UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chief R K Pachauri today favoured a new legally binding treaty with essential features of equity enshrined in Kyoto Protocol, which are sacrosanct to India.
"The provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are sacrosanct for countries like India and even if the new agreement goes by another name, the essential features of Kyoto Protocol must be preserved," Pachauri told reporters here.
He warned that "If we don't get a legally binding agreement by the end of 2010, we will be losing valuable time...." to save the Earth.
The developed nations along with some least developing nations have been pushing hard to replace 1997 Kyoto Protocol with some other stringent treaty that would set tough binding emission cut targets on the emerging economies like China and India, which have resisted the move.
Kyoto Protocol, Bali Action Plan and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) mandates that rich countries take deep emission cuts in a legally-binding manner.
Calling the 15 Conference of Parties (CoP) as the most contentious one, the climate expert, however said, what was relieving was that "We were able to salvage something by way of an agreement in the end."
The Accord does provide a foundation and a framework that allows for a binding agreement to be developed incorporating the details of specific commitments by all the nations particularly developed, he noted.
