India has made clear that it would oppose the move by the developed countries to impose penalties in global trade on developing countries that do not agree to make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The Union minister of state for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday told mediapersons that India very much appreciated US President Barack Obama’s recent appeal to the Senate to reject the Bill passed by the House of Representatives for imposing trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on greenhouse gas emissions. 

Ramesh, who is a former Union minister of state for commerce and industry, said that such an initiative would further create trade barriers and would be detrimental to the interests of the developing world. 

He said : “we would also like free trade in green goods and free flow of green technology. We expect the world community to address the intellectual property regime relating to green technology so that it becomes affordable to the developing countries.”

Regarding clean development mechanism (CDM), he said that India has benefited in the process and that it should be further expanded to cover more areas. He however criticized trade in climate derivatives and said “such a mechanism would invite another crash in the global market after the recent meltdown.”

India has also decided to proposed introduction of re-forestation for benefits under the agenda of the UNFCCC CoP-15 scheduled in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18, this year.

Rajesh reiterated