New Delhi, Nov 30 (IANS) India should not expect much from the Copenhagen conference on climate change as it is more about the defence of national economic interests, the prime minister’s special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran said here Monday.
“We are a few days away from the much awaited Copenhagen conference on climate change. The purpose of the conference is to produce a set of binding agreements between nations to limit the global rise in temperature,” Saran said.

“However, the Copenhagen conference may not produce desired results,” he said at a conference here organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

“The international negotiations on climate change have become less and less about preventing global warming and more and more about the defence of national economic interests,” Saran said.

“India and other major developing economies should not, therefore, expect much in terms of either technology transfer or financial resources from developed nations to reduce carbon emissions.”

According to him, the developing economies would likely be asked to mobilise resources from international carbon market.

Saran also said that with international commitments to reduce carbon emissions being weak, the value of carbon credits may not be particularly high.

“They may not, therefore, provide sufficient resources to finance the energy shift in its entirety,” he noted.

“India needs to make a decisive shift away from fossil fuels to nuclear and renewable sources of energy irrespective of what the international negotiations on climate change will yield in Copenhagen.”