No road map in sight

With the sun setting in the port city of Durban Saturday evening, the global efforts to arrive at a new climate change agreement were heading towards a dead-end. As no consensus emerged on Friday, the last day of the summit, the delegates decided to extend the deliberation till Saturday. Till late evening, no decision was in sight on three contentious issues, including the future of the Kyoto protocol.

The only binding climate treaty (Kyoto) is set to expire in 2012. With no major breakthrough on a successor treaty, a follow-up meeting is expected to be held next year.

According to Indian officials closely monitoring the development, the Conference of Parties (CoP) was trying to form an ad-hoc committee to design a long-term treaty for climate action beyond 2020.

According to Indian non-profit organisation CSE, the CoP has come up with the Indaba Text, which is a proposal on the major outcomes from the Durban conference.

The text has Amendments to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period that does not lead to a gap between the first and the second commitment periods. This means that some Kyoto Parties will take a legally binding second commitment under the protocol, and the second commitment period will start on January 1, 2013. However, no decision on the text has been taken so far.

Till the time of going to press, the climate talks, which rolled over to an unscheduled 13th day of discussions, failed to provide a design of the $100-billion green climate fund.

The last ray of hope for having a “legally binding” climate road map was also fading with the EU still at odds with India, China and the US.

The EU was rallying, for a new pact that would draw all major emitters into a single, legally binding framework to be signed by 2015 and put into force by 2020. However, India and the US have declined to accept it in the current form.

The US has objections to the word “legal” and it also wants the same commitment from developed and developing countries. India, on its part, wants more commitment from the developed nations.

Amid the roars and criticisms for being a “deal breaker”, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan stood her ground and continued to pitch for the rights of developing nations.

Her call for developed nations to contribute more towards combating global warming won accolades from other delegates on Saturday. She made an “emotional appeal” for space for basic development of India’s 1.2 billion people and poverty eradication.

“I was astonished and disturbed by the comments of my colleague from Canada who was pointing at us as to why we were against the road map,” she said. “I am disturbed to find that a legally binding protocol to the Convention, negotiated just 14 years ago, is now being junked in a cavalier manner. Countries that had signed and ratified it are walking away without even a polite goodbye. And yet, they are pointing at others,” she said.

“It is a factual statement, it is an emotional statement,” the minister told reporters later. As a developing country, “the principles of equity and CBDR (common but differentiated responsibility) are central for us,” the minister added.