INDIAN DELEGATION HEADS TO COPENHAGEN WITH SOFT WORDS AND

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NEW DELHI 002441 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR OES/PCI, OES/EGC, SCA/INSB, EEB/ESC/IEC and EEB/TPP/BTA STATE FOR SECC TODD STERN DEPT OF ENERGY FOR TCUTLER, CGILLESPIE, MGINSBERG TREASURY FOR DAS PIZER AND OFFICE OF SOUTH ASIA MNUGENT USDOC FOR ITA/MAC/OSA/LDROKER/ASTERN/KRUDD DEPT PASS TO USTR MDELANEY/CLILIENFELD/AADLER TREASURY PASS TO FRB SAN FRANCISCO/TERESA CURRAN USDA PASS FAS/OCRA/RADLER/BEAN/FERUS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV ENRG ETRD TSPL TRGY KSCA KGHG IN SUBJECT: INDIAN DELEGATION HEADS TO COPENHAGEN WITH SOFT WORDS AND HARD POSITIONS ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Armed with the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan, India's delegation to COP-15 is planning a highly legalistic defense of the G-77 and the entitlement of developing countries to financial flows from the developed world. U.S. negotiators should expect more nit-picking than flexibility despite highly publicized accounts of a change in India's position based on a willingness to adopt voluntary, non-binding, emission intensity targets. Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh will play the good cop; willing to talk to anyone and possibly offering concessions on international MRV of unsupported mitigation actions, while Special Envoy Shyam Saran will be the bad cop, defending the Kyoto Protocol and the G-77. While Prime Minister Singh is no doubt sincere in his desire for India to be seen as a dealmaker rather than a deal-breaker, the Indian delegation will leave Copenhagen seeing no deal as preferable to any agreement that might limit the growth of its emissions. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT. -------------- GOOD COP: JAIRAM RAMESH -------------- ¶2. (SBU) In a December 3 televised speech to the lower house of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha),Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh claimed that India's per capita emissions argument is an accident of history saying "our biggest failure has been our inability to control our population and it is no great credit that we have over a billion people." Ramesh said the long-standing Indian position that it will never exceed the emissions of the developing world on a per capita basis was merely a semantic argument and that India owes something more to itself and its people. He said India is going to Copenhagen with a positive frame of mind and is prepared to be flexible to achieve a comprehensive and equitable agreement. ¶3. (SBU) Ramesh responded to earlier comments by parliamentarians that he was an "American stooge" by stating that simply because India is a part of the G-77 does not mean it should not talk to the United States. He said the mere act of talking does not mean India has sold itself out. He reminded his audience of India's environmental legacy noting that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the only head of state, apart from the host nation's, to attend the Stockholm conference in 1972 and that "the world will laugh at us today if we do not show the same kind of leadership for the sake of our own people." ¶4. (U) Ramesh outlined various voluntary, non-binding, national measures India should take to phase in a low carbon economy which would effectively reduce India's emission intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020 including: - legislating mandatory fuel efficiency standards by December 2011; - introducing a mandatory green building code; - amending the Energy Conservation Act to incorporate trading in energy efficiency certificates; - increasing forest cover; and - ensuring fifty percent of all new coal-based power plants are built with clean coal technologies. ¶5. (SBU) However, Ramesh also stated he separates domestic responsibility from international obligation and that when he uses the word flexibility, he does not mean sellout. In a telling lesson for a young parliamentarian who called India's reliance on the historical emissions argument "moronic," Ramesh cautioned him saying he should learn to go with the grain of conventional thinking because thinking out of the box will not get you anywhere in India. He said that although India is prepared to do more if there is an equitable agreement in Copenhagen, it will not accept any legally binding emission targets or an acknowledgement of any peak year for its emissions. He also stated that while all internationally supported mitigation actions will be subject to international NEW DELHI 00002441 002 OF 002 scrutiny, unsupported domestic actions cannot be subject to the same level of scrutiny - leaving open the door for some form of international verification of unsupported domestic actions. -------------- BAD COP: SHYAM SARAN -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In a November 30 speech at a symposium in New Delhi, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Climate Change, Shyam Saran, told an international audience that Copenhagen was more a highly politicized economic negotiation than a climate conference and India had to avoid the "very real risk" to its economic development. Saran stated India would not give up on a legally binding agreement and would "insist on the continuing validity of the Kyoto Protocol" for the benefit of developing countries. On climate finance, he repeated the long-held GOI position that financial flows for both mitigation and adaptation cannot be accomplished under a foreign aid donor-recipient mindset, but rather must be given as an entitlement to developing countries which must control how the money is spent. ¶7. (SBU) In regard to a long-term global emissions target, Saran stated India could not support a long-term goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050 because even if the developed world reduced its emissions by 80 percent, developing countries would also have to reduce their overall emissions by 2050 in order to achieve a 50 percent reduction. Saran said India would not agree to any long term global target unless financing and apportionment of emissions reductions were also agreed to in the same legal instrument. On IPR issues, he continued to push the position that clean technologies should be treated as global public goods. ¶8. (SBU) Saran played down expectations for Copenhagen stating the United States and Japan had made their emission targets conditional on major developing country actions which India would resist. He said he didn't think the world would come back from Copenhagen with significant additionality on either technology transfer or financing but that at all costs, India could not return with "any diminishment of the principles of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, or the Bali Action Plan" which must remain the template for all post-Copenhagen negotiations. -------------- INDIA'S DELEGATION -------------- ¶9. (U) India heads to Copenhagen with a twenty-seven member official delegation comprised of one minister, Jairam Ramesh, who is head of delegation, Special Envoy Shyam Saran, and various officials from the ministries of Power, New and Renewable Energy, Finance, Earth Sciences, and Environment and Forest (MoEF). The official delegation will also include former GOI officials Dr. Prodipto Ghosh and Ambassador C. Dasgupta as well as five members of parliament and four female students selected through an essay writing competition. ¶10. (U) Expected arrival times in Copenhagen for key delegation members are as follows: - MoEF Minister Jairam Ramesh, December 10; - Special Envoy Shyam Saran, December 7; - MoEF Secretary Vijai Sharma, December 4; - MoEF Joint Secretary R.R. Rashmi, December 4; - MoEF Director R.K. Sethi, December 4; - MoEF Advisor Subodh Sharma, December 7; - MoEF Additional Secretary J.M. Mauskar has already arrived. ROEMER