DUBAI: Clubbing India with emitters like China and the US is completely unacceptable as its per capita emissions are “very low”, a senior official of the European Parliament said on Saturday.
At the UN climate talks here, Peter Liese, a German politician and a member of the European Parliament, emphasised: “Indian people should be able to own a car when people in Germany own two cars.” There have been concerted attempts to club India with major emitters like the US at climate negotiations despite its low per capita emissions.
“It is very important to acknowledge for everybody that per capita emissions of the UAE, China and the US… they are very different from India. “Many people in Europe put China and India in the same basket and sometimes even with the Gulf states which is completely unacceptable. India has very low per capita emissions compared to these countries,” he said.
India’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions rose by around five per cent last year to reach 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide but these were still less than half of the global average, according to a report released by a global team of scientists earlier this week.
The scientists said the United States topped the per capita emissions chart with every individual in the country emitting 14.9 tonnes of CO2, followed by Russia (11.4), Japan (8.5), China (8), and the European Union (6.2). The global average stood at 4.7 tonnes.
On the controversial Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a border tax the EU plans to impose on energy-intensive goods from developing countries like India, Liese said meeting the bloc’s climate promises is “just not possible” without it. The EU has pledged to cut emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, compared with the 1990 levels. “Despite low per capita emissions, India’s cement, iron and steel are as carbon-intensive as produced elsewhere in the world. So we need to find a good balance here,” he said.
The EU’s plan to impose a carbon tax on goods imported from developing countries like India and China has sparked a debate at the international climate conference in Dubai, with poorer countries firmly arguing that this tax will harm livelihoods and economic growth.