Singh: Tough talk

New Delhi, June 5: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a fit of frankness three years ago, called the extended G-8 meetings with the developing world an “an expensive lunch”.

As he embarks on his third such encounter, this time in Germany, tomorrow, Singh’s views are better guarded.

Still, New Delhi will make no new proposals on the climate change issue that is exercising the Western world these days, despite urgent appeals by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the Prime Minister.

“It is quite clear to us who is responsible (for this crisis),’’ foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon said today, adding that India would be “very happy to offer to cut its per capita emissions levels when it reaches the same levels the developed world produces.”

The message to Merkel is clear: India will not control its greenhouse gas emissions, not only because per capita emissions are very low compared with what the Western world produces, but also because India fears the move will raise industrial costs, hampering growth and development.

“New ideas will form part of our own development effort,” Menon said. In the Eleventh Plan, the government will introduce energy-saving technologies, especially in the mass transport, housing and hydrocarbon sectors.

Still, with none other than the US, China and Japan having put forward new proposals on energy savings and climate change on the eve of the G-8 summit, the pressure on India has only been delayed, not denied.

China is one of the five “Outreach’’ countries with which the G-8 is holding meetings over the next few days in Heiligendamm, a German resort on the Baltic coast. The other four are India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

Official sources said India would watch if the US, which offered to cut emissions in a major policy shift recently, would actually abide by its promises. They pointed out that India accounts for only 4 per cent of emissions world wide. The figure for the US is about 30 per cent.

Even if India continues to grow at 9 per cent, it would take 30 times today’s amount to reach US levels. The Prime Minister constituted a council on climate change about two weeks ago, after a meeting on the subject. The terms for global talks were finalised then.

German officials said they were ready to help India with clean technology transfers. They understood India’s needs.

However, developing countries like India and China would also have to take the “polluter pays’’ principle into account.

It seems that at this G-8 summit, New Delhi will fall back on the “common but differentiated responsibilities’’ principle the UN has adopted world wide. That is, countries that pollute more should pay more.