Climate change is about the divide between the rich and the poor. This we know. But what is often not so clear is that it is also about a divide between the media of the rich world and that of the poor.
At Durban, the international media is hell-bent on targeting the BASIC countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China. They are not only cornering them. Their reportage drives a wedge between them. So, each day, a country is picketed. Right now, the whipping boy of the day is India. The second week of climate negotiations opened with the British media flashing a news break: the Europeans had fashioned a draft agreement, but just one country- renegade India - was blocking it. In fact, there was no such draft. So India couldn't have blocked the agreement. The very next day, the western media headlined China, praised it for agreeing to take on legally binding commitments to cut emissions. China, it now seemed, had laid its cards on the table. It had broken ranks with India.
But what really happened? China merely reiterated the positions of the BASIC countries, including India. One, there was a need to urgently discuss levels of ambition to cut emissions; two, there was a need to review whether such actions were adequate; three, the review needed to be guided by science, so that the emission gap could be pinpointed. Further, the world needed to discuss what more was required, including a legally binding agreement. But most importantly, China reiterated, the world needed to discuss the content of the agreement and how it would ensure the right to development of the poorer countries. Carbon space had to be shared equitably between nations of the world.
This is exactly what India has been saying. But it is not in the interest of the western world (and its media) to listen. Durban, once again, is the conversation of the deaf.
Indeed, after Jayanthi Natarajan arrived here, she had to repeat these demands all over again, urging the developed world to hear, and not just listen. The game in Durban is now clear. As I write, there are just couple of hours to go and the game is to flog the same dead donkey to death, all over again. Build a frenzy of blame against the developing world, goes the game, for it is now growing and needs space to increase emissions. Hide the inaction of the industrialized world, the game goes on, by shifting goalposts and confusing lack of ambition and implementation with a new idea of doing more, that has no content.
Such is the charge of the rich brigade. But, the world is losing valuable time to combat climate change. Just consider. The EU's insistence that India and China must accept a legally binding deal has meant that, at Durban, countries are just not able to discuss what ought to be done, now, to cut emissions. Just what is the gap between what is being targeted and what the world needs to do to avoid catastrophic impacts? It is now well-known China, India, Brazil and South Africa and other large developing countries are actually doing more to cut emissions than the already rich nations - the ones that, in the climate treaty, are legally enjoined to move on emissions cuts first. Thus, the burden of cutting emissions has conveniently shifted, from them to us.
The US' ambition is so pathetic that it should be booted out of the talks. But nobody's talking about, or reporting on, this. The result at Durban will be that EU would have pushed the world to a deadline of action that begins 2020, delayed for yet another decade. The world is running out of time. It is time, the western world and its media, got this message.
