to climate change," Ramesh said.     

The first meeting between India and China will be held on Oct 21, and will be attended by where the Chinese delegation will be led by the Xie Zhenhua, the Vice Chairman of The National Development and Reforms Commission of China.     

The minister also had a number of bilateral meetings with several nations including Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Denmark and Germany."The informal meetings in the UN are much more useful than the formal meetings," he noted.