new delhi the g20 finance ministers meet has become the new forum for cornering india and other developing countries into taking climate change commitments an overview paper distributed by the g20 secretariat has ignored indias submissions and demanded that the latter impose carbon taxation and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by deviating significantly from business as usual scenario the document while putting little onus on industrialised nations to provide substantial funding to developing and poor countries has recommended steps that would break the existing un framework convention on climate change unfccc and hurt indias economic growth the government has contended the overview paper has been provided by the g20 secretariat as a base for a report that the member countries finance ministers are expected to agree to before the crucial final round of negotiations under the unfccc in december finance minister pranab mukherjee is attending the g20 meet at london the g20 climate change finance report originates out of the controversial major economies forum statement that india signed on to recently in italy signing the statement india had significantly deviated from its nonnegotiable positions on climate change negotiations later at the un meet held in august in bonn india had to fight hard to keep the italy declaration from influencing the formal negotiations the g20 has yet again opened a front against developing countries outside the un process with the industrialised countries hoping to achieve here what they have been unable to so far in the more democratic unfccc but unlike the case at italy the indian government has strongly opposed provisions in the g20 document that stand contrary to its positions the g20 secretariat had earlier sent three base documents to the member countries that were prepared without any consultation with indian and most other developing world officials the base documents contained several proposals and recommendations that india has for years successfully opposed at the un climate negotiations even though india was given merely a week to reply it strongly opposed the base documents and along with brazil south africa and china presented a more developing country view to be included in the g20 report despite strong opposition from key developing countries including india the g20 secretariat has sent this overview which more or less mimics the base papers we had rejected as not representative of the views and concerns of all g20 member countries a senior indian official told toi the government has yet again countered the latest overview document which demands that developing countries too should take strong mitigation action impose carbon taxes reduce subsidies and look primarily at only marketdriven solutions to climate change indian officials have also noted how the g20 document does not demand any firm commitments from the industrialised nations to provide funds to compensate for the excess carbon budget they occupy