India, US likely to converge on sticking points at Paris summit
The ice between the United States and India broke with the two biggest emitters on Thursday indicating that there was “convergence” on many issues, paving a way for final agreement in Paris.
The ice between the United States and India broke with the two biggest emitters on Thursday indicating that there was “convergence” on many issues, paving a way for final agreement in Paris.
US secretary of state John Kerry (R) walks with White House senior adviser Brian Deese (L) and US special envoy for climate change Todd Stern to attend a meeting during the COP21, United Nations conference on climate change in Le Bourget, north of Paris. (AP Photo)
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Environment minister Prakash Javadekar and US secretary for state John Kerry met for the second time in two days and both termed the meeting “very constructive” unlike the first one where Javadekar said there was “no compromise”.
Stating the two countries were moving towards a fruitful Paris deal, Javadekar said they “were arriving at convergence and the work was in progress” after an hour-long meeting with Kerry. Similar enthusiasm was also echoed by Kerry.
Sources said there was some “forward” movement on transparency and differentiation in the Paris agreement, the two issues holding back talks.
India has agreed to move from annex-1 (44 countries) and non-annex (remaining) countries differentiation in UN convention agreed in 1992 to the concept of the developed and developing country as it will not have any adverse implications.
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The US wanted the nuanced change in differentiation as it could bring countries like South Korea, Singapore and Saudi Arabia in the category of developed world, making them liable to pay for fighting climate change.
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The US wanted the nuanced change in differentiation as it could bring countries like South Korea, Singapore and Saudi Arabia in the category of developed world, making them liable to pay for fighting climate change.
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On the accountability mechanism, there was some headway as the US was inclined to maintain differentiation between the developed and the developing world in a universal review mechanism.
US did not reject the developing countries’ demand of review in all elements of the Paris agreement. The negotiators from the two countries were working on the language of the Paris agreement that could be acceptable to both the countries, sources said. Javadekar also said the two countries agreed to work on overall nature of the Paris agreement — whether fully binding or not.
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India had earlier maintained that it can live with a non-binding agreement provided it was implemented through nationally determined rules. “We will bring out solutions and our negotiating teams are working on the (agreement) language,” the minister said, hoping for a “positive” outcome after he raised issues of concern on the draft.
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.
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