NEW DELHI: India wants to sit on the high table but it's finding it difficult to eschew what is being dished out. Wanting to be portrayed as a country showing `leadership' on climate change issues, India has begun a tightrope walk toward the deal in December as it balances the needs of diplomatic niceties at power groups such as the G8+5 and G20 with the bare knuckled fights at formal negotiations under the UN framework.
The toughest challenge so far for the government and the climate negotiators has come with the set of proposals recently received from G20 group on how to finance climate saving actions.
The government has agreed to become part of the discussions on climate financing under the G20 umbrella which will lead up to the head of states' meet in November at Pittsburgh and the finance ministers' meet at London in September before that.
The move comes after a serious review within the government of whether it should participate in discussions on climate in meetings and groups outside the formal UN framework with some sections having reservations of getting trapped into another `MEF-like situation'.
India recently signed the MEF (Major Economies Forum) political declaration at Italy, which had several elements inimical to its interests, claiming it was a mere political declaration and was not meant to feed into the formal negotiations. Then at the climate talks under the aegis of UN at Bonn, it had to go all out to prevent the declaration being introduced into the negotiations that are meant to lead to a global agreement possibly by December this year.
Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister's special envoy on climate change, minced no words at the talks, saying, "Impatience with our proceedings here (at the UN talks) does not justify seeking solutions outside the UNFCCC. India has been participating in those, but on the explicit understanding that our deliberations there are not in the nature of parallel negotiations, nor aimed at pre-empting in any manner decisions which must be taken here."
But it is precisely the reason that the industrialized nations, which have a disproportionate influence at such forums outside UN, want to push for decisions at the meetings such as MEF, G8+5 and G20.
Now, the G20 finance proposal documents that the government has received ahead of the finance ministers' meet in London, that TOI accessed, go completely contrary to the thrust of Indian position on how climate change should be financed globally. The papers were prepared without consultation with India or several other developing countries. India has already opposed them once. It was supported by China, South Africa and Brazil and other nations. But the G20 process which picks up where the MEF left off, has only begun and with the G20 heads of states' meeting in November just before the formal climate negotiations in December in Copenhagen.
It remains to be seen if India would be able to keep the processes of claiming `leadership' from the steps it needs to take to defend itself against backdoor greenhouse gas emission cuts at the UN forum.
