Basic countries to work together for Durban platform

Ministers to meet in Delhi in mid-February to work out strategy. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 18, 2012, 20:53:16 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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To have a united footing before next round of climate talks in Qatar, the Basic group – India, China, South Africa and Brazil --- has decided to discuss their strategy before individual countries make their submissions for the Durban platform before end of this February.

The climate talks of 195 nations in Durban, South Africa, had decided to initiate Durban Platform to agree on a new climate treaty by 2015 to be ratified by individual nations by 2020. Each country is required to make submissions of what it wants in Durban Platform by February 28.

As the new climate treaty aims to have binding emission cuts for emerging economies such as India and China, there were differences among the Basic countries on the issue. While China and India had opposed mandatory emission cuts, Brazil and South Africa appeared agreeable to the idea.

“We have not agreed for any emission cuts,” environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan had told the Parliament in December.

Since the Durban climate meeting in December, there has been a realization that agreeing to emission cuts would mean changing the basic principle of common but differentiated principle (CBDR) enshrined in the UN climate convention.

Russia has already proposed an amendment in the convention to scrap the distinction between the rich and the developing world for taking climate mitigation actions, a CBDR proviso. Developed countries are required to reduce emission cuts whereas the developing world has to take voluntary actions.

Another proposal of concern for Basic group is of Mexico and Papua New Guinea to take decisions under the UN convention on basis of majority vote rather than by consensus of all countries. If agreed, it would become easier for rich nations to push their agenda as island nations and least developed nations have been backing them.

Amid these concerns, environment ministers of the Basic countries would be meeting in Delhi on February 14 to firm up a strategy to counter the move of European Union and United States to push for mandatory emission cuts and seek finance from them to fight climate change.

India in Durban tried to recover the lost ground in the last two climate conferences but failed to place equity in the centre-stage of climate talks. The principle of equity was diluted by India at Cancun conference when it agreed to the concept of equitable access to sustainable development in place of equitable access to atmospheric space. The latter would have meant no climate mitigation action for India while increasing burden of emission reduction on the rich countries.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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