Climate fund by six countries give fillip to Doha talks

It is make or break at the Doha conference as climate talks enter its last few days of negotiations. Interestingly, the conference is happening in a city that has sea on one side and a desert on the other - a division visible even among the 200-odd participating nations.

Updated on: Dec 6, 2012, 20:34:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Doha

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It is make or break at the Doha conference as climate talks enter its last few days of negotiations. Interestingly, the conference is happening in a city that has sea on one side and a desert on the other - a division visible even among the 200-odd participating nations.

Both developing and the developed world have kept their cards for the wire when tired negotiators would try to etch a face-saver deal to get time lease to finalise concrete climate proposals at Warsaw in Poland next year.

Doha round of talks now hinge on the issue of finance between 2013 and 2020 with G-77 plus China seeking up-scaping of funds to US $60 billion by 2016 and the developed world treading cautiously citing uncertain economic times back home.

“Nothing less than what the developed world has given in the last three years (2010-2012) would be acceptable,” said Xie Zhenhua, China’s climate head and vice chairman of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), setting the tone for what would be an intense round the clock negotiations.

Zhenhua, who heads the Basic group that also has India, Brazil and South Africa as members, welcomed the seven billion US dollars given by six European countries as climate finance in 2013 and hoped it would push other countries to announce similar commitments, an obligation under the Cancun agreement.

The United States, the biggest carbon emitter, has refused to pledge money before next year citing budgeting constrains and wants it to be deferred for discussion under Durban platform, a working group to frame a new ratifiable climate treaty by 2015. Behind the facade of US hides other big polluters such as Japan and Canada who have also not put any climate money on the table.

While finance holds the key, other elements such as second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol, increasing mitigation ability, copyright free technology transfer and loss and damage are dividing the two worlds --- rich and poor.

An Indian negotiator expected an agreement on Kyoto by tonight and loss and damage falling off the table. He hoped that equity found place in the founding principles of a new climate treaty but was not sure about its nature. "Equity is embedded in climate convention and cannot be ignored,” said a Brazilian negotiator.

From tonight, the discussion would move from officials to political leaders, a hope for striking a "balanced and equitable" deal as sought by Zhenhua.

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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