The Upanishad says: “If there is no peace in the mind of a person, then there cannot be peace in the society, environment, regions and in the world. The air, water, earth and nature will get polluted. It is due to greed for wealth and prosperity that exists in the heart of a human being.

Due to great advancement of science and technology, people from the materialistic, developed countries aim to get prosperous very quickly and have misused and abused nature for their vested interest. The outcome is the green house effect which causes carbon emissions, leading to the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of glacier, de-forestation, and ultimately climate change.

United States of America contributes to 19 percent of total carbon emissions, while China and India contribute 21 percent and 4 percent respectively. India is ready to cut emissions through equitable burden-sharing and is willing to sign on to an ambitious global target for emission reduction. This must be accompanied by an equitable burden sharing paradigm which includes technology transfer, money contribution proportionately by developed countries, sacrifice of greed and above all, the mutual trust and strong resolution based on will power – all this put together can bring nature back to its natural condition. Otherwise the developing countries will bear the brunt of the fury of nature. India should insist that developed nations take the lead with substantial emission reductions, in line with IPCC recommendations. Any non-binding agreement committing all nations without distinction should be rejected.

In a significant intervention at a special session on climate change at the CHOGM summit held in Trinidad, Dr. Manmohan Singh also indicated that India is not in favour of the suggestion that was being pushed by developed countries and aired at the APEC conference recently, that if there was a failure to evolve a legally binding outcome, the Copenhagen conference could settle for a political outcome. Dr. Manmohan said India's view was that "we should not pre-empt the Copenhagen negotiating process”. Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen emphasised on ensuring a balance between the commitments of the developed countries and the obligations undertaken by the developing countries in climate change policies.

Referring to the four components of a climate change response - mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology – Dr Manmohan was empathic that the outcome in Copenhagen should be comprehensive in the sense that "it must cover all the interrelated components" and that "we should resist a partial outcome." There must be balance and equal priority to each of the four components.

Mitigation is important but cannot take precedence over adaptation which poses a great challenge for many countries represented here. Underlining that "science must not triumph equity," Dr. Manmohan said that “climate change action based on the perpetuation of poverty will simply not be sustainable." He noted that the mandate for multilateral negotiations was very clear and unambiguous. "We are to work towards an Agreed Outcome at Copenhagen which would represent enhanced implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention," he said.

Four of the world's major developing countries (India, China, Brazil and South Africa) agreed on a substantive draft declaration listing their "non-negotiable" demands ahead of next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen. This 10-page draft is being conceived as counter to the text that will be released by western countries next week as a possible basis for negotiations, when talks begin on December 7.The countries would never accept legally binding emission cuts on unsupported mitigation actions, international measurement, reporting and verification of unsupported mitigation actions, and the use of climate change as a trade barrier. The four countries have to take a proactive leadership role to handle this serious situation created by dominating developed countries. The draft is anchored in the basic premises of the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan, particularly emphasising the provision of finance and technology to support mitigation actions of developing nations.

The CHOGM summit at Trinidad is an important springboard towards Copenhagen, and is being seen as a platform to consolidate a stand on climate change negotiations. About half the Commonwealth members are island states, many threatened by rising sea levels, causing them to push for an agreement on carbon emissions at Copenhagen.

To be continued.............