INDIA CLIMATE WATCH – OCTOBER 2009 (Issue 7)

---

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

From the Editor’s Desk
UNFCCC Bangkok Climate Talks
Global Day of Action – Genius of 350.org
European Union Wobbles on Climate Finance
Jairam & the Leaked Memo Controversy
Delhi Climate & Technology Conference
SAARC Environment Ministers Gather in Delhi
ASEAN Leaders Talk Climate

Editor:
Malini Mehra

Research & Reporting:
Malini Mehra, Kaavya Nag, Pranav Sinha

---

From the Editor’s Desk

October saw a number of lackluster international meetings – the London Major Economies Forum and the G20 Finance Ministers Summit – that passed without much of note being delivered. The real action from an Indian perspective lay at the national level. Delhi not only hosted a major international conference on climate change and technology development, but also several regional and bilateral visits including the first Sino-Indian climate change workshop and a SAARC environment ministers meeting.

At the same time as states such as Kashmir were signaling the alarming rate of glacier disappearance in the valley and the threat of catastrophic floods to come, the Government was finally getting a grip on the appalling state of climate impact awareness in the country. The Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, announced the establishment of an Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment (INCCA) and sought to strengthen domestic scientific coordination and capacity on the subject.

The real story of the month, however, was the controversy over Jairam Ramesh and his leaked memo to the Prime Minister allegedly changing the course of Indian climate policy. In the furious ‘trial by media’ that followed, disaffected Indian climate negotiators (covertly) and the nation’s commenterati (overtly) lined up to take pots shots at the Minister and his political future hung by a thread. The Minister was forced to issue a public statement and held onto his post by a whisker.
What the incident illuminated, however, was the abject state of Indian discourse on climate change with more venom being vented over alleged betrayals of national interest, than an examination of what that national interest was in a climate changed-age when basic assumptions about the nation and its future had to be questioned.

In contrast, the Global Day of Action on 24 October saw an awe-inspiring move by ordinary people to send a clear message to their cloth-eared political leaders: climate change required real action and the target had to be a maximum of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In almost 300 separate events across the country, Indians too joined in the global call.

Given that the UNFCCC’s Copenhagen talks are discussing a 450 ppm target not 350 ppm, such calls may seem heroic at best and implausible at worst. But public opinion will be a decisive force in this debate. And public opinion is now getting globally organized. Importantly, as the 350.org events showed, more and more young people are becoming politicized on this issue. Politicians had better prepare to listen – the personal impacts could very well lie in store at the ballot box.

UNFCCC Bangkok Climate Talks

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held its penultimate session before the Copenhagen climate conference in Bangkok from 28 September to 9 October 2009.  Coming on the heels of the UN Climate Week in New York the week before, the aim of the Bangkok talks was to start ‘real’ negotiations and make a dent in the still highly-bracketed 200+ page official document. The outcome hoped for was the draft of a negotiating document that could be the basis for agreement at Copenhagen in December.  

By Day 2 of the negotiations, however, it was clear that the real work of line-by-line discussions would only start the following week. While the news dampened spirits, two key portions of the Long-term Cooperative Action (LCA) section of the document progressed much faster than the others. After the downer of Week 1, expectations for an outcome-led Bangkok round of talks were left for Week 2.

Areas that progressed well were textual agreement on enhanced action on development and transfer of technology, and enhanced action on adaptation and means of adaptation. Co-chairs were given unanimous mandates to consolidate the text, and updated ‘non-papers’ on the text were ready by the first Friday of the talks. While discussions on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), a part of the discussion on mitigation, moved forward, progress on developed and developing country mitigation actions (under separate Contact Groups), and response measures saw no progress, as did discussions on finance.

The stock-taking Plenary on Friday, 2nd October was a key milestone that would measure progress made at Bangkok. On the LCA, by Friday, the adaptation text had been streamlined, and text on technology had been reduced substantially. The text on finance had not yet finished its first reading, and little progress had been made on mitigation. On the Kyoto Protocol (KP) Working Group, while there was some progress on LULUCF (land use and land use change and forests), overall there was little progress. It was clear that Parties and their negotiators at Bangkok did not have the go-ahead from their political masters to go further. They could not commit to anything of substance – not on targets, monitoring, base-years or commitment periods, nor LCA mitigation or finance. Clearly, until more ambitious mandates comes from capitals, there could be little hope of progress.

Week 2 of the Bangkok talks saw Contact Groups on all sections of the LCA and KP breaking into informal sessions (to which observers are not allowed), to iron out key differences and issues in the text. Week 2 also saw the level of distrust between Parties growing. While revised texts (non-papers) were presented on REDD, agriculture and LULUCF, international aviation and maritime transport, no significant progress was made on substantive issues even on these sections.

The final Plenary session on Friday 9th October took stock of all the progress made at Bangkok. The main objective of the Bangkok session had been to consolidate text under the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action and the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol. A number of non-papers were produced under the AWG-LCA, for further discussion in Barcelona in November. Many delegates described progress on adaptation, technology and capacity building as ‘satisfactory’ but agreed that big divides remained on finance and mitigation.

On the Kyoto Protocol, no conclusions were reached on the first commitment period until 2012. The only good news on targets was Norway’s pledge to reduce its emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020. However, in line with many other developed country targets, the Norwegian target does contain offsets and is conditional on key emitting countries making similar commitments.

The Bangkok talks ended on an acrimonious note with charges by the Sudanese Chair of G77/ China that Annex 1 countries were plotting to ‘kill’ the Kyoto Protocol. In the febrile environment of the last few days of talks such grandstanding made media headlines but glossed over differences in negotiation stances among both Annex 1 and non-Annex 1. While the US had made unequivocal statements about its objections to the Kyoto Protocol as a non-signatory, those countries legally bound by Kyoto Protocol commitments, such as EU Member States, had more nuanced responses.

The status of the KP in a post-2012 regime, however, will undoubtedly resurface in the Barcelona talks due for November and continue to be the subject of intense discussion at Copenhagen.

The Global Day of Action – Genius of 350.org

This year has marked an unprecedented coming together of civil society around the world fighting to push climate change higher up the political agenda. The largest grouping is the Global Campaign on Climate Action (GCCA) with its TckTckTck campaign which brings together NGOs, faith groups, labour unions and a diverse range of civil society groups united on a common demand for a Fair, Ambitious and Binding (FAB) treaty from Copenhagen. CSM is proud to be a founder member of the GCCA and a proponent of the TckTckTck campaign.

Of the many initiatives that make up the rainbow GCCA flotilla, one of the most imaginative and impressive is 350.org –the movement co-founded by American journalist, Bill Mckibben which call for atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to return from the present 390 parts per million to 350 parts per million. The level leading scientists – including Dr Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change- argue is the safe upper limit for humanity.

The power of this simple message has set imaginations alight across the world and sparked a new movement for climate action from young to old. The genius of 350.org has been the simplicity of the ‘ask’ and the intuitive elegance of its message. Everyone wants to do their bit and 350 provides a concrete and scientifically-tenable goal. To express their support, people are asked to display the number -350 – in all the endless variety of geographical, cultural, physical and aesthetic locations the world offers, indicating the broad mass of support for it.

The Global Day of Action on climate change – 24 October 2009 – brought this out in an unprecedented and awe-inspiring manner. People around the world rallied to the 350.org call and the website registered over 5200 events in 181 countries. CNN called it, “the most widespread day of political action in history.” Of these events, more than 2000 took place in the United States alone – in every state of the union – belying the indifference to the climate change that has long been associated with the country.

India too saw action up and down the sub-continent. Almost 300 rallies, marches and events profiling the 350.org call for action took place in virtually every region in the country. It was a call that Indians took up as our own. CSM’s Bangalore and Kolkata offices played a key role in local coalitions on climate change that took to the streets prominently displaying their support and attracting strong media attention.

This story was multiplied in towns and cities across the world. The 22,000 photos from every imaginable corner of the world displaying the ‘magic number’ in every imaginable setting can now be seen on the 350.org website.

The Global Day of Action saw the full force of Margaret Mead’s oft-quoted reflection, “Never doubt that a small group of people can make change. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” The difference being that this event could only have happened in the modern inter-connected multi-media, social networking age. It was the first time that small groups of people had issued a common call, virtually simultaneously, from almost every nation on the planet.

There is no doubt that 350.org and the Global Day of Action have unleashed a prolific public movement – gold dust in campaigning terms. People have responded to the call for a simple public statement – make 350.org the target for atmospheric concentration in order to prevent dangerous climate change.

Taken together, this and the World Wide Views project of 26 September, have shown that global public opinion is clearly for strong and meaningful climate change. Politicians looking for a mandate for action need not look far- they have it in these two events. But how quickly can people move from slogans to social transformation? And how will these events impact the negotiations? These and other questions remain. The next Global Day of Action will be on 12 December – right in the middle of Copenhagen. We will see then how responsive – or not – the world’s politicians have been.

European Union Wobbles on Climate Finance

EU finance and environment ministers and Council meet

Expectations were high going into the EU finance ministers meeting on XX October on funds for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, but ministers failed to deliver. The hope had been that finance ministers would get the EU to accept a figure of 100 billion Euros for climate financing to help vulnerable countries meet their climate needs from 2012 onwards.

The EU however failed to agree on an internal financial burden sharing formula as to who would pay what as a collective contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation financing for poor countries. The meeting highlighted strong differences within the 27-member EU between richer and poorer states – in particular, new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe, such as Poland, who led the charge for fairer burden sharing. Britain’s Chancellor Alistair Darling said although the meeting was a ‘good opportunity, a number of countries wanted two things that the majority found unacceptable’.

While Poland and its allies asked for ‘fast-start’ financing to be contributed on a voluntary basis, they also wanted to contribute less and less to EU’s responsibilities over time. The Polish premier argued that the EU’s poorer member states and those still in industrial transition such as Romania and Albania, should not be expected to pay for the carbon transition of major emitting economies such as China and Brazil which had better infrastructure, technology and standard of living in comparison.

While the EU Finance Ministers meeting was inconclusive on climate finance, the EU Environment Ministers picked up the baton the next day and managed to overcome internal debate on targets and offsets. They agreed to the EU’s 2050 targets of 80-95% below 1990 levels, and an upper warming limit of 2 degrees Celsius. There was also discussion on excess credits in many EU countries, and the issue of hot air or excess Assigned Amount Units (AAUs).
 
The EU Council meeting of 30 October did reach broad conclusion on figures needed at a global level for climate finance and endorsed the European Commission’s estimate of 100 billion Euros annually by 2020. This was agreed as the net incremental cost of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries to be met through a combination of efforts. However, the outcome indicated a wide-range figure of EUR 22 to 50 billion per year to be the required amount through international public support. Missing also were any specifics as to the EU’s contribution to this total sum other than to indicate that the EU was ready to take on its ‘fair share’.

Jairam & the Leaked Memo Controversy

On 18 October, the Times of India broke  a story that Minister of State for Environment  & Forests, Jairam Ramesh, had, in a confidential memo to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, allegedly “suggested that India junk the Kyoto Protocol, delink itself from G77 — the 131-member bloc of developing nations — and take on greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under a new deal without any counter guarantee of finances and technology.” Furthermore, the paper argued, the Minister sought to align himself with the USA and Australia in agreeing to water down the distinction between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 countries entrenched in the Kyoto Protocol, and proposing permitting IMF and WTO-style review and `surveillance’ of national mitigation actions that India takes voluntary at its own cost in
At the recently-concluded Bangkok talks, the paper argued that India and the G77/China had opposed the US and EU-backed ‘Australian Proposal’ which they said sought to “kill” the Kyoto Protocol, and alter the character of the UN Framework Convention. India’s negotiators charged that a single legal instrument, as proposed by Australia, would “unilaterally impose new commitments and burdens on developing countries and undermine the exiting convention”. The paper characterized Ramesh’s proposals in the leaked letter to the Prime Minister as marking a “major shift” in India’s climate policy.
The story created a storm of controversy in India. In further reporting, the paper pointed to a wide rift between India’s negotiating team and the Minister saying that he had exceeded his own ‘red lines’ as given to the Indian Delegation in their Brief for Bangkok.
In the days following the report, the Minister’s political future hung by a thread. With little visible public backing – but not insignificant behind-the-scenes support – the Minister was forced to issue a retraction but the speculation continued.

Here we attach the Minister’s statement in full:

 “Yesterday, a leading newspaper had carried a news- item on a discussion note that I wrote on climate change. The news-item has quoted only partially and selectively from this note, and significantly added its own editorial interpretations, thereby completely distorting and twisting its meaning .Let me reiterate India’s non-negotiables in the ongoing international climate change negotiations.

While India is prepared to discuss and make public periodically the implementation of its National Action Plan on climate change, India will never accept internationally legally binding emission reduction targets or commitments as part of any agreement or deal or outcome. Inida will never accept any dilution or renegotiation of the provisions and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In particular. we will never agree to the elimination of the distinction between developed (“Annex I”) countries and developing (“non-Annex I”) countries as far as internationally legally binding emission reduction obligations are concerned. Internationally legally binding emission reduction targets are for developed countries and developed countries alone, as globally agree under the Bail Action Plan.

India will agree to consider international measurement, reporting and verification (“MRV”) of its mitigation actions only when such actions are enabled and supported by international finance and technology.

India, like other developing countries, fully expects developed countries to fulfill their obligations on transfer of technology and financial transfer that they committed to under the UNFCCC and the Bali Action for both mitigation and adaptation actions.

There has always been a broad political consensus regarding the Indian position on climate change. India has been engaged in climate change negotiations, whether in UNFCCC or multilateral fora, based on a clear and definite brief which has not changed since 2004.

My note suggested the possibility of some flexibility in India’s stance, keeping the above non –negotiable firmly intact and keeping India irrevocably anchored in the UNFCCC of 1992 and the Bali Action Plan of 2007. I have never at any stage considered or advocated abandoning the fundamental tenets of the Kyoto Protocol, as was stated in the article- this is a mischievous interpretations of the newspaper. My basic point is that India’s interests and India’s interests alone shall dictate at our negotiating stance. As far as the insinuations by the newspaper that I am reflecting a pro-US bias, I will let my actions speak for themselves. India is working, and will continue to work, closely with our partners in the G-77 and China in articulating a common position on this issue, while also engaging with other countries to our benefit.

I had written a comprehensive 7-page letter to a large number of MPs from all political parties and to all Chief ministers in early October 2009 detailing our thinking, making our position very clear and stating that accountability for our actions on Climate change-through outcome-based legislation ,if found acceptable by our Parliament-is to our Parliament and to our Parliament alone. I welcome the feedback that I have been receiving on it. Earlier, in August, I had written to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha suggesting that four Member of Parliament-based on posts that they hold-be included in the official delegation to the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP-15) to be held at Copenhagen in December,2009.I will continue to keep political leadership across party lines and civil society fully engaged on this issue over the coming weeks and months.”

For a comment piece by Malini Mehra & Bittu Saghal on this issue, please refer to ‘Can India win if it loses the climate battle?’ on the CCI Portal: http://www.climatechallengeindia.org/Can-India-win-if-it-loses-the-climate-battle-30-Oct-2009

Delhi High Level Conference on Climate Change & Technology Transfer

Held in Delhi from 22-23 October 2009, the Government of India and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) jointly organized a high level conference  to promote international technology development and transfer in the context of the Bali Action Plan. The conference was India’s official contribution to the UNFCCC process towards Copenhagen and also included an international exhibition on climate technologies in the sidelines of the conference. The conference followed on from discussions initiated at the Beijing High-level Conference on Climate Change: Technology Development and Technology Transfer, co-organized by the Chinese Government and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in 2008 which had taken stock of clean technologies, barriers to transfer and the potential for technology collaboration.
The Delhi conference brought together 58 delegations, of which 30 were at ministerial or vice ministerial level with around 30 experts who shared their knowledge of key aspects of technology transfer and deployment. The Prime Minister of India and the President of the Maldives opened the inaugural session and India’s Finance Minister inaugurated the Clean Technology Exhibition which saw the involvement of 148 companies from around the world (and a stall by the Centre for Social Markets). The conference concluded with the adoption of a formal ‘Delhi Statement on Global Cooperation on Climate Technology’.

Key messages from the conference:

1. Technology development and transfer cannot be discussed in the abstract but must move towards specificity in global mechanisms for technology development, deployment, and transfer.
2. Must learn from lessons of the Green Revolution in which India led the way with international cooperation in 1960s and 1970s. Many speakers alluded to the CGIAR network as a model for addressing the challenge of climate change as well as energy poverty.
3. Need for accelerated investment in research and development, including collaboration in research between advanced and developing countries, and support for capacity building in developing countries. Both public and private financing important to enable accelerated large-scale development, transfer and deployment of technologies for adaptation and mitigation.
4. Widespread recognition of need for special mechanism under the UNFCCC for technology transfer, development, and deployment. This should be supported by a special fund with periodic performance assessment and a mechanism to oversee the functioning of an IPR regime for climate and development goals.

SAARC Environment Ministers Gather in Delhi

Environment ministers of Member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) met in New Delhi, India on 20th October 2009 for the Eighth Meeting of the SAARC Environment Ministers. They adopted a Delhi Statement, agreeing on specific joint actions to further strengthen environmental governance, biodiversity conservation, and climate change cooperation. They also agreed to hold a joint side event on climate change, voicing the shared concerns of the region at COP-15 in Copenhagen.

The Ministers recognized that the South Asia was amongst the regions most vulnerable to climate change and there was a need to build up capacity in the region to cope with extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change. By the Sixteenth SAARC Summit at Thimphu, Bhutan, in April 2010, a SAARC Agreement on Natural Disaster Rapid Response Mechanism is also expected to be finalised for signing. The Government of India will provide US$ 1 million each to the SAARC Forestry Centre, Thimphu, and the SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre, Malé, to strengthen these Centres.

SAARC Ministers underlined the crucial importance of close cooperation in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, with a view to enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They said SAARC will “stick to the Kyoto Protocol, Bali Action Plan and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” and a joint statement on climate change would be issued at the Copenhagen summit in December.

The Ministers underscored the need to undertake and enhance cooperation in areas related to environment amongst the Member States in order to have a coordinated response to climate change and agreed to institutionalize an annual workshop – a South Asia Workshop on Climate Change Actions (SAWCCA). The Government of India will host the first workshop in early 2010. Also, Bhutan proposed to adopt ‘Climate Change’ as the key theme of the Sixteenth SAARC Summit to be held in Thimphu in April 2010 – a move which was welcomed by all members.

Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) holds ‘Civil SAARC’

Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) organised a ‘Civil SAARC’ conference on 19 – 20 October 2009 on the sidelines of SAARC Environment Ministers Conference in New Delhi. The objective of the conference was to find a common voice among civil society institutions of the SAARC countries. The seminar was mostly given a miss by ministers and government officials from India and SAARC countries with the exception of a minister from the Maldives. Many of India’s neighbours such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives emphasized the benefits of moving to low-carbon economic base and questioned India’s comparative reticence on the subject. The Maldives outshone other countries in the level of its ambition – the country has vowed to become carbon neutral by 2010 – and acted as the moral voice from the region. The differing views expressed revealed a gap between Indian rhetoric of regional unity and a reality where it is clearly seen as a regional power not living up to neighbourhood expectations on climate leadership.

ASEAN Leaders Talk Climate

India ‘Looks East’

ON 24 October 2009, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India came together in the sidelines of the 15th ASEAN summit in Thailand to discuss present and future relations of the 7th ASEAN-India Summit. Among other issues, leaders discussed food security, agriculture and forestry, disaster management and climate change. The ASEAN-India Business Council was reactivated at this summit, and India’s ‘Look East’ Policy given a boost.

ASEAN leaders and India issued a joint statement in which they indicated their shared vision and common concern on the impacts of climate change to the economy, environment and well-being of the people. Leaders emphasized the need to work in a coordinated fashion towards the full realization of the UN Climate Convention and for the successful outcome of the Copenhagen Conference of Parties (COP).

India proposed a joint programme on disaster management and sharing satellite data on areas affected by natural disasters. This was initiated in light of the recent spate of natural disasters in India and Southeast Asia, and would build on India’s expertise in Information Technology and space technology.
 
It was also proposed that an ASEAN-India climate change network be established. Leaders stressed the importance of cooperation in science, technology and environment to promote dynamic and sustainable development in the region. There was also talk of activating the ASEAN-India Science and Technology Fund and the ASEAN-India Green Fund – a fund to which India has contributed USD 50 million.

Bilateral Climate Research Initiatives – Argentina, China, Norway, Scotland and United Kingdom

India-UK Join Hands for Solar Research

A two-day conference held in late September in London marked the start of an India-UK tie-up on solar energy research. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) from India, in collaboration with the Research Councils UK (RCUK), are looking to strengthen collaboration between research organizations of the two countries. Representatives from IIT also interacted with counterparts from UK universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. The DST and RCUK have already called for research proposals on a range of solar photovoltaic and energy generation areas, including low-cost materials for PV systems, power systems and distribution and thin film performance and stability. This initiative comes on the heels of the GoI internal agreement on the Solar Mission announced under the National Action Plan on Climate Change. It remains to be seen whether this UK-India research cooperation will be incorporated as part of the Solar Mission or be a separate, short-term initiative.

Climate Change Research Centre (Bangalore)

Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State of Environment and Forests, announced India’s plan to set up a world-class ‘data hub’ facility to carry out climate change research and investigate its impacts on the economy and environment. To be set up in Bangalore, the institute is to be called the ‘National Institute of Climate and Environment’ (NICE), and receive an initial funding of INR 40 crore. The programme will involve the use of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) satellites to measure greenhouse gas emissions and monitor Himalayan ecosystems. This will be the second such institute on climate change in the country, the first being the Centre for Climate Change Research at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune.

NICE builds on the Minister’s efforts to strengthen India’s in-house capacity on climate research, especially in climate monitoring and modeling, and generate more locally-relevant, quantified data on greenhouse gas emissions in India over time. The partnership between the MoEF and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is an effort to generate more research and scientific literature and papers from developing countries, since much of the data on emission levels, baselines and standards are currently based Western models.

The Minister argued that domestic research institutions needed to strengthen their capacity to collect and analyse locally-relevant data to avoid biases creeping in with dependence on Western scientific data. If so, this will be a welcome and long-overdue change in policy emphasis in India where research on domestic climate impacts and knowledge generation has been stagnant compared to countries such as China and South Africa.

Climate Change – Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs)

October has been the month of India signing MoUs on climate, energy and clean technologies with foreign powers. Although progress on the UNFCCC multilateral negotiations on climate change might be moving slowly, Indian ministries have been responsive to invitations from foreign partners for bilateral cooperation agreements on climate change.

With four MoUs on partnership and cooperation, there has been an increased focus on South-South cooperation. India and Argentina signed a strategic partnership in mid-October to cover issues of global concern. Efforts to energise consultations will take place in May 2010. The two heads of state were in favour of closer bilateral ties on renewable energy and alternative energy sources and respective technologies.

In mid-October, a senior official for the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) travelled to Edinburgh to sign a bilateral India-Scotland MoU to drive innovation in renewable energy. Both governments agreed to increase supplies of wind energy, solar power and biofuels and leverage Scotland’s work in energy research and boost collaboration between Indian and Scottish universities. India is a potentially large market into which expertise and technologies on renewables can enter on a for-profit basis through the private sector, and also through the Energy Technology Partnership (ETP), an alliance of Scottish universities.

The big MoA this festive season was between the two young Asian giants – India and China. The agreement marked the start of cooperation on addressing climate change. The MoA was signed by Xie Xhenhua, vice chairman National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China, and Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Environment ad Forests, in New Delhi. The two countries are keen to intensify collaboration on energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean energy technologies, sustainable agriculture and afforestation. Key areas of focus are mitigation actions, policies and programmes. However, the two other areas of focus are adaptation and capacity building.

The India-Norway MoU was the last bilateral deal of the month, on cooperation in the implementation of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects under the Kyoto Protocol, to remain in force until 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period lapses. The pact was inked between the environment ministers of the two countries. The Parties will also provide information on domestic CDM regulations and procedures to companies from both countries. This proves as an added boost to CDM projects in the country. India is currently the second-largest beneficiary of CDM projects (1400 approved) after China. Minister Ramesh indicated at the conference, that if all these CDM projects were to be implemented, the result would be a net inflow of $6 billion into the country. This MoU implies Norway will support CDM projects coming to India. However, Norwegian minister of environment and international development also said CDM projects must benefit countries in Africa, where CDM has negligible presence.