Biodiversity talks drag as rich nations pinch pennies

Rich nations have refused monetary commitment prior to conducting a survey.

Updated on: Oct 16, 2012, 01:29:27 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi/Hyderabad

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India is set to announce its share of funds to conserve the world’s biodiversity and make other countries commit to targets listed under the Convention for Biological Diversity through a “political statement” at the end of a conference of 193 nations in Hyderabad.

“We are working on the countries agreeing to an interim measure,” said MA Farooqui, additional secretary in the environment ministry, who is responsible for coordinating the talks. “The statement will be to achieve Aichi biodiversity targets and set a roadmap,” he added.

India is the host of the conference, and also its president for two years. It wants to send a strong statement, showcasing global willingness to protect global biodiversity under 20 Aichi targets.

The biggest sticking point in the talks has been funding from the developed world to the developing world for achieving targets to improve marine life, reduce biotic pressure on forests, share benefits of natural resources with locals, and sustainable use of natural resources. The richer nations are refusing to pay on the grounds that making any monetary commitment prior to conducting a baseline survey would not be prudent.

India, meanwhile, aims to achieve a balancing act by making countries agree to a roadmap. "The PM will provide an insight into what we are looking at," an official said.

PM Manmohan Singh will be inaugurating the high-level segment of the conference, attended by 90-odd environment ministers. He will also make announcements about India's contribution to global efforts at conserving biodiversity.

The first week of the COP witnessed the adoption of four documents — global plant conservation guidelines, taxonomy initiatives, bio-fuels and their impact on biodiversity, and incentive measures.

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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