NATURE’S REMINDER: From the climate storm in Copenhagen, Barack Obama landed in a blizzard in Washington on Saturday. The snowstorm forced Obama to ride in a motorcade, instead of taking a helicopter, to the White House. AFP picture shows snowflakes falling on the White House.

Dec. 19: The world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters have crafted and proposed a new “accord”, signalling a controversial shift in climate change politics that many countries have rejected.

India and China were part of a dramatic meeting seized upon by President Barack Obama to set the stage for “the Copenhagen Accord” — a non-binding political pact. But the two countries later desisted from formally associating themselves with the text that has only been “taken note of” at the Copenhagen summit, reflecting the bitter opposition from smaller countries.

The public posture did not prevent analysts — and some critics — from suggesting that India and China had become part of what looked like an emerging global climate order, almost breaking ranks with their traditional allies in the G77 developing countries group, including African and small island countries, to join America in efforts to find ways to tackle the climate challenge.

The “new order” appeared to portend a diminishing role for the UN and underscore the vulnerability of a consensus-dependent process the world body has been following so far.

The principal negotiations took place among about 30 countries and the accord “breakthrough” involved just five — the US, China, Brazil, South Africa and India. These countries account for almost 60 per cent of global pollution.

That grouping whittled down to the largest economies, a climate negotiating group reminiscent of the Major Economies Forum originally convened by former President George W. Bush as a parallel track to the UN talks.

“I don’t think it’s the end of the UN’s climate role but it’s a new model inside of it,” Jennifer Morgan, the director of the World Resource Institute’s climate and energy programme, told Reuters.

She “absolutely” supported the role of heads of government. The eleventh-hour meeting attended by Obama, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the leaders of China, Brazil and South Africa had provided the decisive thrust.

“I think that’s the story of this conference. Heads of state came in and crafted a deal a bit independently of the UN process,” she said.

But others said any scaling down of the UN’s role was “not correct from an equity or from an environmental point of view” because that would exclude many countries “already on the front lines of impacts of climate change”. Several developing countries vehemently supported the role of the UN, exactly because it preserved their voice.

The sharpest opposition emerged from a section of developing countries objecting to the document’s goal of holding down the rise in the average global temperature to below 2°C. These countries, including the small island states, believe even a 1.5-degree rise would be catastrophic. The Copenhagen Accord, labelled a “bare minimum” by critics, articulates the need for multiple sets of actions to fight climate change and is expected to drive future talks to give it a legal form.

Leaders and delegations from about 190 countries were sharply divided over the accord’s content and the manner in which it was produced. The divisions forced the Chair to declare that the parties would “take note” of the document.

India tightrope walk

India’s role reflected its tightrope walk in the face of conflicting pulls from the reality of pollution and domestic pressures that tend to label any shift a “sellout”.

On Friday noon, the country’s special envoy on climate change, Shyam Saran, had expressed dissatisfaction that India and China had not been invited to be part of the consultative group to produce the text.

But matters changed quickly after Obama had a dramatic meeting with the leaders of India, China, Brazil and South Africa (the BASIC group), asking them to join the document-crafting process.

“The BASIC countries have worked out the political agreement with the industrialised countries — President Obama played the bridge between us and the European countries,” environment minister Jairam Ramesh said close to midnight in Copenhagen.

He indicated that India and the other countries had largely agreed with America on the issue of scrutiny of domestic emission-curbing actions in exchange for funding support.

Ramesh, however, avoided responding to questions about how India stood in relation to the African and small island countries. Minutes later, G77 representative Lumumba Di-Aping rejected the accord.

“We are not part of any such political agreement -- in fact, nobody has shown us the document yet. We cannot be a party to any document that will allow us a 2-degree rise as that will put our existence in jeopardy” Di-Aping told The Telegraph in Copenhagen.

Asked whether India and China had betrayed the G77, Di-Aping said the group would not break but those who were part of such an agreement “would repent”.

As nation after nation spoke in favour of or against the accord, India remained quiet. However, when the Danish Prime Minister wanted the agreement placed in the house on behalf of the countries who prepared it, India’s envoy backed out, citing a technicality.

Subsequently, when the time came to put up the names of countries supporting the accord in an annexure, India desisted, not wanting to be bracketed publicly with the biggest polluters like the US and China.

“Overnight, from a leader of G77, it turned into an ally of America and the developed countries but still does not want to show itself as being in that company,” said Chandra Bhushan of the non-government Centre for Science and Environment.

But other climate policy analysts feel India has done no wrong by helping craft a document that is in any case not legally binding. “I think the BASIC countries have played their card well in a difficult situation — keeping in mind the opinion of other G77 developing countries,” said T. Jayaraman, a climate policy analyst at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

A key contentious issue was whether the Kyoto Protocol -- which imposes emission cuts only on developed countries -- would be replaced by a new treaty.

“The Kyoto Protocol is still in danger, but the language of the Copenhagen Accord has preserved references to the Kyoto Protocol,” said Jayaraman.

“What this means is that negotiations in the coming months are likely to be as tough as they were in Copenhagen,” said an energy policy expert.

With Reuters inputs