New figures show India emissions a fourth of China

By Krittivas Mukherjee

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India contributes around five percent to global carbon dioxide emissions, a new government report showed on Tuesday, but is still only about a quarter of the emissions of China and the United States.

The finding is based on the 2007 World Development Indicators figures of the World Bank.

The report, which said the energy sector contributed 61 percent of total emissions in India, pegged India's per capita emissions at only one-twentieth of the United States and about one-tenth of western Europe and Japan.

A separate government report said India's forests are absorbing about 11.25 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) every year at 1994 levels -- or about 24 billion tonnes of CO2 -- a potential market worth $120 billion.

But it was not clear if India was quantifying climate benefits from forest cover to put in place a forest carbon trading mechanism or just demand funds to fight global warming under a U.N. scheme.

"India can do both -- they can use this as a bargaining chip to get money under the U.N. scheme as well as use this for trading as the most developed countries look to achieve their emission reduction targets through offsets," said K. Srinivas, former climate campaigner of Greenpeace India.

Forests soak up vast amounts of planet-warming CO2 and can act as a brake on climate change.

Under an emerging U.N. scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD, developing nations could potentially earn billions of dollars by setting aside and rehabilitating their forests.