Climate summit: Developing nations raise questions over transparency

The Paris climate conference saw its first major firework on Monday night with the developing countries raising the question of “transparency” and “openness” in the process adopted for final agreement.

Updated on: Dec 8, 2015, 07:50:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Paris

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The Paris climate conference saw its first major firework on Monday night with the developing countries raising the question of “transparency” and “openness” in the process adopted for final agreement.

A woman takes a picture of a globe at the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. (AP Photo)

The developing countries found the work of facilitators appointed by conference president Laurent Fabius as too “conceptual” and sought a text based negotiations by Tuesday if the agreement has to be wrapped up by Friday, the official last day of the conference.

Lot of unhappiness was expressed on the work of facilitators on differentiation, which the rich nations want to dilute, saying that they failed to provide clarity on issues raised by different countries.

Gurdial Singh Nijar of Malaysia, speaking on behalf of Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) having India and China as members, said that instead of having bilateral on differentiation there should be a discussion on wider group of ministers to “strike balance”.

This happened at the facilitators on differentiation failed to present the view point of the developing countries and said that the developed countries had assured that there would not be any “backsliding” on their commitments.

“Talking conceptually was good but specifics should be provided. We should have some level of text based negotiations and should done some reality check,” Nijar said in a nuanced statement hinting disagreement with the way 14 facilitators appointed by Fabius were working.

His views were also echoed by many other developing countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Cuba and Venezuela.

“We know this process is extremely tricky and gets jittery at the end…worried to find out by when we will start working on the text without speeches and conceptual debates and will be ready to look at each other face to face and agree,” was the intervention of Venezuelan climate negotiator Claudia Salemo, who has the history of

taking on rich nations in past climate conferences.

Fabius was, however, backed by rich nations led by European Union, Marshall Islands and the group of seven countries called Independent Association of Latin America (AILAC) and the Caribbean which wanted the facilitators to continue with their work without any change.

Fabius assured to look into the suggestions and concerns raised.

Forward movement

The first day of discussion by facilitators showed some forward movement on climate finance with convergence appearing on expanding the donor base on voluntary basis without any obligation on developing countries to contribute to the Green Climate Fund.

Encouraging climate funding between developing countries, called South-South cooperation, may also find mention in the final text to which India is not opposed.

There also appeared to be agreement on having a Paris committee on pre-2020 commitments of rich nations and for 1.5 degree temperature rise goal by end of the century provided adequate finance is provided.

But, observers said the so-called agreement was in the conceptual discussions and not in any text format, a key to take the negotiations ahead. “Differentiation is the biggest bottleneck,” a developing country negotiator said.

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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