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Environment & forests ministers statement on the outcome of climate change negotiations held in montreal, Canada
The 11th Meeting of Conference of Parties (COP-11) of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1st Meeting of Parties (MOP-1) of the Kyoto Protocol was held in Montreal from 28th November to 9th December 2005.
This Conference was a landmark event as it formally adopted various decisions popularly known as Marrakech Accord. This ensures that the Kyoto Protocol is now up and running. The Indian delegation played an important role in drafting the decision providing further guidance relating to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The prompt start projects/activities that commenced in the period between 1 January 2000 and 18 November 2004 and have not yet requested registration but have either submitted new methodology or have requested validation by a designated operational entity by 31st December 2005 can now request retroactive credits after they are registered by the CDM Executive Board by 31st December 2006. Earlier this deadline was 31st December 2005. Another favourable aspect of this decision has been new eligibility of programme based CDM activities. This ensures that many more CDM projects from India would be able to register with the CDM Executive Board. It may be worthwhile to mention that currently India is the global leader in generating CDM projects and has accorded Host Country Approval to 203 CDM projects, which are expected to generate 195 million Certified Emission Reduction Units (CERs) and envisage an investment of Rs. 14,765 crore in the country.
Another important decision of this conference was to consider further commitments for developed country parties included in Annex 1 for the period beyond 2012 in accordance with Article 3, Paragraph 9 of the Kyoto Protocol. An open-ended ad-hoc working group of parties to the Kyoto Protocol has been established to ensure that there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods. The meeting also approved a five-year programme of work of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change.
During the Conference, many countries both developed and developing pressed for further broad basing of GHG abatement commitments. Our delegation was able to moderate this demand for inclusion not only of non-Kyoto developed countries like the USA, but also fast growing developing countries like India, China and Brazil to a dialogue on long-term cooperative action to address climate change, rather than negotiations on new commitments, by enhancing implementation of the Convention. This dialogue without prejudice to any future negotiations, commitments, process, framework or mandate under Convention and with the explicit provisions that it will not lead to negotiations for new commitments, is meant to exchange experiences and analyze strategic approaches for long-term cooperative action to address climate change that includes the following areas: -
(a) Advancing development goals in a sustainable way (b) Addressing action on adaptation (c) Realizing the full potential of technology (d) Realizing the full potential of marked-based opportunities;
During my participation in the high-level segment of the Conference, I emphasized that despite 8 per cent annual GDP growth, which we hope to attain in the near future, and which is the absolutely essential to sustain if we have to succeed in alleviating mass poverty in our lifetime, it will be many decades before Indias per capita GHG emissions approach anything close to the current world average. While emphasizing that our first and overriding priority is economic and social development and poverty eradication, our delegation at the Conference maintained that India took its responsibilities and commitments under the Framework Convention very seriously and is committed to pursue the path of sustainable development. Further that we were actively pursuing policies, which are designed to control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases in sectors such as energy, transport, industry and forestry. Our stand at the Conference drew considerable appreciation and support, particularly from other developing countries.
The issues related to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which is complementary to the Kyoto Protocol, were also discussed at the official level on the sidelines of the Montreal Conference. In January next year, the Partners will adopt the Charter and the Work Program of this Partnership. The issue of climate change is very important and we are taking necessary action meeting with the associated political, scientific and economic challenges.
Source: PIB.
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