Preserve Copenhagen’s spirit for endearing at Mexico

Preserve Copenhagen’s spirit for endearing at Mexico

(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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U.S President Barrack Obama had an interview with the PBS Newshour programme in which he had openly admitted that "I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen." According to him, at least he was able to secure non-binding agreements from what he called world’s would be largest emitters, India and China!

He said "What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen, in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward step, at least we kind of held ground and there wasn't too much backsliding from where we were."

The climate change conference held over the past two weeks in the Danish capital concluded by an Accord, a legally non-binding agreement that skeptical observers believe that it is unlikely to limit emissions sufficiently to halt global warming.

"The science says that we've got to significantly reduce emissions over the next 40 years. There's nothing in the Copenhagen agreement that ensures that that happens," Obama had acknowledged it.

The US President who had attended the summit in its final days to push for a comprehensive agreement, said the deal established an "important principle" but also admitted: "It didn't move us the way we need to."

He said the agreement was hard to win, and came after talks nearly broke down entirely. "The prime minister of India was heading to the airport and the Chinese representatives were essentially skipping negotiations," he said.

Being a person who have kept abreast with the developments of the summit on a day to day basis, I thought it fit to request Obama and all international leaders not to high-light more on the flaws on it’s outcome as each and every nation either directly or indirectly were responsible for the same.

Let me put forth the following for their kind perusal:

The main imperfection in the legally non-binding Accord arrived at the hurriedly concluded Climate Summit was nothing other than one of the missed-out critical points which should have incorporated as a thrust in case a legally binding would have become a reality; it is that the Obama and leaders of Basic Bloc had to ignore in the Accord to commit to a deadline of 2010 for a legally binding global treaty. Further in the last phase of the summit, E.U not only perplexed themselves and made others like African-Island nations to get confused and pre-determined that there will be a just a blemished declaration through the camp of Basic Bloc at the summit.
The global community should not give much credence to the British Environment Minister Ed Milibands’ accusation that China had ‘hijacked’ efforts to agree to significant reductions in global emissions, which tempted Beijing to counter-accuse that U.K and other E.U nations plotted to divide the G77 and basic Bloc at Copenhagen. Fantastic… Obama maintained cool… did not directly accuse any nation or group!

Obama had commented that people are justified in disappointing on the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit. I would like to say like this…. there will be no harm….he and leaders of the Basic Bloc have to positively brag on the subject to motivate themselves and muster support for the mission of getting a legally binding Treaty in the summit to be held next at Mexico City.

Citing too much on the draw-backs of the Accord at Copenhagen should not only dishearten the world community but also disintegrate whatsoever small sketches of mutual understandings and trust gained at Copenhagen. World leaders should not abscond from the spirit gained from Copenhagen and have to remember that the world will slowly get united when each group attempts to take note of grievances of the rival group with a positive mindset.

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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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