India, China to work on `carbon sinks`
Aasha Khosa / New Delhi March 09, 2008
Having pushed the idea that countries should be compensated for conservation of forests at the UN convention on climate change at Bali, India is once again in a leading role to make this happen.
New Delhi has invited China, that had supported India’s idea vociferously, and all other developing nations to a two-day meet where scientists and policy makers are discussing ways to quantify ‘carbon sinks’ — which in the layman’s terms means the amounts of harmful green house gases (GHG) that a particular forest has guzzled up and thereby helped climate change mitigation.
The international workshop on “developing methodology for assessment of enhancement of forest carbon stocks due to conservation, sustainable management of forests and increase in forest cover” organised by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, saw scientists from China, Bhutan Sri Lanka, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea converge at New Delhi.
Brazil, which supports a variation of the same idea on compensating forest cover gave the conference a miss. So did Indonesia, which has sizable stocks of forests.
Jagdish Kishwan, director general, ICFRE, said the meeting would aim at converging all available technologies to adopt a common approach to quantify carbon sinks.
Says Kishwan, who was present at Bali: A study by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science has reported that India would increase its carbon stocks from forests to 9.75 billion tonnes in 2030 from the present level of 8.79 billion tonnes.
The figures are an approximate assessment of the carbon worth of the forests in India. The government wants to identify a methodology acceptable to the world to measure the carbon stocks available in the forests.
The UN Inter-government Panel on Climate Change has in place a regime of compensation for reduction of GHG emissions by companies in the developed countries. They can buy ‘carbon credits’ from the companies of developing countries in case they are unable to meet their targets.
India and China are claiming to have recorded an increase in their green cover and want a similar regime for compensating forest cover.
The scientists at the meet said while the modern satellite-based and remote sensing techniques were helpful and affordable, the cost of hiring experts and data analysts was likely to grow.
Jiang Chungian, head of the Research Institute of Chinese Forestry, Beijing, said China and India would continue to remain partners in their common strategy at the global conference on climate change.
Showing posts with label UNFCC Bali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UNFCC Bali. Show all posts
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Friday, December 14, 2007
India urges rich to take lead in climate fight
By Sugita Katyal
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - India urged rich countries on Wednesday to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gases, saying it cannot accept binding targets in any U.N. deal on combating climate change because of its economic needs.
India, with more than a billion people, is the world's fourth largest emitter behind the United States, China and Russia and is projected to account for a rising share of global carbon emissions as it burns more fuel to try to end poverty.
Despite pressure from industrialized nations and environmental groups to curb emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to curb emissions, said to be rising annually by 2-3 percent.
"It is up to the developed world to assist developing countries, including India. We are not ripe enough to make any binding commitments. We are a developing country," N.N. Meena, junior environment minister, said at U.N. climate talks in Bali.
The 190-nation climate change talks in Indonesia's resort island of Bali are aimed at agreeing to start two years of talks to agree a new treaty to succeed Kyoto and involve all nations in a fight against global warming from 2013.
Poor nations want rich countries to do more before they agree and negotiators are working hard on a formula to draw in the developing world, particularly India and China.
"We are concerned at the attempts to create a new framework, which may result in the dilution of specific and timebound commitments on emission reductions by developed countries. This should not be allowed to happen," India's science and technology minister, Kapil Sibal, said in Bali.
"Bali needs to send out strong messages. Without doubt the most important one should be that the negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol for quantified, time bound and substantial greenhouse gas reductions by developed countries post-2012 will be completed by 2009."FACTBOX-Bali U.N. climate talks and goals
Dec 13 (Reuters) - A 190-nation U.N. climate meeting in Bali from Dec 3-14 is seeking to launch two years of formal negotiations meant to end with agreement on a broad new U.N. pact to fight global warming.About 10,000 delegates on the Indonesian island are considering a draft document laying out a "roadmap" of guiding principles for the talks on a U.N. treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
Kyoto sets caps on emissions of greenhouse gases for industrial 37 nations until 2012. The United States rejected the pact in 2001 and developing nations led by China and India have no targets. A new treaty would seek to involve all.
Following are details of a draft text on Thursday:
HOW AMBITIOUS?
The United States, the only rich outside the Kyoto Protocol which caps greenhouse gases, has opposed in Bali any target range of greenhouse gas emissions cuts. It has support from Japan and Canada but the European Union wants a range.
The new draft says "much deeper cuts in emissions" by rich nations will be needed. Trying to skirt the EU-U.S. dispute, it notes that Kyoto countries want all rich nations to be guided by cuts in greenhouse gases by 25-40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels.
The new draft notes that the toughest category assessed by the U.N. Climate Panel requires global emissions of greenhouse gases to peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, "well below half of 2000 levels by 2050."
RICH AND POOR
The draft calls on rich countries to consider "quantified national emission limitation and reduction commitments".
Meanwhile, developing countries should consider "measureable and reportable national mitigation actions." That is a weaker demand than in the original draft for poor nations to "limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions". Emissions-cutting measures in developing nations could include slowing deforestation.
POLICIES
Developing nations want clean technologies to help them curb greenhouse gas emissions, and they feel that rich countries have short-changed them on a commitment to provide such help under the 1992 Convention on Climate Change.
The new draft asks parties to consider "cooperation on research and development of new and innovative technology". It also calls for more finance and investment to support adaptation to climate change -- another key demand of developing nations.
LAUNCH OF NEW TALKS
The draft lays out three options:
1) Two years of informal talks that do not necessarily lead to a new treaty.
-- This option has had support from few countries such as Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.
2) Two separate sets of talks, ending with a global deal to be adopted at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in late 2009. One set would be new targets for 37 Kyoto industrial nations, another for outsiders such as the United States and developing nations.
-- Most countries support this option. China, however, wants to give Kyoto outsiders until 2010 to agree, saying that a new U.S. president will take office only in January 2009, and many countries want to know Washington's policies first.
3) An immediate merger of the Kyoto and the international talks to produce a deal in 2009.
-- Most countries that prefer this approach equally support option 2.
TIMETABLE
The first talks will be held no later than April 2008. That meeting would work out a detailed timetable.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Writing by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle; Reuters messaging:
Friday, December 7, 2007
| Delegates Forge Ahead at Bali Climate Change Conference | |
| Bali, Indonesia 07 December 2007 |
Listen to Bouchard report
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali is nearing its halfway mark. Senior delegates are hopeful an international agreement will be reached on how to control harmful climate emissions when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. But environmental activists fear the talking is taking too long. Chad Bouchard reports from Bali.
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