Ramesh faces flak for climate change proposal

Cancun, Dec 7: The Cancun Climate Change Summit 2010 has not evoked the response it deserves and can be easily termed 'cold', especially from third world countries.

Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh got a snub for his ambitious proposal for a verification regime on carbon emissions that was rejected by China and the BASIC group (India, China, South Africa and Brazil). "The sticky issue here is not so much the Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV). I see issue here is the Kyoto protocol issue. So if there is no second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, there is no consensus on anything else at Cancun," said Ramesh.

The Kyoto Protocol targets ending in 2012, none of the countries have agreed to sign the second round. Japan, China and Russia being at the forefront of the rejections. The talks has not elicited any tangible results after the Copenhagen summit.

Sources in Cancun say that Ramesh's proposal for MRV will act as a common ground for the US and China. Also, the MRV will lead to keeping a tab on countries emitting even 1 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, that will be reported to the UN every two years or so.

Back home, the Centre for Science and Environment Director Chandra Bhushan has slammed the Minister's proposal saying, "I think the minister is going too far to please US".

OneIndia News.