India to resist dilution of multilateral platform

India will resist all attempts by the United States and other industrialised countries to move climate change talks out of the United Nation’s multilateral process, reiterated Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

The US is said to be keen to take up climate negotiations at the Group of 20 meeting in June this year, so as to move it away from the UN negotiating forum, UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Ramesh said the attempt by the US is unlikely to have any impact on India’s position to keep climate change talks within the UN body.

“There are multiple discussion forums. But, there is one negotiating forum, which is the UNFCCC. We will be part of the discussions in several forums,” he said.

The US, it appears, was looking for ways to engage with smaller groups and move discussions out of the United Nation’s multilateral process. A G20 summit would be held in Canada, alongside a G8 summit, from June 25-27.

UNFCCC, it seems, has itself appeared to make the Copenhagen Accord the basis for future negotiations. “That kind of response was not necessary. It does not have a legal character,” said an official, while adding that Annexure-I countries (the rich, industrialised ones) are keen to take the Accord outside the UN’s multilateral process. India, however, is firm on the non-binding nature of this document, they said. Experts here also added the US wanted to create as many battle forums as possible.

The BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) group, at its meeting in New Delhi in January, had emphasized that the Copenhagen Accord was only a political document. Senior officials in the environment ministry said in their letters to the UNFCCC secretariat, they had made it clear that the UNFCCC was the only place for negotiations.

Industrialised nations, despite their historical responsibility as polluters who had predominantly created the current greenhouse-gas problem, as stated under the Kyoto protocol, had failed to make ambitious commitments on reducing emissions. Following the Copenhagen Accord in December last year, rich countries have been keen to make it the basis of future talks, effectively killing the Kyoto protocol, which insists on major polluting countries cleaning up the environment on the basis of their historical responsibility.

In a reflection of the US position and its keenness to engage the Group of 20 instead of the industrialised countries, Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, had stated in media reports that Washington might be more willing to favour the G20 than the major economies forum (MEF). The MEF might meet if other countries, perhaps the European Union, asked for talks. Stavins said that finding a path to a more robust deal was a “tremendous challenge”, indicating the position of their countries on committing to emission cuts.