India for equitable access to carbon space

India has underlined the need of interlinking the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of climate mitigating actions with the issue of equity to ensure that the developing nations have equitable carbon space.

"I want to emphasis that the issue of MRV cannot be seen in the absence of another critical issue in the climate change discussions--the issue of equity," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said at the 7th Major Economies Forum (MEF) meeting here.

"Without a working paradigm of equitable access to carbon space, what exactly will be the role and nature of MRV is far from clear and cannot be agreed," he said.

Smaller groups like MEF are taking up discussions on substantive issues to arrive at some clear understanding ahead of the week-long Bonn negotiations on climate change in August.

He expressed his dismay that the issue of equity, equitable access to the carbon space/equitable burden sharing, seems to be sliding out of the negotiating discourse and emphasised on bringing it back into the mainstream talks.

The Union Minister besides stressing that MRV must include a determination of an allocative principle and an equitable allocation of carbon space also argued that industrialised countries too have to be brought under it for emissions reduction and financing.

"This is particularly relevant in the context of the adequacy of actions of developed countries. This is critical if we are to have an international agreement (on climate change) at Cancun, later this year," he added.