INDIA: RESISTS US PRESSURE ON CARBON EMISSION

INDIA REFUSES TO BEND TO OBAMA
PRESSURE ON CARBON EMISSION CAPS

New Delhi - (Bloomberg) - India won’t bend to demands from the Obama administration or threats from the U.S. Congress to adopt legally binding caps on its carbon emissions, the country’s environment minister told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday. “There is simply no case for the pressure” the U.S. is exerting, considering India produces among the lowest per capita emissions in the world, Minister Jairam Ramesh told Clinton during an unexpected discussion of climate negotiations during an event intended to showcase U.S.-Indian cooperation on clean energy at a “green” office building outside New Delhi.

“As if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” Ramesh said, referring to a climate-change bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 26 that imposes tariffs on exports from countries that refuse to adopt greenhouse gas controls by 2020. The U.S. and European countries must offer financial incentives and equitable reductions in carbon emissions to ensure any deal won’t hinder growth, food security and poverty alleviation in developing nations such as India, China and Brazil, Ramesh said. “We look upon you suspiciously because you have not fulfilled” the commitments made by developing countries in earlier climate treaties, Ramesh told Clinton, adding there’s a “credibility crisis” that industrialized nations will have to overcome in their demands of poor nations. India has a comprehensive national action plan on climate change, Ramesh said.

In December, negotiators will meet in Copenhagen to broker a new treaty to fight global warming by limiting the release of gases from burning fossil fuels and clearing forests. “Both of us reiterated our commitment to arriving at an agreement at Copenhagen that takes note of the imperative of doing something quickly but also takes note of the special concerns of countries like India for continuing with their path of economic growth with the objective of poverty eradication,” Ramesh told reporters.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Material desire is just like a blazing fire. If a fire is continually supplied with drops of fat, the fire will increase more and more and never be extinguished. Therefore the policy of trying to satisfy material desires by catering to one's material demands will never be successful. In modern civilization, everyone is engaged in economic development, which is another way of constantly dropping fat into the material fire. The Western countries have reached the summit of material civilization, but people are still dissatisfied. Real satisfaction is Krishna consciousness. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (5.29), where Krishna says:

bhoktāram yajña-tapasām
sarva-loka-maheśvaram
suhrdaḿ sarva-bhūtānām
jñātvā mām śāntim rcchati

"The sages, knowing Me as the ultimate purpose of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs of material miseries."
One must therefore take to Krishna consciousness and advance in Krishna consciousness by properly following the regulative principles. Then one can attain an eternal, blissful life in peace and knowledge.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 9 - Chapter 6 - Verse 48"