‘No climate talks in future if Cancun fails’

India today said the developing countries would find it difficult to continue climate negotiations if second commitment period for Kyoto Protocol is not ratified at the next climate summit in Mexico starting this month. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 10, 2010, 23:21:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India on Wednesday said the developing countries would find it difficult to continue climate negotiations if second commitment period for Kyoto Protocol is not ratified at the next climate summit in Mexico starting this month. India’s stand emanates from deliberations at a recent meeting of Group of 77 (G-77) countries plus China in Mexico.

The protocol of which India and China are the biggest beneficiaries expires in 2012. Either a new regime has to be in place before end of 2011 or the United Nations has to agree on extension of the protocol.

Either of the options appears difficult as the United States and Australia are opposed to differentiated responsibility as enshrined in the protocol.

“If there is no extension of Kyoto Protocol at Cancun (Mexico) developing countries would find it difficult to continue with the negotiations,” Ramesh said after a two-day ministerial dialogue on climate change technologies in Delhi, where the ministers failed to reach any consensus.

As a result, the chair summary was released instead of a joint statement as done in 2009 after a similar meeting. The 35 nations agreed that giving poorer countries access to technology that can reduce emissions should form part of any “comprehensive and balanced” package finalised in Cancun. The technology transfer mechanism should address both adaptation and mitigation, the summary said.

There was no mention of contentious issue of intellectual property rights (IPR), on which Ramesh said there were divergent views. Most developed countries wants to give technology but want to charge for IPR, strongly opposed by the developing world.

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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