Skirting the key issue of elaborating on India’s diluted position on climate change, environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that India did not expect any concrete or final pronouncement at the climate conclave to be scheduled in Durban in South Africa later this year.
Mr Ramesh had declared at Cancun that India was willing to commit to legally binding emission reduction targets as part of an international climate deal. Developing countries have been arguing for several years that since their emissions were far lower, thrusting enforceable caps on them would hamper development.
Speaking at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) 2011, Mr Ramesh tried to strike a reassuring note when he said “One should understand it very clearly that we are not going to get a final pronouncement on these issues. They will still be on agenda. They will be discussed but as I said Durban will not have a final say.”
The contentious issues he was referring to were legally binding agreement on emission cuts, controversy over a 2 degree Celsius rise versus a 1.5 degree Celsius goal for temperature rise and a peak year for emission cuts.
“But this does not mean that we should not negotiate, we should not discuss or exchange views on climate change,” he said.
Speaking before a large gathering of international delegates, he further explained that it was time for everyone to stop interpreting Cancun and start implementing it.
He said unlike the Cancun conference, the DSDS meet was being held in the backdrop of “two huge accomplishments” that had been achieved at the conference at Nagoya last October.
The Nagoya meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) saw unprecedented support for local governments which would play an active role in implementing the policies drafted by the CBD.
“If you ask me from the environmental point of view, Cancun was a disappointment but from the political point of view it was an advancement. Cancun should be seen as a template of actionable point that will end at Durban,” he said.
Reiterating the statement he had made at Cancun last year in which he accepted Bolivia’s criticism on the draft accepted by the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) countries, Mr Ramesh said his “heart” is with Bolivia, but his “head” is not. What remained unsaid was that there had been an unprecedented departure in the government’s climate policy.
The Basic nations at Cancun said that they were “very happy” with the two draft texts prepared by climate negotiators from almost 200 nations on the Kyoto protocol and a long-term action plan to combat climate change. Bolivia, however, had criticised the Cancun draft as being too weak and accused other nations of trying to isolate it at the UN climate change conference.