The United States and China has recently established a significant deal to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This deal represents as an historic milestone in the global fight against climate change, experts say. However, India has strongly criticized this agreement. According to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a research and advocacy NGO based in Delhi, the agreement represents a “self-serving and business-as-usual” deal. Researchers have complained that the plan was neither historic nor ambitious. In addition to this, the NGO has stressed that the US and China had set targets that would cause a catastrophic 4C rise in global temperature, much higher than the 2C target set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On one hand, Prakash Javadekar, the minister for environment, forests and climate change, has expressed some concerns about the deal. On the other hand, the minister has welcomed it as a significant beginning in order to achieve concrete results addressing climate change. In this context, the EU has recently agreed a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. The US, however, has agreed to 26 to 28% reduction below 2005 levels by 2025. According to the CSE, that’s only 15-17% below 1990 levels, less than half of European commitment. In this way, the US needs to cut at least 50-60% below 1990 levels in order to meet the IPCC-set target, experts suggest. In this framework, the UK’s parliamentary under-secretary of state for energy and climate change, Baroness Verma has highlighted the importance for India to reinforce its commitments, playing a bigger role on climate change issues. The US-China deal doesn’t force India to take action; however, this agreement will induce the government to reassess its choices and policies. For these reasons, the bilateral agreement between China and the US represents an important signal that the country needs to shift towards stronger commitments on climate change. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Wednesday, 19 November 2014 (Source: The Guardian)