In their communication to the UNFCCC secretariat on their proposed climate-related actions, neither China nor India even mentions the accord. Despite having succeeded in excising all quantitative targets from its text and thus averted any climate-related obligations on themselves for the near future, India and China know the accord has no status or political legitimacy.

It is incompatible with what the world needs to limit global warming to 2 °C (above pre-industrial levels). This means glo¬bal greenhouse emissions must peak by 2020. For this to happen, developed countries must cut their emissions by 40-45 per cent within a decade and GHG atmospheric concentrations must at best rise marginally from the present level (380 ppm) or fall (to 350 ppm). Under the voluntary offers ma¬de by developed countries at Copenhagen, their emissions will only fall by 6-14 per cent. Concentrations are likely to rise to 700 ppm and warming to 3.5-4 °C, spelling a catastrophe.

China and India behaved cynically at Copenhagen in bypassing the multilateral two-track talks process, anchored firmly on the objective of extending the effectiveness of Kyoto Protocol’s beyond 2012. They now want the UNFCCC to resume the process and extend the protocol, the world’s sole legally-binding climate agreement. But they have lost much leverage by promoting the accord.

The controversy over the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on Himalayan glaciers has been sei¬zed upon by climate change-deniers and powerful industry groups. Although the error in relying on a non–peer-revi¬ewed number is significant, it does not alter the conclusion that Himalayan glaciers are melting at a dangerously rapid pace. Yet, it has dented IPCC’s credibility in a small way.

The UNFCCC process has plunged further into crisis with the resignation of executive secretary Yvo de Boer. He will quit just when the next major UNFCCC meeting begins at the end of May in Bonn. De Boer was no stickler for multi-lateralism or climate equity, and went along with the Co¬penhagen Accord. But he was experienced and got the different parties talking. His absence means that a strong initiative won’t be taken well before Bonn to get inter-sessional ta¬lks going to salvage the original UNFCCC process.

The climate agenda has suffered a setback in the US with the walkout by BP America, Conoco-Phillips and Caterpillar from the Green Climate Action partnership supporting President Obama’s climate bill.

This makes it near-certain that the bill won’t get passed this year. It is unrealistic to expect that the US will stop being a drag on the global negotiati¬ons, or that the European Union will seize the initiative after Copenhagen’s demoralising outcome.

India’s climate policy-making establishment is in turmoil. There was much dissonance in it before and during Copenha¬gen as negotiators were suddenly confronted with changes in their brief. Special climate envoy Shyam Saran has since resigned—largely because environment minister Jairam Ra¬mesh has increasingly laid do¬wn the agenda, taking it towa-rds “flexibility”, but away from environmental equity bo¬th glo¬bally and domestically. It is likely that the two principal negotiators, Chandrasekhar Da¬s¬gu¬pta and Prodipto Ghosh, will qu¬it. That only enlarges In¬dia’s climate-related challenge.

The challenge is also a good opportunity to rework India’s climate policy. India must develop a nuanced, complex, equity-driven dual approach. Glo¬bally, it must firmly coax developed countries to respect their historical obligations to cut em¬issions and the principle of No¬r¬th-South differentiated respo¬nsibility in financing developing countries’ mitigation, adaptation and technology development. India must also accept the emerging economies’ mor¬al obligation of reducing carbon emissions and their intensity.

Domestically, India must do its utmost to promote climate-responsible development and fulfil its obligations to the poor majority, which is highly vulnerable to climate change. This means vigorously exploiting the scope for reducing energy, wa¬ter and material intensity of pro¬duction, construction and tr¬ansportation, discouraging em¬ission-intensive luxury consumption, undertaking massi¬ve afforestation and water conservation, and embracing low-carbon development even wh¬ile providing basic needs, including modern energy services, to the poor.

Devising this strategy will need more than official and technological inputs. It dema¬nds wide consultation with nu¬merous stakeholders, incl¬uding state and local governments; independent experts in the fields of related to climate and energy; including water, renewable resources, mountain ecology, agriculture and fores¬try; social scientists; alternative development innovators; relief-oriented NGOs; and people’s movements representing those most vulnerable to climate change.

The present climate policy reference framework is hopelessly elitist and inadequate—with only one NGO representative in the 26-member Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, 25 of whose members are from Delhi or its suburbs (the sole exception being Ratan Tata who is from Mumbai).

This travesty must be abolished and replaced by a representative bottom-up consultation process. Our countrymen have a survival-related stake in combating climate change. The government must not let them down.

The writer is a Delhi-based columnist