Island nations float proposal to debunk Kyoto

On the day United Nations reported an emission gap of five to nine gegatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to limit temperature rise by two degree Celsius, an alternative to Kyoto Protocol was included in a UN draft text for negotiations. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 8, 2010, 07:56:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Cancun

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On the day United Nations reported an emission gap of five to nine gegatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to limit temperature rise by two degree Celsius, an alternative to Kyoto Protocol was included in a UN draft text for negotiations.

The proposal of island nations to make long term cooperative action (LCA) on climate change a binding agreement on emission reduction would mean death of Kyoto Protocol, where only rich nations have to reduce emissions and the developing world has to take non-binding voluntary mitigation actions.

"There cannot be two binding agreements at the same time," said a negotiator. If that happens most rich countries will move to LCA and junk Kyoto Protocol, which Japan, Australia and Canda have been demanding. LCA was initially conceived as an agreement for capacity building, finance and technology transfer, which are not covered under the Kyoto Protocol.

Although the new text on ad-hoc working group on LCA says that the legally binding instrument would be applicable only to the developed countries as in Kyoto Protocol but India and China fear that similar dispensation can be brought for the developing countries in future draft texts. "It is just a beginning," a negotiator said.

The move can stalemate the negotiations as India, China, Brazil and South Africa had described no second commitment period for the protocol as non-negotiable. The Basic group sees the proposal as return of Danish proposal floated before the Copenhagen conference in 2009, which also spoke of alternative binding agreement to Kyoto.

The proposal had created a divide in the developing world with Least Developed Countries led by Bangladesh backing the proposal. "We associate with the proposal to initiate a constructive discussion on a legally binding form under LCA," said Bangladesh environment minister Hasan Mahmud. The African countries is also said to be backing the proposal.

Hours after the drafts was released, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a scientific report literally backing the proposal saying unless all nations take mitigation commitments temperature rise cannot be restricted below two degree Celsius.

"There is a gap of about 40 percent if the commitments made in the Copenhagen Accord are considered," said UNEP head Achim Stiener. "If only the lowest ambition pledges are implemented, and if no clear rules are set in the negotiations emissions would be 53 gegatonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2020." To restrict the temperature by two degree celsius, emissions should not be more than 44 Gt of CO2 equivalent.

The report released in presence of Dessima Williams, ambassador for island nations, exhorted the developed world to higher their emission reduction pledges and asked the developing world to voluntarily commit emission reductions.

Indian Environment minister Jairam Ramesh's found elements of his proposal on international consultation and analysis (ICA) -- a proposed transparency mechanism -- in another LCA draft released for mitigation actions by the developed countries. One specific issue included was that countries, which have annual emissions more than one percent of the global average will have to reported green house emission inventory once in two years.

India has also outlined its redlines for the Cancun summit with an internal note stating that it will not agree to any further dialogue on transparency regarding how to meet mitigation actions unless the rich world moves on finance. This comes after Ramesh has been accused of deviating from India's stated position on transparency -- no verification of financially unaided voluntary emission control actions.

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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