Climate change is not India's problem

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-11-india-says-not-a-disaster-if-copenhagen-climate-talks-fail/

NEW DELHI - India’s environment minister said the country will not agree to binding emission targets and that it would not be a disaster if global climate change talks in December fail.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said India could not compromise on its domestic commitments by agreeing to binding emissions cuts, which it has rejected on the grounds that they hamper economic growth.

“It is possible for us to identify quantifiable commitments that India voluntarily and unilaterally takes as part of its domestic political agenda,” Ramesh said. “The problem arises when you want to transplant these domestic commitments to binding international targets and I think that distance has to be bridged.”

But “if we don’t bridge it at Copenhagen now let’s not believe that the world will come to a halt,” Ramesh told a gathering of business leaders in the capital New Delhi.

Developing countries such as India and China say rich countries ought to shoulder the main responsibility for mitigating global warming as they have historically emitted most of the greenhouse gases at the root of the problem.

Ramesh’s remarks came a day after British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told reporters in Copenhagen that the deal was “hanging in the balance.”

The December 7-18 talks in Copenhagen, under the 192-nation U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that drive perilous global warming.

when the coasts are re-engineered by nature and mass agriculture becomes virtually impossible, these guys better go live on the moon. Cause they'll be swinging from the lamp posts if they're still down here.