Justin Guay, Sierra Club - India Program Officer
In a move that should help put to rest any doubts that India and China are serious about addressing climate change the two countries announced recently that they will monitor their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by reporting every two years to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
India will be investing in satellite monitoring aimed at improving it’s domestic capabilities in the wake of the Himalayan glacier controversy while China announced it will take this critical step at the National People’s Congress.
This groundbreaking step in international climate relations however has largely been replaced with the story of the failure of the UNFCCC’s meeting in Mexico to reach a legally binding deal. Stories such as these distract us from the real progress made in implementing domestic policies, investing in renewable energy and now investing in the ability to measure the impacts of these steps in two of the countries that will determine the planet’s fate.
Whether the CPH accord is a vital step towards an internationally binding framework or the latest in a long list of failures misses the point entirely. The most important countries are moving, and they are doing so in the face of the failure of the United States and other industrialized nations to act. We can ill afford to further justify a lack of action based upon the misinformed fear that India, China and others are not serious about the clean energy economy. Indeed they are already leaving us behind.
Article posted courtersy of the Sierra Club India.
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