|India | Businessworld|
| hi souparno,
hope all is well.
just wanted to quickly share a viewpoint with you and also CSE. i have been reading the newsletters and DTE coverage of climate change convention going on at some place somewhere.
CSE, i think, is being over-shrill in attacking the developed countries for asking the developing countries to commit to carbon emission reductions. just because someone else has committed a crime in the past that does not mean someone else now gets the freedom to commit a crime. india & china should, in my view, commit to reductions not because developed countries want it but because mother earth wants it.
it is also a myth to a large extent the argument that india and china cant develop if they have to cut down to emissions. as we have seen the developed countries models that kind of 'development' is of no use if it hurts the Earth's sensitive ecosystems and atmospheric conditions for the worse for mankind. why should then we obsessed with the idea of being allowed to have that same 'development' model by and large. green technology argument is also not very valid because beyond a minor extent green technologies are useless. what, in my view, is required is not supply side management but demand side moderation. anyway, in india & china, the majority of people were not getting the claimed benefits of so-called 'development'.
can you please forward the above to your colleagues, including sunita, who are covering the climate change issues, or alternative give me their email ids and i will email them.
|K. Madhava Sarma,|
|I am not in Poznan. Your paper is generally OK. but I do not agree with your statement "It must not spend time now finding ways to differentiate between countries of the South—the advanced, the not so advanced and the least advanced etc". While I agree that too fine distinctions are not needed, surely Singapore, South Korea, Saudi Arabia should not draw funds meant for real developing countries. The mistake was to treat G77 as developing countries. In Montreal Protocol the same mistake was done but there was also a provision that those whose annual per-capita consumption of ozone depleting subatances is more than 0.3 kg are not eligible for funds or grace period. Some similar criteria will be useful for climate change. Those less than world average of per capita GHG emisions and others? There can be negotiations on this.The Kyoto Proto col has done a great mistake in not doing this. High time every one is reasonable. We must remember the Kyoto will suceed only if everyone is in. Sooner the better. There are no penalties (as there in MP, through trade controls) if any country keeps out.|
|India | email@example.com|
|Most of the points which have been raised are very relevant. In fact India was the first country to introduce the concept of "compensated conservation" seeking incentives for forest carbon stocks being maintained and enhanced as a result of conservation policies of the country. Needless to say, credit for conservation largely goes to the local grassroots level JFM committees that are engaged in protection of the local forests. India is one country which is keen to see that REDD is understood and used as a holistic comprehensive concept that encompasses all actions being taken in different countries aiming at reduction of emissions in forestry sector. These actions would include reduced deforestation, conservation, sustainable management of forest and increase in forest cover. As regards financial compensation, the local communities will certainly get it in accordance with their contribution. There is no denying this fact. This is very clear at the national as well as international level.I would request you to go through Indian submissions and presentations made in different UNFCCC forums on the subject (also available on the UNFCCC website). Regards.|
|Holland | firstname.lastname@example.org|
| Please see my comments in bold to some of your statements. Thanks for the article!
"Will the rich world, responsible for the stock of emissions already in the common atmosphere, find the resources to pay the victims of its economic excesses?"
"Will the same world find the resources to pay for the much-needed transition to low-carbon economies?"
"We know today that international negotiations on climate change, to put it politely, stink."
"It is for this reason that the world must accept the concept of equal per capita emission entitlements so that the rich reduce and the poor do not go beyond their climate quota."
"It must force these countries to take hard and binding interim targets for emission reduction."
"Accepting a long-term target (2050) based on a shifting baseline year, is a self-goal that the world cannot afford."
"that the rich must reduce so that the poor can grow."
"These actions must be paid, not through a convoluted, cheap and corrupt mechanism like CDM, but through a rights-based mechanism."
"We either set up a global trading system based on equal per capita entitlements. Or agree on a carbon tax (one which hurts) on the developed world, so that the fund can pay for national actions to mitigate emissions including avoiding emissions from deforestation."
India | email@example.com
|Mitigation mechanism ad Carbon tradable through CDM is good to
happen till date. But it should be rather simlified for wider participation. and this to happen right choice of experts are needed. We need to learn from A Brief History of Time wherein Stephen Hawking takes us through the evolution of modern thinking on cosmology. Please donot complicate the methodology just because experts have little exposure to the realities.
Belgium | firstname.lastname@example.org
|You articles make interesting points. However, you frequently state or assume that economic growth requires increased greehouse gas (GHG) emissions. This can be a false assumption. Experience in 10 countries (e.g. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic) show that GHG emissions can be decoupled from economic growth. Since the early 1990s the per capita income in 10 countries increased by more than 70% while related GHG emissions increased little or in some cases decreased. People who are at COP-14 in Poznan now can see graphs showing this data in an EU poster in the corridor outside the EU Pavilion (its on the right-hand side as you walk towards the Pavilion).|