India and China Sign Agreement to Cooperate on Climate Change

At a meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday senior officials from India and China signed a five-year agreement to cooperate in the fight against climate change.

The agreement between the two countries who, the Associated Press notes, are both major polluters, comes less than two months before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is due to be held in the Danish capital Copenhagen. At the UN convention the main topic of discussion will be a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, with an agreement to effectively extend the Protocol beyond 2012, the year in which its first phase is due to expire, a possibility. As the India Times reports the Kyoto Protocol, which China and India believe is an appropriate means of tackling climate change, commits 37 of the world's richest nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent below the levels seen in 1990, during, or by, the period 2008-2012. Significantly the U.S. has refused to sign the Protocol, primarily because within the Protocol's terms developing countries such as China and India are not obligated to cut their emissions. Furthermore, according to the Associated Press, developing countries are looking to the developed world to assist them financially in the fight against climate change, arguing that it is the developed world which has largely created the phenomenon of climate change over the course of the last few decades. The India Times says that the agreement between the two Asian countries has come about despite a territorial dispute which involves the Northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. China claims it acquired the territory following a war between the two countries in 1962, a claim India has rejected. A visit to the state by the Dalai Lama, planned for next month, has added to the tension. However there was apparently no obvious tension in New Delhi as Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, on behalf of India, and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Vice-Chairman Xie Zhenhua, on behalf of China, signed the five-year deal which will see them presenting a united front on the issue of climate change in Copenhagen in December. Mr Raimash issued a statement regarding the signing of the agreement in which, reports the Business Standard , he said:

The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) is first of its kind for both China and India and the cooperation had fructified within the short span of less than a month. There is virtually no difference between Indian and Chinese negotiating positions on international climate treaties

For China, supposedly the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, India is reportedly the fourth largest, Xie Zhenhua noted:

The implementation of the MoA will usher in a new scenario and take cooperation on climate change between the two countries to a new high. The agreement will also keep the Indian side informed on China’s policies on climate change and at the same time help share best practices to improve the approach to deal with the issues involved

Joint research and development programs in respect of alternative, renewable energy sources form another part of the Sino-Indian agreement. China is not the only country that India has sought to align itself with in the fight against both climate change and the stance taken on the issue by the developed world. During the course of this week India has said it will stand with Pakistan and six other countries from South Asia come the Copenhagen convention. In addition it has signed an agreement with Japan which is similar to the one it has now signed with China. The India Times says that the government in New Delhi has discussed too how it might cooperate with South Korea, Brazil and the U.S. on climate change.