Back to basics

India's stance on climate change talks has reverted to first principles

With barely six weeks to go for the next international summit on climate change, in Durban, India is making every effort to dispel the impression, created by the flexibilities it displayed at the last two summits, that it had ditched the developing countries on key aspects of the negotiations on how to deal with climate change. New Delhi has used every available international forum in recent months to go back to its original posture on the subject, insisting on greater binding commitments from the developed countries before beginning to discuss the developed countries’ demand for mandatory action by all nations on limiting global warming.

 

What alienated India from the “developing” and “emerging” countries was the then environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, agreeing at Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010) to blur if not eliminate the different obligations of rich and poor countries, agreed to at the Earth Summit in Rio and in the subsequent Kyoto Protocol — with nothing to show in return for the concessions made. The utterances of the present environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, have established that the Jairam Ramesh era of “flexibility” is over, and that India stands once again by the approach accepted in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. India has also expressed its reservations about the proposed “International Consultation and Analysis”, which in some form or other translates into international verification of voluntary climate mitigation measures adopted by the developing countries. India is also stressing once again the principle of per capita emission of harmful greenhouse gases as the basis for future negotiations on global warming.

All this conforms broadly to the Bali action plan, which was supposed to guide negotiations on the successor to the Kyoto pact. It will be recalled that this plan was based on common but differential responsibilities for curbing global heating and further tightening of the goals set out in the Kyoto Protocol, for the post-2012 phase, besides asking the rich nations to help the poor countries, financially and technically, in adopting green policies. The Bali agenda got sidelined at Copenhagen and later. It got diluted even further when the concluding note at Cancun avoided any reference to fresh mandatory national targets or any extension of the Kyoto accord, though it stipulated the creation of a $100-billion Green Climate Fund through contributions from the rich nations to fund green energy plans of poor countries. As might have been expected, none of the developed countries has so far put up even a fraction of its contribution to this fund.

Insisting on the framework adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio for the post-Kyoto arrangement may not achieve any results, any more than the Kyoto Protocol itself did (virtually every rich country failed to meet its agreed target on emission reductions). With the rich countries of North America and Europe deep in economic crisis, climate change as an issue has lost much of the traction it once had in the industrialised world. No US president or other serious politician can hope to win votes now by taking on emission-reduction commitments that might affect business costs and risk further unemployment — especially if the rising economies of Asia are not asked to take on additional responsibility. This is what prompted Mr Ramesh to attempt flexibility as a negotiating tactic. But since that change in India’s approach has not produced any results, the only option left is to revert to first principles. Either way, post-Kyoto is headed for the same endgame as the Doha round of trade negotiations — endless meetings with nothing to show for them. As with trade policy, whatever changes are to be made will have to be unilateral and voluntary. When it comes to climate change, India has its own action plan, which should be effectively executed and properly monitored.