NEW DELHI: Leave aside a binding agreement on climate change, the 190-country Copenhagen conference on December 7 is unlikely to throw up even a political statement of high-sounding sentiments on the need to save the planet -- a statement, which countries were hoping, would give the direction for hammering out an agreement next year.

The setback came in the just-concluded two-day ministerial meeting at Copenhagen on November 16-17, where persistent schisms on even most basic things such as a political statement of agreement deepened as some industrialized countries -- led by Japan, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands -- demanded that the political statement be the sole basis for reaching a "single legal instrument".

This meant that the Kyoto Protocol, already on the backburner, would be jettisoned altogether -- a position that's not acceptable to most developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol, which wants emissions to be brought down by 5.2% below the 1990 levels by 2012 (an impossibility now), also set down the moral principle that the biggest emitters should undertake the biggest cuts.

Not surprisingly, the biggest emitters -- the rich countries, including the US and the EU -- are opposed to the Kyoto Proctocol. In this ministerial meeting, Japan and others demanded that the political statement make clear that all countries, including developing countries like India, must undertake commitments to reduce greenhouse gas levels under this proposed new instrument.

The Indian delegation to the two-day meet, attended by more than 50 ministers from around the world, was led by union environment minister Jairam Ramesh. He was accompanied by the PM's special envoy Shyam Saran, environment secretary Vijai Sharma and joint secretary R R Rashmi.

The minister made the Indian stance clear yet again by stating that "India is prepared to reflect in any agreement its commitment to keep its per capita emissions below that of the developed countries" -- a formulation first offered to world leaders by PM Manmohan Singh in 2008.

He also offered that India was ready to submit a national communication every two years to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), covering both supported and unsupported actions and their outcomes as well as their impacts on emissions and that this would more than meet the demand for international scrutiny of domestic unilateral commitments.

The opposition of the rich countries to Kyoto Protocol, besides a wide rift on other key issues, had earlier scuppered all hopes of any comprehensive deal emerging at Copenhagen and had made world leaders resign to a mere political statement as the only possible outcome.

India, China and the 140-member G-77 group have vehemently opposed the proposal of a "single legal instrument", calling it a move to "kill" the Kyoto Protocol and alter the basic tenets of the existing climate convention. The protocol, under the UNFCCC, is the only existing tool that imposes emission reduction targets on industrialized countries. The US, even though a members of the convention, has never signed on to the protocol and has refused to do so even under the Obama regime.

Non-industrialized countries, at present, are required only to undertake greenhouse gas reducing actions if they are fully compensated by the rich nations. The single legal instrument would blur the distinction between the rich countries and the energy-hungry developing countries. The latter have warned the proposed single legal instrument was a ruse to lower the obligations of the rich nations while piling on commitments on the poor countries.

The current impasse, triggered by the fresh demand from rich countries for a "new legal instrument" to be imposed through the political statement, has left the fate of the Copenhagen meeting hanging by a very thin thread of hope.

Sources from the G-77 countries told TOI that if the industrialized countries stick to this stand at Copenhagen, even a political statement would become difficult. Or else, the statement would become a shallow shell of niceties.

India and other developing countries have long demanded that the parties to the Kyoto Protocol take deeper cuts in its second phase, starting 2013, while US undertake similar cuts under a new tool since it is not a signatory. This is referred to commonly as the two-track formula, which is mandated under the Bali Action Plan signed by all countries in 2008.

The two-year mandate of the Bali Action Plan ends at Copenhagen and the "political statement", in the absence of a comprehensive deal, was expected to set the ground for another year of negotiations along two tracks -- Kyoto Protocol and "a long-term agreement" that finally leads to a full scale deal by the end of 2010.

Sources said that while US tried to show how it was undertaking ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in the long run, the developing world leaders remained unconvinced of the intentions of the rich countries to come up with ambitious mid-term targets as demanded by the UN's Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. Earlier, African countries had even boycotted negotiations, demanding rich countries table such targets.

US also kept on insisting at the ministerial meet that India and other emerging countries allow same level of international scrutiny of their unilateral and domestic climate saving actions as the rich are obliged to at the moment.