US praises India, China for taking action on climate change

The Obama Administration today praised India along with China, Brazil and South Africa for taking action on climate change and recognising the seriousness of the global problem.

"The good news is that the major developing countries have started recognising the seriousness of the problem, their own vulnerability to it, and the need for global action," Special US Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern told American lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.

"In some cases, they (the countries) are taking action at the federal level that outstrips our own," Stern said.

This despite the fact that developing countries tend to see a problem not of their own making that they are being asked to fix in ways which, they fear, could stifle their ability to lift their standards of living, he added.

Stern admitted that any measure to tackle the global threat can't be effective without active participation of developing countries including India and China.

"The problem with potentially grave and irreversible consequences cannot be solved without the full participation of developing countries – particularly China and the other emerging market economies," he said.

Many of the biggest developing countries including India are focusing on climate change and taking, or starting to take significant action, Stern observed.

In his testimony before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, stern said the real challenge was to convince these and other countries that they must both step up their activities and reflect them in an international agreement.

Listing India's efforts towards reducing emissions, he said New Delhi last year launched its first ever National Action Plan on Climate Change, and the country will soon announce a new national energy efficiency plan to upgrade energy efficiency standards.

These plans outline existing and future climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and programs, he said, adding, the country has announced plans to bring one-third of its land under forest cover by 2012.

China, for example, he said has demonstrated a growing commitment to clean energy in the past several years, and it has implemented increasingly stringent auto emissions standards.

"China's current five year plan includes the goal of reducing the energy intensity of the economy by 20 per cent by 2010 and the aim of increasing the share of renewable energy in the primary energy supply to 15 per cent by 2020," he said, adding, there are many other initiatives underway.

Brazil, he argued, is already an enviable model in many ways, as the world's major economy least dependent on fossil fuels.

Brazil gets more than 40 per cent of its energy from hydropower and it is a global leader in producing sugarcane ethanol.

Stern said Brazil's challenge revolves fundamentally around deforestation. To address that problem, he said, the Brazilian government is seeking to reduce deforestation by 70 per cent by 2017, which would dramatically reduce emissions.

South Africa has also announced a national long-term mitigation strategy, aimed at stopping emission growth by 2025, Stern said.

"Measures contained in the plan include ambitious mandatory energy efficiency targets and expanded renewable and nuclear generation by 2025," he said.