India plans major incentives for clean technology
Thursday, 20 December 2007, 17:30 IST
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New Delhi: India's forthcoming action plan to address climate change will provide significant incentives for clean technologies, Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Kapil Sibal said here on Tuesday. Sibal, who headed the Indian government delegation at the Dec 3-14 UN conference on climate change in Bali, reiterated on his return that India was not going to take on any legal caps on emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are warming the atmosphere and leading to climate change. "But that does not mean we are not doing anything," Sibal said. "We need to take action in India to mitigate adverse impacts of global warming. That is why the prime minister has set up a council. It will come up with this action plan." The plan, expected in February or March 2008, will provide technical and fiscal incentives to Indian industry whose "ultimate goal has to be a low-carbon economy", Sibal said. Carbon dioxide is the major GHG. But India had not made a commitment at the Bali summit because "we need time for industry to change and adapt", Sibal added. Recounting the negotiations at Bali, he said India's biggest success was to stave off all attempts to make commitments on GHG emission caps. "Then the developed countries asked us to give some commitments on what we are going to do, and they wanted this to be measurable, verifiable and reportable. "We were successful in correlating this to technology transfer, financing and capacity building from developed countries that would also be measurable, verifiable and reportable." According to Sibal, the other big success of the Bali summit was that the US had agreed to come on board the international effort to address climate change under the Bali roadmap, without ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the current treaty for that purpose. The Bali roadmap is for negotiations over the next two years for a treaty that will come into effect after 2012, when the current period of the Kyoto Protocol ends. "The negotiations will be very tough," said Sibal.
Source: IANS
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