Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 14 • Number 3 • 27th January 2010
Major Emerging Economies Stress Solidarity with Poorer Nations in Climate Talks
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Environment ministers from Brazil, China, India and South Africa met in New Delhi on Monday to hash out their strategy for this year’s climate talks. The coalition of emerging economies - known as the BASIC bloc - called for quick delivery of aid to the world’s poorest countries and emphasised that it stands in solidarity with all other developing nations.
The meeting came soon before an end-of-month deadline for all parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to submit their voluntary mitigation action plans to the UNFCCC Secretariat.
In a joint statement dated 24 January, the ministers stressed that the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ - the primary outcome document of last month’s climate talks - has no legal basis but instead represents “a high level political understanding.” The ‘Accord’, which lays out a broad framework for action on climate change, was endorsed by most rich countries but opposed by several developing nations - namely Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Sudan and Venezuela - on both substantive and procedural grounds.
Developing countries have clung to the Kyoto Protocol in recent climate talks, arguing that the 13-year-old pact represents the only existing agreement under which rich (Annex I) nations are required to make emissions cuts. Although the Protocol is widely seen as too weak to tackle the immense challenge of climate change, particularly in light of new scientific evidence on the pace and effects of global warming, some developing country delegates have criticised the more recent Copenhagen Accord for its failure to explicitly mention binding emissions cuts. The general language and lack of implementation and compliance mechanisms, they say, make for a watered-down agreement that will do little to address climate change.
Underlining their commitment to standing by the Kyoto Protocol, the BASIC ministers stressed that this year’s climate talks should proceed on two tracks: the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on further reduction commitments for developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).
The ministers called on the government of Denmark, currently serving as the chair of the Conference of the Parties under the UNFCCC, to convene meetings for both tracks in March. The two working groups should meet at least five times before the parties to the convention gather for their next full conference in Mexico at the end of the year, the ministers said.
Going to bat for the poorer nations, the ministers stressed that “funding, logistics and other procedural issues should not be allowed to become a constraint in the convening of these meetings, which are essential to make progress towards an agreement outcome” at the Mexico meeting. The ministers also called for the quick delivery of the US$ 10 billion in aid that rich countries have promised to provide this year.
The BASIC countries - which represent four of the world’s fastest-growing emitters of heat-trapping gases - also agreed to establish their own fund to help Least Developed Countries and Small Island States tackle climate change effectively.
“The resources we’ll put into it will call attention to how [rich countries] are escaping their responsibilities,” Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc told Reuters last week.
The level of each country’s contribution to the fund will be decided at the BASIC ministers’ next meeting, which is to be hosted by South Africa in April.
ICTSD reporting; “China-led group may discuss climate fund for poor,” REUTERS, 22 January 2010.
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