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DE RUEHNE #2441/01 3381125
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O 041125Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI
TO RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8808
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
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RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NEW DELHI 002441 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/PCI, OES/EGC, SCA/INSB, EEB/ESC/IEC and EEB/TPP/BTA 
STATE FOR SECC TODD STERN 
DEPT OF ENERGY FOR TCUTLER, CGILLESPIE, MGINSBERG 
TREASURY FOR DAS PIZER AND OFFICE OF SOUTH ASIA MNUGENT 
USDOC FOR ITA/MAC/OSA/LDROKER/ASTERN/KRUDD 
DEPT PASS TO USTR MDELANEY/CLILIENFELD/AADLER 
TREASURY PASS TO FRB SAN FRANCISCO/TERESA CURRAN 
USDA PASS FAS/OCRA/RADLER/BEAN/FERUS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: SENV ENRG ETRD TSPL TRGY KSCA KGHG IN
 
SUBJECT:  INDIAN DELEGATION HEADS TO COPENHAGEN WITH SOFT WORDS AND 
HARD POSITIONS 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT:  Armed with the Kyoto Protocol and 
the Bali Action Plan, India's delegation to COP-15 is planning a 
highly legalistic defense of the G-77 and the entitlement of 
developing countries to financial flows from the developed world. 
U.S. negotiators should expect more nit-picking than flexibility 
despite highly publicized accounts of a change in India's position 
based on a willingness to adopt voluntary, non-binding, emission 
intensity targets.  Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam 
Ramesh will play the good cop; willing to talk to anyone and 
possibly offering concessions on international MRV of unsupported 
mitigation actions, while  Special Envoy Shyam Saran will be the bad 
cop, defending the Kyoto Protocol and the G-77.  While Prime 
Minister Singh is no doubt sincere in his desire for India to be 
seen as a dealmaker rather than a deal-breaker, the Indian 
delegation will leave Copenhagen seeing no deal as preferable to any 
agreement that might limit the growth of its emissions.  END SUMMARY 
AND COMMENT. 
 
------------------------ 
GOOD COP:  JAIRAM RAMESH 
------------------------ 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In a December 3 televised speech to the lower house of the 
Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha), Minister of Environment and Forests 
Jairam Ramesh claimed that India's per capita emissions argument is 
an accident of history saying "our biggest failure has been our 
inability to control our population and it is no great credit that 
we have over a billion people."  Ramesh said the long-standing 
Indian position that it will never exceed the emissions of the 
developing world on a per capita basis was merely a semantic 
argument and that India owes something more to itself and its 
people.  He said India is going to Copenhagen with a positive frame 
of mind and is prepared to be flexible to achieve a comprehensive 
and equitable agreement. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Ramesh responded to earlier comments by parliamentarians 
that he was an "American stooge" by stating that simply because 
India is a part of the G-77 does not mean it should not talk to the 
United States.  He said the mere act of talking does not mean India 
has sold itself out.  He reminded his audience of India's 
environmental legacy noting that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was 
the only head of state, apart from the host nation's, to attend the 
Stockholm conference in 1972 and that "the world will laugh at us 
today if we do not show the same kind of leadership for the sake of 
our own people." 
 
¶4.  (U) Ramesh outlined various voluntary, non-binding, national 
measures India should take to phase in a low carbon economy which 
would effectively reduce India's emission intensity by 20 to 25 
percent by 2020 including: 
- legislating mandatory fuel efficiency standards by December 2011; 
- introducing a mandatory green building code; 
- amending the Energy Conservation Act to incorporate trading in 
energy efficiency certificates; 
- increasing forest cover; and 
- ensuring fifty percent of all new coal-based power plants are 
built with clean coal technologies. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) However, Ramesh also stated he separates domestic 
responsibility from international obligation and that when he uses 
the word flexibility, he does not mean sellout.  In a telling lesson 
for a young parliamentarian who called India's reliance on the 
historical emissions argument "moronic," Ramesh cautioned him saying 
he should learn to go with the grain of conventional thinking 
because thinking out of the box will not get you anywhere in India. 
He said that although India is prepared to do more if there is an 
equitable agreement in Copenhagen, it will not accept any legally 
binding emission targets or an acknowledgement of any peak year for 
its emissions.  He also stated that while all internationally 
supported mitigation actions will be subject to international 
 
NEW DELHI 00002441  002 OF 002 
 
 
scrutiny, unsupported domestic actions cannot be subject to the same 
level of scrutiny - leaving open the door for some form of 
international verification of unsupported domestic actions. 
 
--------------------- 
BAD COP:  SHYAM SARAN 
--------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) In a November 30 speech at a symposium in New Delhi, the 
Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Climate Change, Shyam Saran, told 
an international audience that Copenhagen was more a highly 
politicized economic negotiation than a climate conference and India 
had to avoid the "very real risk" to its economic development. 
Saran stated India would not give up on a legally binding agreement 
and would "insist on the continuing validity of the Kyoto Protocol" 
for the benefit of developing countries.  On climate finance, he 
repeated the long-held GOI position that financial flows for both 
mitigation and adaptation cannot be accomplished under a foreign aid 
donor-recipient mindset, but rather must be given as an entitlement 
to developing countries which must control how the money is spent. 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In regard to a long-term global emissions target, Saran 
stated India could not support a long-term goal of reducing global 
emissions by 50 percent by 2050 because even if the developed world 
reduced its emissions by 80 percent, developing countries would also 
have to reduce their overall emissions by 2050 in order to achieve a 
50 percent reduction.  Saran said India would not agree to any long 
term global target unless financing and apportionment of emissions 
reductions were also agreed to in the same legal instrument.  On IPR 
issues, he continued to push the position that clean technologies 
should be treated as global public goods. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Saran played down expectations for Copenhagen stating the 
United States and Japan had made their emission targets conditional 
on major developing country actions which India would resist.  He 
said he didn't think the world would come back from Copenhagen with 
significant additionality on either technology transfer or financing 
but that at all costs, India could not return with "any diminishment 
of the principles of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, or the Bali 
Action Plan" which must remain the template for all post-Copenhagen 
negotiations. 
 
------------------ 
INDIA'S DELEGATION 
------------------ 
 
¶9.  (U) India heads to Copenhagen with a twenty-seven member 
official delegation comprised of one minister, Jairam Ramesh, who is 
head of delegation, Special Envoy Shyam Saran, and various officials 
from the ministries of Power, New and Renewable Energy, Finance, 
Earth Sciences, and Environment and Forest (MoEF).  The official 
delegation will also include former GOI officials Dr. Prodipto Ghosh 
and Ambassador C. Dasgupta as well as five members of parliament and 
four female students selected through an essay writing competition. 
 
 
¶10.  (U) Expected arrival times in Copenhagen for key delegation 
members are as follows: 
- MoEF Minister Jairam Ramesh, December 10; 
- Special Envoy Shyam Saran, December 7; 
- MoEF Secretary Vijai Sharma, December 4; 
- MoEF Joint Secretary R.R. Rashmi, December 4; 
- MoEF Director R.K. Sethi, December 4; 
- MoEF Advisor Subodh Sharma, December 7; 
- MoEF Additional Secretary J.M. Mauskar has already arrived. 
 
ROEMER