Bonn has set the right climate

The Times of India , Thursday, June 17, 2010
Correspondent : URMI GOSWAMI
BONN-II MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THE failure that it is being made out to be.Yes,there was no negotiating text at the end of the fortnight,there was no movement on increasing ambition by the rich industrialised countries,and the Kyoto protocol still lives on life support.By these counts,Bonn-II could well be adjudged as a faliure.But if we just changed the spectacles through which we view climate negotiations,the picture appears to be different.

The significance of the mid-summer talks lies in the recognition that focus and measurement of achievement has to shift to individual building block issues such as technology,finance and reporting mechanisms.Attention has to be paid to ensuring consensus on the architecture through which these issues are going to be addressed,to seemingly small technical issues paving the way for broader agreements.

There is an advantage to this brick-by-brick approach.Instead of waiting for a consensus on larger issues such as legal outcome of the negotiations,the effort can be to resolve structural issues that will determine the direction of the broader agreement.Rather than wait for the global agreement to be in place and then decide on the mechanism for crucial issues such as technology and finance,focus first on building a consensus on these issues.

Both outgoing chief of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Yvo de Boer and his successor Christiana Figueres have said as much.Neither see an agreement emerging out of Cancun,but both agree that agreements on substantive issues can be reached.

At Bonn,a measure of success was achieved on processes.In technology,a key component for a global shift to a low carbon trajectory,there was considerable agreement on the architecture of the mechanism for technology transfer.The next step would be build a consensus on the functions of this mechanism.There is no escaping the fact that a final agreement on technology will be possible when there is consensus on finance and mitigation,but it only means that the world has moved that much closer to hitting the ground running when those issues are resolved.To have the base of an agreement on technology in place is no mean achievement,especially in a process that has seen so little forward movement.

A similar forward movement was seen in finance.There has been positive convergence on the need for a financial mechanism.There is now concurrence on the need for a finance board that will be an oversight body.There will be many entities,of which the World Bank is one,operating under its supervision.This itself was an issue of great debate and divergence on predictable lines: industrialised versus developing countries.The next question is to whom or what entity will this board report to,a question that could be answered in the next round of talks.

This brick-by-brick approach also ensures that certain substantive discussions are held within the UNFCCC process and not taken out of the system to smaller plurilateral fora.This is another advantage this approach presents,especially for the developing countries,all of whom may not be represented in these smaller groups.

Commentators from the South suggest that as in Bonn-II,the North will continue to arm-twist developing countries to fit their plans.It would be foolhardy to deny that these pressures dont exist.The Souths fightback cant be solely based on harking principles.Climate negotiations,like all negotiations,take place in the real world,in real time,with considerations of realpolitik.These negotiations are not immune to pulls and pressures that fall outside the realm of climate.To ignore this fact would be a mistake.

For developing countries like India,the fightback lies in effecting real change in substantive issues by putting forward innovative solutions.Being Don Quixote has its uses,but there is no benefit in expending energies in a fight where the chance of effecting a real change that works in our favour is at best limited.

India has shown that this can be done.New Delhi proposed that the technology mechanism be designed as a hub and spoke with regional innovation centres.India saw a benefit in this model,better dissemination and a chance for developing countries to build indigenous capability and capacity.This model is being used as the skeletal structure for technology mechanism.India has succeeded in putting its own view across.

The developing world should increase its ambit beyond how much carbon space the industrialised world should vacate to influencing structures on which the global agreement will stand.It is in the building blocks that equity and climate justice will be evident.Bonn-II made this amply clear.We can choose to see the gains from Bonn-II as the Norths media spin or as an opportunity.Bonn makes it incumbent on the more advanced of the developing world to think out of the box.Seizing this opportunity is not just pragmatic,it is the principled and climate-smart thing to do.

urmi.goswami@timesgroup.com

 
SOURCE : http://lite.epaper.timesofindia.com/getpage.aspx?articles=yes&pageid=15&max=true&articleid=Ar01502§id=11edid=&edlabel=ETM&mydateHid=17-06-2010&pubname=Economic+Times+-+Mumbai+-+Policy&title=Bonn+has+set+the+right+climate&edname=&publabel=ET
 


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