India, China ink MoA on climate change; set up JWG

Moving closer on climate issues, India and China today announced setting up of a Joint Working Group to exchange views concerning international negotiations on global warming.

The Joint Working Group (JWG), which will hold meetings alternately in China and India every year, is also expected to discuss respective domestic policies and measures and implementation of related cooperative projects.

The JWG is part of the steps of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to boost cooperation on climate change issues signed by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and China's Vice Chairman of National Development and Reform Commission Xie Zhenhua. 

Ramesh said the MoA was first of its kind for both China and India and the cooperation had fructified within the short span of less than a month. 

Besides the JWG, the MoA also calls for annual meetings of scientists and economists and joint research and development programmes in areas of solar and wind energy, coal technology and forestry. 

"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," said Ramesh, who also held a bilateral meeting with Xie.

"The implementation of the MoA will usher in a new scenario and take cooperation on climate change between the two countries to a new high," Xie said through an interpreter.

The agreement will also keep the Indian side informed on China's policies on climate change and at the same time help share best practices to improve the approach to deal with the issues involved, the Chinese minister said.

Experts from India and China also participated in a workshop where they shared their respective national action plans to tackle climate change.      They also discussed domestic initiatives, issues in multilateral negotiations (mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and finance) and outlook for the Copenhagen meeting.

India and China have a similar position that developed nations need to do more than developing nations to fight climate change as per Kyoto Protocol because they were historically responsible for the problem.

China and the US each account for about 20 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution from coal, natural gas and oil. The European Union is responsible for 14 per cent, followed by Russia and India at five per cent each.