We think we know where Barack Obama was looking the end of L’Aquila G8+5+4 summit. But where was India looking throughout the summit? At the wrong end. Commentary on climate change negotiations can be as complicated as climate change science. But it is possible and very necessary to distill L’Aquila’s complex discussions into simple but vital political questions for India.

Is India a poor country that needs special dispensation in global negotiations? Or is it a potential economic power that should play to its strengths? Will India’s key negotiating stance be based on the West’s guilt? Or will it be based on India’s own interests? Should India have a third world approach? Or an emerging power approach?

India made the same points at L’Aquila as it has been making for some time. First, that the industrialised West is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon emissions. Second, and because of the first, India’s (and other industrialising countries’) climate change obligations must allow for the West’s past carbon sins. Therefore, third, India cannot agree to an overall emission cut protocol. Fourth, India’s total carbon emission may be high but because it has a large number of poor, its per capita emission is very low. So, fifth, India will look at the West’s per capita emission figure as the ceiling. It will not cross that, but it will not accept protocols that prevent its per capita emission from reaching that level.

There is logical elegance in this position and India’s negotiators, famously tough, must be making these points well. China and Brazil, among other major non-Western countries, are also making similar points. All of them are wrong. But let’s concentrate on India here.

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