Jairam’s Goddess helps seal climate deal
Dec. 11: It was mainly thanks to the Indian environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh’s “goddess” that the UN climate conference reached a “compromise” on Saturday to set up a $100 billion “Green Fund” to fight global warming.
The efforts of the Mexican foreign secretary, Ms Patricia Espinosa, to reach the “compromise” was greatly appreciated by the representatives of 200 countries and Mr Ramesh even compared her to a goddess stating, “…If I may say so since I come from a country which has more goddesses than gods, not only has god been present, but a goddess has been present today.”
Mr Ramesh noted that the major emerging economies — Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) — had welcomed the decision. “We are very happy with the text,” he said. “Cancun represents an important step forward.”
Progress at the conference included a broad agreement on technology-sharing mechanism that will ensure that poor and vulnerable countries are able to access green technologies easily and in a cost-effective manner. A “Green Fund” has been set up that is expected to mobilise $100 billion every year by 2020, which will be given to developing countries for adaptation and mitigation purposes.
The decisions reached in this conference will be followed up in negotiations next year in Durban, South Africa. However, many of the contentious issues had been bypassed to reach the compromises in Cancun. For instance, no number had been given for further emission reductions under the Kyoto Protocol and there was no commitment to continue the Kyoto Protocol after it expired in 2012.
“Space has been given to dump the Kyoto protocol. The text allows for creation of new market mechanisms for carbon trading which could be built of the existing market mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mr Chandra Bhushan, from the Centre of Science and Environment.
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