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Copenhagen Summit Copenhagen, December 15 Environment ministers gathered here were scrambling hard to put together an agreed text for their leaders, who will attend the plenary of the 12-day climate change conference on Friday. The new draft text, which also did not mention ‘peaking’ year for greenhouse gas emissions, was issued by one of the two negotiation tracks set up by the 194 nations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would be among the 110 heads of state or government participating in the final leg of the December 7-18 climate talks on Friday. Developing nations led by African countries had walked out of the climate talks yesterday, accusing the rich nations of not doing enough to arrest global warming and making attempts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, agreed upon in 1997, requires rich nations to cut emissions by 2012 and imposes penalties if they fail to do so. It makes no demands on developing countries. The new draft could be seen as a victory for developing nations, which led by Africa, had yesterday walked out of the talks leading to a temporary suspension in the negotiations. The talks had resumed after the Chair of COP-15 and Danish Minister Connie Hedegaard assured them that the conference would proceed in a “fully transparent” manner and without any “surprises”. Nod to India’s proposals
The proposal put forth by India to set up a network of climate innovation centres in various countries for developing and sharing green technologies has got a green signal, and is expected to form the basis of the final Copenhagen agreement. On the sidelines of the 12-day summit here, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh said the Delhi Declaration on technology development has been accepted and added that it would form the basis of the Copenhagen agreement. Climate innovation centres are aimed at identifying and developing local technology requirements and also for facilitating dissemination of current technologies. When questioned if the US had any problems with the implementation of the proposal, Ramesh admitted that there were differences, but was optimistic about the Delhi Declaration forming the basis for an agreement as far as technology is concerned. Meanwhile, India continues to display flexibility in its climate change position by offering to adopt international guidelines under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) while reporting to Parliament on its unsupported domestic efforts to deal with climate change. This step taken by India is a significant one as a message is conveyed to the global listeners that India’s reporting would be at international standards, at the same time the government would be able to tell the domestic audience that it has not submitted to international review.
— Agencies
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