The just-ended world climate conference under United Nations auspices in Durban, South Africa, has shown once again that basic tensions still persist among the world’s rich countries of Europe and North America and the developing economies on how to arrest rising carbon dioxide emissions that are heating up the planet, causing changes in weather patterns, endangering livelihoods and threatening the habitat.
The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 had been a landmark event. It sought to assign differing responsibilities to the rich nations and the poorer ones with the aim of not letting the earth’s temperature rise on an average by more than two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The United States never joined the protocol. Europe at first agreed to, but is now doing its best to wriggle out of its Kyoto commitments. These powerful economies have contributed the most to the emission of greenhouse gases worldwide through rapid industrialisation, and caused the deterioration of the global climate to the detriment, above all, of the poorest countries. But they don’t want to take the lead role in repairing the damage. Violating the meaning of Kyoto, they now want the developing countries to accept the same quota of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as they themselves should. This was their theme song at the Copenhagen summit two years ago, and Durban points the same way.
It was India’s opposition to this theological stance that finally saved the day at Durban, or the Europeans would have walked all over the developing countries. Minister of state for environment Jayanthi Natarajan pleaded passionately that imposing the same burden of cutting carbon dioxide emissions on the poorer countries as on the rich would imperil the industrialisation and economic development of the former, keeping them poor in perpetuity. Seeing the approbation she received, the Europeans held back.
The spirit of Kyoto survives. But only just.
The Europeans were unable to advance their “roadmap” for saving the world through managing the climate. But they have succeeded in landing the first blow. Durban ended with all countries being made to agree that work will commence on the successor to Kyoto on January 1, 2012, and under the new protocol — to be brought into effect by 2020 — all countries, in particular the major greenhouse gas emitters, would be placed on the same legal footing as the rich countries in sharing the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The gun is thus pointing directly at India, China, Brazil and other emerging economies. These countries now need to commence mutual consultations to head off adverse outcomes in the future.