Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters 11 Aug 09;
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India contributes around five percent to global carbon dioxide emissions, a new government report showed on Tuesday, but is still only about a quarter of the emissions of China and the United States.
The finding is based on the 2007 World Development Indicators figures of the World Bank.
The report, which said the energy sector contributed 61 percent of total emissions in India, pegged India's per capita emissions at only one-twentieth of the United States and about one-tenth of western Europe and Japan.
A separate government report said India's forests are absorbing about 11.25 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) every year at 1994 levels -- or about 24 billion tons of CO2 -- a potential market worth $120 billion.
But it was not clear if India was quantifying climate benefits from forest cover to put in place a forest carbon trading mechanism or just demand funds to fight global warming under a U.N. scheme.
"India can do both -- they can use this as a bargaining chip to get money under the U.N. scheme as well as use this for trading as the most developed countries look to achieve their emission reduction targets through offsets," K. Srinivas, former climate campaigner of Greenpeace India.
Forests soak up vast amounts of planet-warming CO2 and can act as a brake on climate change.
Under an emerging U.N. scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD, developing nations could potentially earn billions of dollars by setting aside and rehabilitating their forests.
The valuable carbon offsets they earn could be sold to rich nations to help them meet emissions goals under the program, likely to be part of a broader climate pact from 2013. Data released on Monday by German renewable energy industry institute IWR showed India's emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide grew 125 percent between 1990 and 2008, while China's grew 178 percent and the United States 17 percent. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who released the report, said the government was setting up a national institute of Himalayan glaciology and would coordinate with China to study the health of glaciers.
He said while "a couple of" Himalayan glaciers were receding, some others such as the Siachen glacier were advancing while others like the Gangotri glacier were receding at a decreasing rate compared to the last two decades.
"There is as yet, these words are really important, there is as yet no conclusive robust scientific evidence to show that the receding of glaciers in the Himalayas is being caused by climate change," he said.
(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Sanjeev Miglani)
India makes forestry key plank in climate change plan
Yahoo News 11 Aug 09;
NEW DELHI (AFP) – The Indian government unveiled a major plan to protect its forests on Tuesday, saying the initiative was a key element in its strategy to combat climate change.
"Countries like India must get adequate credit for increasing its forest cover that absorbs greenhouse gases," said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who is under pressure ahead of global climate change talks in December.
"We are amongst the few countries in the world who are not just stopping deforestation but are actually increasing forestation," he told reporters here.
India has set up a fund to manage its forests with an initial budget of 2.5 billion dollars and annual funding of one billion dollars, a report by the Ministry of Environment and Forests showed Tuesday.
Forests cover 65 million hectares of Indian territory or just over 20 percent of the country, according to the ministry.
While per capita emissions are low in India -- the average Indian produces one tonne of carbon dioxide per year to the average American's 20 tonnes -- its huge population puts it among the world's leading emitters.
India and fellow emerging market heavyweight China have consistently opposed binding emission cuts in a new climate treaty until developed nations, particularly the United States, present sufficiently stringent targets of their own.
Ramesh's statement came ahead of the December conference in Copenhagen, which is meant to seal a new international accord on fighting climate change after the Kyoto Protocol's requirements expire in 2012.
Ramesh also reiterated his belief that the Indian scientific community found "no robust scientific evidence" that climate change was causing Himalayan glaciers to melt.
"There could be other factors," he said.
The United Nations has warned that rising surface temperatures have led to rapid melting of regional ice caps, which are the headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers.
