Draft of declaration expected soon, India suspects foul play

I / Copenhagen December 18, 2009, 10:50 IST

The draft of a potential declaration at the climate summit here was almost ready, diplomats said today, even as India and other developing nations suspected the overnight negotiation was an eyewash and the document prepared was a rehash of the earlier Danish text.

Leaders and ministers from 28 countries huddled together overnight to hammer out an outline of a potential draft and following a meeting with Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Danish Premier and chairman of the Conference of Parties (COP), it was announced that the first text being prepared by the Danes is expected to be presented soon.

Though negotiations continued till early morning today, India and G77 nations feared they were stage-managed to give an appearance that everybody was consulted.

"This whole thing was stage-managed to show that they had consulted everyone," a visibly angry Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said referring to the meeting with the Prime Minister as he made his way for a meeting BASIC (Brazil, South Africa and China) meeting.

It is widely suspected that the text has been prepared earlier by the Danes along with other developed countries.

"In one hour's time some how miraculously a text will appear," the minister said, noting that the drafting could also have been "outsourced" to someone.

The co-chair of G77, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aiping, told PTI that the text was "rehashed", "prepared from before" and that the meeting had been staged.

After the initial draft is prepared by the Danes, delegates from a select group of countries, including India, will be be contributing to it, hours before heads of state and government from over 110 countries met in a summit.

This meeting is being viewed as a disappointment by developing countries who had been reassured that there was no such text. The Danish presidency was not available for comment.

Earlier, Rasmussen had told the G77 and China that any political message in the form of a statement or declaration will be based on the two texts that are being negotiated under the Kyoto Protocol and Long Term Cooperative Action track under the Bali Action Plan.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here late last night hoping to preserve the areas of consensus on mitigation actions and finances and transfers of green technologies to developing countries enshrined in the Bali Action Plan.

He will attend the climate summit along with US President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao among other world leaders.