Was it poor strategy or smart tactics? India’s eagerness to reveal its hand at the global climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, has angered critics at home, and the government must explain its flip-flops to carry conviction. The “Cancun package” is the outcome of an unhappy compromise, even though it reiterates the commitment of all to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But it sets no binding targets or deadlines for doing so. This, like most other contentious, yet crucial, issues, has been left to be decided at the next summit under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to be held in Durban, South Africa, in 2011 or the subsequent one in 2012. Besides, it does not leave anybody wiser about the future of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change which expires in 2012. The impression one gets from the text of the agreement is that the Kyoto accord, which nailed developed countries to mandatory and time-bound emission cuts, is as good as dead. It is on the deathbed of the Kyoto Protocol that the United States has breathed life into the Cancun package!
The Cancun package has also reaffirmed some other commitments made at previous climate summits, and awaiting fulfilment, such as raising $100 billion annually by 2020 for a green climate fund to help less developed countries adapt to climate change and limiting rise in average world temperatures to below 2° Celsius over pre-industrial revolution levels. The package additionally provides for sharing of clean energy technologies by developed countries with developing ones and protecting tropical forests which serve as useful carbon sinks. The Kyoto Protocol had provided for carbon trading under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to take care of such objectives. The new text is quiet on the fate of this arrangement. Critics of the Cancun package will see it as a victory of rich industrial nations over developing and emerging economies, while its supporters will see it as a pragmatic compromise. While commitments have been undertaken on emission reductions, targets are to be determined voluntarily and announced later. Significantly, domestic actions taken to fulfil non-binding pledges are also to be subjected to international scrutiny. Developed countries have secured a breather by securing parity with the developing countries in this regard. They will also take on only voluntary, rather than globally mandated, emission reductions.
The change in India’s stance began when it agreed to join the effort to cap temperature increase at 2° Celsius and went ahead to announce voluntary domestic emission reduction targets, further consenting to global supervision of its voluntary actions even if these are not supported by external financial or technical assistance. The biggest and the most surprising climb-down from the stated position came when Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced that India was willing to take on “binding commitments in appropriate legal form”. Though this was sought to be sold to domestic critics as a mere nuancing of an existing position, it may well have given away India’s right to take independent decisions on climate change policies without getting any concession from developed countries in return.
