Advantage India

THE outcome of the Rio+20 summit was predictable: economic growth trumped environment concerns. For India, thereis some take away — inclusion of CBDR(common but differentiated responsibility). CBDR means that protecting the environmentis a common responsibility of all nations, but ithas to be differentiated based on their historical contribution to pollution and climate change.

But not all grounds were won. "We have not succeeded in getting language which would reaffirm developed countries' commitment to provide finance and technologies," says Prodipto Ghosh, member of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change and Distinguished Fellow at Teri. During the summit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had criticised the West for their reluctance to provide additional finance and technology to developing countries. Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan was equally sharp in her comments: "Some developed countries are not even sticking to their commitment to give 0.7 per cent of their GNP for official development assistance to developing countries."

With CBDR reinforced, developed nations will find it hard to remove them from COP 18's outcome later this year.

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 09-07-2012)