India wants Japan’s help to meet green challenge

India is increasingly turning towards Japan to address its climate challenge. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh praised Japan and China on Wednesday for providing global leadership in tackling climate change.

Japan’s new minister Yukio Hatoyama told the climate change summit at the United Nations that the world’s second largest economy would cut emissions by 25% by 2020, a far more ambitious goal than the previous Japanese government’s 8%.
“I think the Japanese prime minister was very bold and made a specific commitment,” Ramesh said.

On US president Barack Obama’s speech at the United Nations summit, he said it was “inspirational”, but fell short on action.

Ramesh held a bilateral meeting with Japanese officials in New York on the sidelines of the UN summit. “Japan is the leading technology player. We are building new power plants which will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions with Japan’s help,” said Ramesh. He said India’s first super-critical power plant was using Japanese Toshiba technology.

India and China will also be holding a workshop in Delhi on October 21 to find a common ground in tackling climate change. India may want to take a leaf out of China’s book on simple measures that can make a difference to the environment. “It’s not widely known, but China in each of the past two years has planted two-and-a-half times more trees than the entire world,” environmental activist Al Gore said on Tuesday.

“We may not take on binding targets internationally but whatever we do domestically must have some degree of credibility,” Ramesh said.

With Japan and the European Union all getting into the game, the US is also scrambling to woo India. The US-India Business Council (USIBC) is bringing its energy firms to India during October 26-30 to showcase its latest green technologies.

“India has made important domestic commitments to deploy low-carbon-technologies,” USIBC director Ted Jones said. “These commitments will be met only with private-sector participation, and that represents massive opportunities for US trade and investment.”