India, which is to play a key role in Copenhagen, has announced it would reduce its carbon emissions intensity by 20-25 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020, but that the reduction would be made voluntarily rather than as part of any legally binding international agreement to combat global warming.

The Centre for Science and Environment strongly believes the world needs an effective agreement in Copenhagen.

CSE director Sunita Narain said: "One which will spell out the big cuts by developed world and put money and technology on the table to developing countries so that we can make the transition. This has to be our non-negotiable for Copenhagen."

 Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told the Indian parliament that the reduction would be achieved by a series of measures. These include mandating fuel efficiency standards for all vehicles by December 2011, legislating an energy-efficient building code and ensuring that half of all new coal-fired power generation uses clean coal technology.

Such action would be part of a gradual transition to a low-carbon economy. Change, he said, was in India’s "own self-interest", given its vulnerability to global warming.

"We are not doing the world a favour," he said.

"Forget Copenhagen. Forget the US. Our future as a society depends on how we respond to the climate change challenge."

The Environment Minister reaffirmed that New Delhi would not agree to any legally binding emissions targets, or a peak year for its emissions, calling them "non-negotiable".

But he said India could "modulate" its rejection of international scrutiny of its domestic mitigation efforts not supported by international finance or technology.

From 1990 until 2005, India’s emissions intensity fell by 17.5 per cent, and Greenpeace said the new targets would deviate notably from that trajectory.

"It’s a positive step towards quantification of India’s action on climate change," said Ankur Ganguly, a Greenpeace spokesman. "These targets put pressure squarely back on the industrialised countries."

However, Malini Mehra, founder of the Centre for Social Markets, said India needed to change even faster, though she said that Ramesh’s

speech was a turning point in the domestic debate. "He has warmed parliament up to the fact that India is going to have to start undertaking serious discussion about emissions cuts," she said.

Ramesh, appointed environment minister after May’s Parliamentary elections, has been fighting to shift both Indian public attitudes to climate change, and New Delhi’s international negotiating position on a deal to combat global warming.

New Delhi has long sought to deflect international pressure climate change by focusing on its low per capita emissions.

However, Ramesh said India could not keep looking at the issue only through that prism, which he called "an accident of history" reflecting India’s poor record at reducing its birth rate.

"It is not a credit for us," he told parliament.

"Our single biggest failure in the last 60 years is our inability to control our population growth rate."

India should definitely work to make its economy less carbon-intensive. The carbon intensity target will help the country stay on course. The announcement for fuel economy standards for vehicles is also important and welcome. It will help build the framework for the low carbon transition in the country: these are the views expressed by climate researchers of CSE in response to the Indian environment minister’s statement in Parliament on December 3.

In fact, what is clear from the targets is that India is on a low carbon intensity pathway already – the carbon intensity of its economy during the period 1990-2005 has reduced by 17 per cent – roughly one per cent annually and now will further reduce by 1.2-1.5 per cent annually till 2020.

This is important and critical for India’s domestic purposes and all efforts have to be made to improve the carbon intensity further. In this respect, the domestic target will be important and must be supported.

The question, however, as the country moves towards negotiations in Copenhagen is how the Indian government’s domestic and voluntary target will be used by the rich nations to change the very terms and foundation of the global climate agreement.

CSE researchers point out that in Copenhagen, Annex 1 countries (industrialized countries, which have to take legally binding emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol) would like to change this. In the suggested framework, rich countries will take voluntary commitments, based on domestic action.

The US proposal (as laid out in the Australian paper) is to build the new agreement based on each country’s domestic pledge – this would mean that the current framework, based on globally agreed legally binding targets, would be dismantled, says Narain.

"This will be disastrous for the world’s climate change efforts to cut emissions. It will be disastrous for us, as global emissions will rise and put millions of Indians at risk". 

The key issue the Indian government will have to ensure at Copenhagen is to make sure that the developing country position to accept international review and verification only for the actions, which have received funds or technology transfer must not be compromised.

This stance has been non-negotiable for developing countries. Any shift in this position will have major implications.

"The fact is that if international review or verification is accepted, then a country’s domestic and voluntary target becomes an international commitment," explains Narain.

"This would then mean the target announced by the Indian government’s minister in the Parliament will be a backhand way to get international commitments from India." 

The key issue at Copenhagen, says CSE, is how the US will be pressured to meet drastic emission reduction targets, which will keep the world on course to meet the 2pc target.