The Basic (India, China, Brazil and South Africa) would oppose European Union's bid to internationalise its emission regulations for civil aviation sector and is set to seek additional emission reductions by rich countries for short-lived climate change causing gases. Chetan Chauhan reports.
The Basic (India, China, Brazil and South Africa) would oppose European Union's bid to internationalise its emission regulations for civil aviation sector and is set to seek additional emission reductions by rich countries for short-lived climate change causing gases.
HT Image
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The negotiators and experts from the four key countries in the global climate negotiations were also of the view that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) should discuss a "menu" of options rather than adopting the EU market mechanism for controlling emissions from aeroplanes.
India and China had always opposed EU mechanism but on Friday it was able to bring South Africa and Brazil on board for rejecting the European model. The negotiations from four countries discussed different models that could be suggested to ICAO to control aviation emissions, also called bunker fuels.
The 27 member EU in 2012 had suspended its decision to enforce airlines from non-European nations to pay carbon tax for landing in European airports after the ICAO agreed to discuss a mechanism to check rising global warming causing emissions from the sector.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
The Basic countries were also unanimous that they should push rich nations to seek additional emission cuts to compensate for potent global warming causing short-lived gases such as methane and black carbon.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
The Basic countries were also unanimous that they should push rich nations to seek additional emission cuts to compensate for potent global warming causing short-lived gases such as methane and black carbon.
{{/usCountry}}
This is primarily to counter the bid of the developing world to push the Basic group to accept some sort of emission cuts in post 2020 climate regime being discussed under the Durban platform. A vital scientific input for strategising on this aspect was provided by experts from Basic countries who discussed the impact of these short-lived gases on global warming and need to push for reducing their emissions.
There was also discussion on review of the global convention of climate change likely to happen by 2014 and the work of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which would be submitting its fifth assessment report by next year. Basic nations also agreed to join United States backed Clean Air Initiative.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The day long talks between the negotiators of an important group in international climate talks also deliberated on how to deepen the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) in the post-2020 climate agreement, which could have some sort of legal form.
"Once the issues regarding principles under the convention are sorted out other things like equity and CBDR would fall in place," said a negotiator, who was not willing to be quoted.
The ministers from the four Basic countries including environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan would further discuss the draft of agreements between negotiators on Saturday.
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.
