Next debate: Climate 'treaty' or 'agreement'?

Times of India , Thursday, June 04, 2009
Correspondent : Nitin Sethi, TNN

NEW DELHI: A treaty or an agreement? The larger debate at the climate change negotiations, currently on in Bonn, that no one is yet picking up but could soon come up seriously, is whether the 181 countries want a new climate treaty or do they want an agreement out of the protracted half-year long negotiations.

The issues for negotiations are divided into two large sets. What is to be done in the long-term, roughly by 2050, is taken up in one section, and what should be done in the short run -- under the existing Kyoto Protocol -- in the other.

The protocol, in its first phase of implementation from 2008-12 set targets for the rich countries to achieve in cutting their climate changing emissions. The on-going negotiations are about what cuts the industrialized countries should take in the second phase and what should be the duration of the second phase. India and other developing countries want a high enough target to make a difference in the atmosphere, while the industrialized countries are pushing for low enough targets that don't hurt their economies at the time of a recession.

At the long-term end of the debate, the heated discussions range about how India and other developing countries should also contribute to reducing emissions. Obviously in these discussions, India and China want to first focus what technologies and funds rich nations have to offer.

At the long-term negotiations, the rich nations want a treaty -- that would force India and other major economies to accede to a deal with quantified targets for emission reductions. India and China would prefer an agreement that does not alter the existing UN convention -- which does not demand any emission reduction targets of them. They would want an `agreed outcome' -- an agreement that is endorsed by all countries and merely taken as that `enhancing' the existing convention's provisions.

The game reverses in the Kyoto discussions where India wants a treaty-like regime forcing rich nations to stiff targets in the short run. The rich countries are trying to find a way to make the protocol fizzle off with a softer agreement.

The developing and poor nations are keen that the targets in the Kyoto Protocol are tied up on the high side before they make any progress on the long-term agreement.

But the catch for both set of countries is that if the world has to see a treaty signed by Copenhagen in December this year, the treaty text should be put on table six months ahead of time. The time for that is running out. But then, there are some who believe India may actually gain more if there is no treaty at all for the moment.

 
SOURCE : Thursday, June 04, 2009
 


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