India Climate Summit:New Delhi lays out terms,may consider new legal protocol- After being dubbed as the "hurdle" to global action-8/12/12

India Climate Summit: New Delhi lays out terms, may consider new legal protocol




DURBAN: After being dubbed as the "hurdle" to global action, India has laid out the conditions under which it is willing to consider a legally binding instrument. Equity and action on finance, technology mechanism are among the prerequisites for India's participation in the roadmap to a new global treaty.

After two and half days of ministerial negotiations, the glimmers of a way forward are becoming evident with New Delhi engaging more positively. At the ministerial level consultations at the "Indaba" ( a Zulu word which refers to gathering of people) meetings, India is understood to have said that it would be willing to start negotiations on a new legal protocol provided the principle of equity is built in.

The Indaba discussion are pretexted on a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol being ratified.

India's positive engagement would mean that it will consider a protocol, which takes into account the Bali Action Plan and the Cancun Agreements. The proposed protocol would include the mitigation efforts for all countries-absolute emission reduction targets for developed countries and actions for developing countries.

It would also take into account decisions on the issue of transparency, adaptation, technology transfer and finance. The discussions would begin following the Durban meet and should be latest by 2015. These discussions will be held in the ad-hoc working group on long term co-operative action or the bali track of the negotiations. New Delhi has made it clear that the issue of equity must find expression in the instrument.

For its part the European Union made it clear that the new global treaty would respect the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. "We cannot expect countries like India to take on absolute emission cuts, that is for developed countries to take. Developing countries would have to take their actions into a legal treaty," EC commissioner for climate change Connie Hedegaard said.

On Wednesday, a new negotiating was released and these included four options for the question of legal form. In official negotiations, India andChina have called for continued discussions on the issue of legal form or Option 3 in the negotiating text.