The BASIC principles

Whether the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was a disaster or an accomplishment largely depended on one’s expectations.

Whether the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was a disaster or an accomplishment largely depended on one’s expectations. Anyone who listened to the statements of the negotiators from the emerging economies would have judged the chances of a global, legally-binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions as near zero. Anyone who had listened to those of the developed world would have presumed it was just a matter of some hard talk and a bit of give and take. As it happened, it was a quartet comprising India, China, Brazil and South Africa that proved to have the deciding vote. And it was with these so-called BASIC countries that the United States decided it had to come to terms with — leaving the European Union, Japan and the rest of the Group of 77 — on the sidelines.

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Copenhagen helped sort out who really matters in climate change diplomacy, something of great import given the cacophony of voices at the summit. Once one looks at the impromptu meeting that the US held with the BASIC countries it also becomes clear why a comprehensive agreement was not possible. The differences between the US and these countries were not rhetorical cracks: they were yawning gulfs. The US wanted to scrap the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, including existing Western commitments on carbon cuts, the idea that rich and emerging nations could not be blamed equally for global warming, and letting the issue of compensation dissipate. The emerging economies saw all these as bedrock principles. For them, Kyoto was the launching pad, not a temporary gantry crane that would fall aside. The stakes for all these countries — not merely environmental but also in terms of future economic growth — were so high that they proved difficult to divide the group.