http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061207/wl_sthasia_afp/indiaclimatewarming
India 'disappointed' by foreign help with climate change
Thu Dec 7, 11:50 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Rich countries have not transferred technology to
combat global warming to India as promised under the Kyoto Protocol on
climate change, a top environment official has said.
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The Kyoto deal, reached in 1997, asked 35 industrialised nations to
step up investment in projects to cut greenhouse gas emission in
developing countries under a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
"We had hoped for much larger foreign direct investment. We are
disappointed by the scale of foreign technology under CDM," said
Prodipto Ghosh, the top official in the ministry of forests and
environment.
Ghosh was speaking during a two-day international conference on
adaptation to climate change in New Delhi, where officials from the
European Commission,
World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development were to
discuss strategies.
Experts say droughts, floods and cyclones resulting from climate change
will hit farm-dependent economies and developing countries such as
India hardest. Nearly 60 percent of India's workforce is employed in
agriculture.
A new study in the journal Science last week said that a rise in the
number and strength of "extreme" rain storms in central India could be
linked to global warming.
Ghosh said the Indian government had set up an adaptation fund and made
improvements in energy efficiency in key sectors such as power, steel
and cement to avert climate change.
"But adaptation (to climate change) will require tens of billions of dollars a
year," the official said.
In October, Britain released a landmark report on the economic
implications of climate change and called for a global deal to cut
carbon emissions within two years -- with India, China and the United
States in the firing line.
India and China signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but
are not included in targeted emission cuts.
Kyoto requires industrialised countries to reduce emissions of six
greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent by a target of 2008-2012 compared with
their 1990 levels.
Former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern said in October that climate
change will cost up to 20 percent of global
GDP if nothing was done to stem the trend.
“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the
sunshine.”
Morris West (1916-1999)
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