India and Germany urged all nations to actively and constructively participate in negotiations for a comprehensive post-2012 climate protection treaty in a joint statement issued in New Delhi Tuesday, according to dpa. The Kyoto protocol that required developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions expires in 2012 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference is scheduled to be held in Indonesia in December to carry on negotiations on a new comprehensive agreement. "India and Germany recognise the urgent need to find effective and practical solutions to address concerns regarding climate change and its implications for humankind," the joint statement issued after a meeting between visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. "These would include mitigation and adaptation strategies in a manner that supports further economic and social development in particular of developing countries," the statement said. It said long-term convergence of per capita emission rates was one of the important principles that should underpin the UNFCCC negotiations. India has been among the newly industrializing nations that argue that the developed countries which have produced a bulk of the greenhouse gases in the past should bear a larger burden in preventing climate change. Speaking at a business meeting earlier in the day, Merkel said it was important that the new treaty fairly addressed the issue of the burden of developing and developed nations in reducing emissions. She said in the long term just development in the world would be possible only when each person on the planet was allowed to produce the same amount of emissions. "But we must find a reasonable path to come to this result," she said.
