Too many platforms create confusion: Prakash Javadekar

A day before leaving for United Nations Secretary General’s climate change summit in New York, union environment minister Prakash Javadekar took a swipe at Ban Ki-moon’s initiative. “Too many platforms add to confusion. We want to work on climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” Javadekar said on Friday.

“I am saying this in general. It is good if discussions are carried out in other forums but the negotiations are to be held under the provisions of the UN convention,” he added when asked if he was specifically referring to the UNSG summit.

The UN Secretary General (UNSG) had taken the initiative to call heads of states to his climate change summit at New York. But the move did not go down well with several developing countries. India, China and several other countries are not sending their executive heads to the meeting. Some, such as India and China have assessed that the summit undercuts the on-going negotiations under the climate convention for the 2015 global deal. At the formal climate talks, run by consensus, the developing countries hold a better negotiating space but the UNSG has almost no role to play in it.

Javadekar will also attend the Major Economy Forum meeting on climate change hosted by the US on September 21 and 22.