Basic wants rich nations to take lead to end climate deadlock

In the last ditch effort to save the present climate treaty Kyoto Protocol, the environment ministers of Basic group (India, China, South Africa and Brazil) on Tuesday asked the rich nations to "take the lead" in ending climate change deadlock by agreeing to second commitment period for the protocol.

Updated on: Nov 1, 2011, 20:24:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In the last ditch effort to save the present climate treaty Kyoto Protocol, the environment ministers of Basic group (India, China, South Africa and Brazil) on Tuesday asked the rich nations to "take the lead" in ending climate change deadlock by agreeing to second commitment period for the protocol.

The ministers, who held last meeting in Beijing before climate conference in Durban this December, tried to do a balancing act while including both Cancun decisions and Bali Roadmap for negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

It had become necessary as rich countries wanted South Africa to take the Cancun decisions forward while keeping the Bali Roadmap on the backburner. However, India and China had been insisting that the Bali Roadmap should remain the basic ground for negotiation on the two track approach. One is Kyoto Protocol and other is Long term action to fight climate change, also called LCA track.

South Africa, which has been keen to get an agreement in Durban, had agreed to a legally binding agreement for all, which did not find mention in Bali Roadmap but was part of Cancun decisions. This was an issue which India said had remained unresolved in Cancun in 2010 and wanted to deliberate further at Durban.

"The Kyoto Protocol was a cornerstone of the climate regime and its second commitment period was essential priority for the success of Durban conference," a joint statement of the ministers said.

Clearing stating what they want from the rich nations, the Basic ministers including Jayanthi Natarajan of India, said that rich countries should commit for substantive reduction in emissions, provide US $ 30 billion by 2015 and US $ 100 billion by 2020 for climate adaptation as promised in Copenhagen in 2009 and establish technology transfer mechanism after addressing the intellectual property rights (IPR) issue.

The concerns raised by the Basic countries are essential for developing countries such as India to have progressive economic growth while adopting low carbon approach, achieving poverty eradication targets and meeting its voluntary commitment under the United Nations climate convention.

The ministers also asked sought review of the adequacy of the global temperature goal as demand for restricting temperature rise range between 1.5 degree Celsius to 2 degree Celsius and also supported India’s proposal on equity, trade and IPR for the Durban conference.

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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