By Joydeep Gupta, IANS
Bali : As negotiations for a Bali roadmap on how to address climate change neared their climax here Friday evening, a top UN official said the vast majority of developing countries in the Group of 77 were willing to move beyond Kyoto Protocol.
While Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention here on climate change Yvo de Boer hinted at India’s isolation in the G-77 because of the tough position it has taken on Kyoto Protocol, he also affirmed “some movement in this discussion”.
Asked about the G-77 position in the context of discussions about ways to tackle climate change after 2012 – when the current commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out – de Boer said: “The G-77 position is that they want to first see industrialised countries deliver on their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
“But South Africa, Brazil and China have tabled proposal after proposal that indicate they are willing to go further than the Kyoto Protocol (asks developing countries to do). The vast majority of G-77 countries are in favour.”
Asked to name the countries against, de Boer said: “Saudi Arabia, and India earlier, though there has been movement in this discussion.”
“The other countries have taken up a position so that we can seamlessly follow up from the Kyoto Protocol. They want carbon credits for the steps they take for energy efficiency and use of renewables.”
Reacting to the UNFCCC chief’s statement, a senior member of the Indian government delegation told IANS: “We have no idea how he came to such a conclusion. We have not heard anything in the G-77 meetings that is contrary to our position.
“There are a huge number of proposals from the 132 member countries of G-77. But once we take a considered position on an issue we stick to it.
“The Kyoto Protocol must go forward and all industrialised countries must make their commitments for the second period.”
Earlier in the evening, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN had also said the G-77 and China were united at the negotiations going during the Bali summit. Pakistan’s is the current chair of the G-77.
Earlier Friday, Kapil Sibal, head of the Indian delegation, had said India would be satisfied if the framework convention and the Kyoto Protocol continued to be the main process through which the world fought global warming.
Sibal – who is also the country’s science and technology minister – said India was “standing firm on the need to take all international action on climate change within the ambit of the convention and the protocol”.
The minister’s remark came in the context of repeated attempts by industrialised countries to talk of a “new comprehensive framework” and a “post-Kyoto deal”.
Most of the talk came from the US, Canada, Japan and Australia in closed door meetings, senior members of the Indian government delegation said.
The delegates said the industrialised countries were repeatedly trying, during the Bali summit, to get away from the convention and the protocol because, except the EU countries, almost none of them was going to meet their legally binding commitments under the protocol on reduction of emission of greenhouse gases.
On other parts of the evolving Bali roadmap, India did have reason to be satisfied on the issue of fighting deforestation as part of the fight against climate change. Deforestation is contributing 20 percent of the greenhouse gases (GHG) added to the atmosphere every year.
There was a proposal that developing countries, which start afforestation projects and avoided deforestation would be paid for it.
India had wanted to add conservation and sustainable management of forests to that list. Environment Secretary Meena Gupta had told IANS that “no country should lose out simply because it is increasing its forest cover”.
In the middle of Friday afternoon, Indian negotiators in the ‘deforestation room’ came out smiling. They told IANS that India’s points had been accepted, while a counter-proposal from the US to add land use changes to the forestry concept had been rejected.
The text they had finalised still had to go to a larger group, but the delegates from the Indian government were hopeful this would be just a formality.
To achieve this, India had to concede a point in the area of transferring technology from industrialised countries to help developing countries fight climate change.
The Indian delegation had wanted the technology transfer to be institutionalised through a “facility”, while industrialised countries wanted to do it through a “programme” that would leave the whole thing vague and open ended.
The compromise was to drop the word facility and to add the word “strategic” before programme. Indian negotiators said they had given in on this as part of the give-and-take of a multilateral negotiations process.
Having played a key role in the final round of negotiations over the last three days of the Bali summit, India has earned a lot of praise for its “positive and helpful” attitude from delegates from many developing countries and various European countries.
But India has been very clear that it will not accept any legally binding GHG emission caps. Developing countries are not obliged to do so, but behind closed doors many of them – especially India – have come under strong pressure on this point.
Sibal had earlier told IANS that this was a “non-starter”, a point supported by all developing countries and the EU, as developing countries needed to increase their energy consumption for development and because industrialised countries were responsible for almost all GHG in the atmosphere anyway.
Asked to name the industrialised countries making this demand, a senior member of the Indian delegation who came out of a closed meeting room for a while identified the US, Canada, Japan and Australia.