Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) India is deviating from its national position to one in favour of developed countries by supporting international scrutiny of domestic climate change mitigation measures at the ongoing talks at Cancun, Mexico, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Friday.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley, in a statement, urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to personally intervene and prevent Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh from deviating from the national position in favour of the developed countries.

The BJP objected to Ramesh’s recent statement, “We are certainly prepared to engage in a system of monitoring, review and verification/international consultation and analysis (MRV/ICA) of domestic climate actions, which respects national sovereignty…and we have suggested a set of operational guidelines on how this system will function.”

Climate Change talks are being held in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov 28 till Dec 10.

Jaitley said that before last year’s climate change talks, Ramesh had clearly stated that India will not accept international scrutiny of domestic climate change mitigation measures which are not supported by the developed countries.

“Slowly but surely the minister has committed India to international verification of unsupported domestic actions. This was never India’s position. This was never the position of the developing countries,” Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said.

Questioning India’s change of stand, Jaitely said: “It is contrary to the parliamentary assurances. It is contrary to the mandate of the G-77 alliance which India has forged over the years with like-minded countries.”

“It is also contrary to the elementary principles of equity where the developed countries pollute and India, through unsupported domestic actions, pays for environmental correction and those very steps are now subjected to international verification which gives them a binding character,” he said.