2015: Possible deadline for new climate deal

Countries are moving towards 2015 deadline for a new climate treaty after the ministers failed to break the impasse over the nature of new climate treaty. Chetan Chauhan reports. 'Brazil, India, China doing more than rich nations'

Updated on: Dec 6, 2011, 23:23:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Durban

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Countries are moving towards 2015 deadline for a new climate treaty after the ministers failed to break the impasse over the nature of new climate treaty.

"A process needs to be established for which 2013-2015 review could provide valuable inputs," South African president Jacob Zuma said at the start of high level segment of Durban climate conference. He asked the countries to decide the specific time-frame to conclude the work on pending issues at Durban.

The formulation being talked at Durban is to discuss the new climate treaty after review of scientific data on present and future impact of climate change is done by United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). The panel's fifth assessment reports are expected in 2013 and 2014.

UN-Secretary-General-Ban-Ki-moon-L-South-African-President-Jacob-Zuma-C-and-South-African-foreign-minister-Maite-Nkoana-Mashabane-attend-the-opening-of-the-ministerial-stage-of-a-two-week-194-nation-conference-on-climate-change-in-Durban-AP-Photo-Schalk-van-Zuydam

"We should lay foundation of climate arrangement for long term at Durban," said United States' chief climate negotiator Todd Stern, while backing the European Union's proposal for setting a road map to have a climate agreement by 2015.

China and India also agree on the ground that there can be review of performance of various groups of countries when IPCC's reports and assessment of developed country actions are available.

"We should not confuse the matter of review with the questioning of legally binding agreement," Indian environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan said.

While most nations agree for 2015 deadline, there has been no consensus on the nature of Green Climate Fund, adaptation committee for the least developed nations, mechanism for developing clean technologies and equity issues.

The move is aimed to break the logjam at Durban and push the goalpost to 2015 so that rich nations may be in a position to meet their financial commitment of US$ 100 billion for climate mitigation and adaptation. As of now, Europe, the major climate funder, is suffering its worst economic crises. It is for the second time the goalpost on climate deal has been shifted.

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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