Two Climate Drafts

Two Climate Drafts
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Connie Hedegaard, the Danish President of the Climate summit who is stepping down enabling Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen declared on two drafts, on the Kyoto Protocol and Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) tracks of negotiation triggered uproar, stunned many delegates with indignant demands of of 'inclusivity' and 'transparency'.

India’s Vijai Sharma expressed unhappiness as the move was against the essence of multilateralism.

In the plenary session there was confusion while discussing the Kyoto Protocol tough many areas are still heavily-bracketed , ie.unresolved while is presented for conclusion to the respective ministers.

When Hedegaard announced about the preparation of "two texts" -- one on Kyoto Protocol - and another on the Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA), all delegates were at their wits end!
There was a visibly dividing response in the session.Despite the shocking expression against the unprecedented move by China and India, developed nations including Australia, the EU and the U.S have Stated that the G77 and China were responsible for the situation as they have spoiled negotiations.

For 10 days now negotiators from 192 countries, who were later joined by their ministers, have been struggling to hammer out a climate deal to combat global warming.
The overall climate negotiations are moving under two tracks - the LCA under the Bali Action Plan that requires parties to produce a legally-binding treaty before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

The second track is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol into the second commitment period from 2013 to 2018 where developed countries listed under Annex B will have to take binding cuts.

The essence of Bali plans are as follows:

For developed countries such as the United States, the result of the exercise was supposed to be "Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed country Parties, while ensuring the comparability of efforts among them, taking into account differences in their national circumstances."

For developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, the negotiating objective was "Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner."

It is to be noted that when the agreement was inked, the Bush administration had made it clear that it did not think this language would preclude binding emission cuts for major emerging economies. But countries like China and India made it clear then itself that they think it does, and their officials have to refer back to the Bali Action Plan any time they're asked to commit to mandatory cuts.
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