Environment Ministers of BASIC to meet in China tomorrow

Environment Ministers of India, Brazil, South Africa and China will meet in the Chinese city of Tianjin tomorrow to work out their action plan for the Cancun Climate Summit, even as the preparatory UN climate talks ended today after finalising the "draft decision text".

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh will arrive here tomorrow and travel to Tiuanjin by a bullet train to Tianjin, where the 5-day meeting of the 4th round of official-level climate meeting organised by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded today.

The Ministers of the four countries who form the BASIC will work out a joint action plan for the Cancun Climate Summit to be held in Mexico this year-end and also discuss emission reductions to be met by the developed countries.
 
Ramesh's participation in tomorrow's meeting is expected to lift India's profile as the Indian delegation headed by Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Environment J M Mauskar maintained a low profile in the five-day meeting.
 
Chinese officials, who dominated the proceedings, made no mention of India during their interactions with media in the past five days.
 
About 3,100 delegates from 177 parties under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol participated in the meeting.
 
Wrapping up the meeting, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said the fourth meeting, which is the last before the Cancun summit to be held from November 29 to December 10, has produced some "concrete" results.
 
Negotiators have produced a draft decision text that will be submitted to the Cancun Conference, which itself is a "very concrete result", Figueres told the media.
 
They have addressed "what is doable in Cancun and what will be left after Cancun," she said.
 
Negotiators also discussed key operational elements of finance, technology and capacity building as well as the future of the Kyoto Protocol, she said.
 
Host China held out firmly against US pressure asserting the developing countries interests would not be compromised in working out reduction cuts.

Some developed nations were trying to rewrite the Kyoto Protocol to shun their emission cut obligations, which stymied the UN climate change talks, Su Wei, China's Chief climate change negotiator said at the end of the meeting.
 
"The underlying purpose of them doing so was to avoid setting the emission cut target after 2012," he said, adding that some wealthy countries want a substantial amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.
 
"That is a retreat from the past meeting. Any moves that aim to overthrow the Kyoto Protocol should be denounced," official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
 
"Generally speaking, the outcome of Tianjin meeting has met with our original expectation."
 
The talks in the past five days have made progress to close the difference and improve the common understanding among parties, he said.
 
"Everybody has been working hard to work out the balanced outcome at the meeting," he said.
 
Through the talks, several problems have been identified and understanding been improved, which will lay the foundations for the next step negotiations, Su said.