PM PRESENTS BROWN INDIA’S PAPERS ON ACTION PLAN

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PM PRESENTS BROWN INDIA’S PAPERS ON ACTION PLAN; INVITES HIM FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, TRANSFER CONFERENCE

India and Britain agreed to exchange notes on jointly developing green technologies where the two have inherent strengths. The two countries also exchanged notes on their respective stands on climate change issues ahead of Thursday’s big talk on the subject at the G-8 plus G-5 meeting here in Italy
The talk on “green revolution” came about at the bilateral meeting between the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and his British counterpart, Mr Gordon Brown. This was the first bilateral meeting at L’Aquila where heads of state and government from the world’s eight most developed economies are meeting to discuss how to avert a global catastrophe in areas as diverse as climate, food, wealth and well-being
Heads of government from India and four other developing nations have been invited to the discussions, besides Egypt and Angola
There are no clear estimates on the value of the global green-tech business, Bloomberg quotes Factbook 2009 to say the market size was as big as $148 billion in 2007. Other diverse sources estimate global venture capital investments in green tech at as much as $8.4 billion in 2008
Dr Singh shared India’s perspective of climate change issues with Prime Minister Brown and presented him documents on India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, besides a copy of FAQs on the government’s standpoint on the climate debate. These documents will be presented at the climate change summit at Copenhagen in December, the external affairs ministry spokesman, Mr Vishnu Prakash, told journalists without elaborating on the contents of the documents or India’s specific concerns
India’s arguments on the climate change debate have been recently articulated by the environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, days ahead of the G8 summit. Mr Ramesh has categorically said India’s primary focus will be adaptation, and it will not accept any mandatory reduction in emission of greenhouse gases. Mr Ramesh has also said the country will not accept any mechanism for transfer of technology and finances for fighting climate change other than the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change under which a successor to the Kyoto Protocol is to be negotiated in Copenhagen
India’s suggestion to the British PM on jointly developing green technologies needs to be viewed against the backdrop of the government’s stand articulated by Mr Ramesh. India, along with other developing countries, are wary of technology transfers from the West because of the substantial costs involved on Intellectual Property Rights and Patents. So, a joint technology development initiative between the “powerful” and the “powerless” looks desirable
Mr Ramesh has also argued that big countries such as the US are the real culprits that have mauled the global environment over the years and, so, they must pay up. He has pointed out that India, with 16 per cent of the world’s population, contributes to only four per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, whereas the US accounts for 20 per cent of CO2 pollutant and China 17 per cent
Dr Singh invited his counterpart to India to participate in the technology development and transfer conference in New Delhi, scheduled for October 22-23, which is aimed at developing a global technology platform on climate change. The two PMs agreed to follow Thursday’s climate talks in detail
This was the second bilateral between the two Prime Ministers this year; the first was on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Britain on April 1
The two Prime Ministers also discussed the need to restructure the global financial order. India has been insisting on significant restructuring of Bretton Woods institutions IMF and World Bank, set up in the aftermath of World War II, insisting that ground realities have changed in the past seven decades and demanding new terms of en