UN gives in to India demand on climate change goals

Following its sustained campaign, India has been able to convince the UN World Tourism Organisation...

Following its sustained campaign, India has been able to convince the UN World Tourism Organisation to adopt a resolution that ensures that no obstacles to the growth of tourism in developing countries would be created in the guise of including climate change objectives.

Recognising the urgent need for the tourism sector to “adapt to climate change conditions” and to “mitigate greenhouse emissions”, the resolution adopted at the WTO General Assembly in Cartegena de Indias, Colombia, on Friday takes note of the Indian stand that this should be done in line with the common but differentiated responsibilities included in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

This WTO resolution will be placed before the Climate Change meeting to be held in Bali next month as inputs from the tourism industry.

Friday’s resolution takes care of all the major concerns of India and other developing countries over the issue of including climate change objectives for the tourism industry.

India had objected to some proposals in the Davos Declaration of October which called for the member states to take action towards mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions derived from transport and accommodation efforts, and said it was important to ensure that such measures did not become non-tariff barriers on the free flow of tourism around the world.

India had also told the WTO that the right forum to discuss all climate change related issues was the UNFCC.

Friday’s resolution makes express provisions for these.

The General Assembly “emphasises that the recommendations emanating from these fora (Davos Declaration and London Ministerial Meet) should not discriminate against developing countries by creating obstacles to the economic development and in particular of those developing countries located at long distance from tourists generating markets,” it says.

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The resolution also recognises the need to transfer new technologies to the developing countries, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change, especially through the clean development mechanism and to make efforts to secure financial resources to assist these countries.