With more than 100 heads of state having confirmed so far to attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen beginning Monday, the chances of reaching a political deal have improved. Apart from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the confirmed participants include US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The high-level turnout is also expected to put pressure on delegates from 192 member countries to come up with a comprehensive framework to ensure that a legally binding climate change agreement is ready for signing in 2010.
It’s not going to be any easier for the delegates who have been negotiating for more than two years to come up with an agreement after the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Protocol commits industrialised countries to take on emission cuts of planet-warming Greenhouse gases.
Apart from the 200-page official negotiating text, there are two other drafts in circulation. The BASIC draft by Brazil, South Africa, India and China seeks to counter the Danish proposal, which aims to arrive at a political declaration by clubbing industrialised and developing countries together. For example, it sets 2025 as a peaking year for Greenhouse gas emissions for all countries. The Danish proposal is in sync with the Australian pledge and review proposal, which calls upon countries to commit to their respective national schedules to fight climate change for annexing to the climate change agreement.
While reiterating that the climate change talks should be continued as per the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, the BASIC draft calls for establishing a mechanism for technology development and transfer, and global climate fund for financing activities for adaptation and mitigation of climate change.
Both the drafts, like the official negotiating text, are seeking to resolve in their own ways the differences over emission reduction targets of industrialised countries and provision of finances and transfer of clean technology to developing countries to fight climate change.
So far, industrialised countries have proposed to reduce the emission of their Greenhouse gases by 14-18% by 2020 on a baseline of 1990. It falls short of 40% cut by 2020 on a baseline of 1990, as demanded by developing countries.
Source: The Financial Express
Published on 07 December 2009