Ramesh deviating from stated climate position, says BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today raised an objection to Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh’s reported shift of stand on the issue of climate change and demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s direct intervention to stop the minister deviating from India’s official stand in support of the developed countries.

Senior BJP leaders believe that by agreeing to “monitoring, review, verifications, international consultations and analysis of domestic actions” to prevent climate change, Ramesh is slowly trying to commit India to international verification of unsupported domestic actions that are being done to reduce carbon emissions.

“The BJP would urge prime minister to personally intervene and prevent environment minister from deviating from our national position to favour developed countries. We are seriously concerned over the developments and the statements of the minister,” said Arun Jaitley, the leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

Jaitley alleged that it was never India’s stand to allow international monitoring of domestic actions that were undertaken by the Union government without the support of developed countries.

“The BJP wants to know why has there been a change in the official position because it is contrary to the assurances given by the environment minister to Parliament. It is also contrary to the mandate of the G-77 alliance, which India has forged over the years,” Jaitley said.

Senior party leaders also said that before leaving for Copenhagen in December 2009, Ramesh had stated in Parliament that India would never subject its unsupported domestic actions for international scrutiny because India was a democracy and the government was only accountable to Parliament.