Climate talks in Copenhahagen may face waterloo???

With merely eight days of negotiation time effectively remaining before the final round of talks at Copenhagen, the future of a global climate deal has got stuck with the intransigence of industrialised countries.

At the same time, the attempt by rich countries to do away with the existing Kyoto Protocol has added fuel to the fire. Even UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon sounded a note of caution, saying a day earlier that time was running out to thrash out a deal at the Copenhagen meet. "In 10 days, we need to decide what needs to be done for our future," he said in the Danish capital. "We are not there yet. There is still a lot to be done and not much time left," he added.

The US, made another empty offer to the developing countries. It offered a formula for pooling money for climate change. But instead of adhering to the rules of the existing convention, which demands that only the rich nations pay up for their historical responsibility, it suggested that all countries, including India, should pool money on the basis of their gross emissions from 1990 and their current GDP. It suggested the money be routed through an existing institution which was answerable to the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change."The proposal shifts the burden on to India and China, which are large economies and where emissions are only now beginning to rise on a gross level but are extraordinarily low on per capita basis," said an Indian negotiator.

The promise of a deal at Copenhagen seem to be turning into a pipedream as the US has refused to put down hard numbers for mitigation under the second phase of Kyoto Protocol at the ongoing climate negotiations at Bangkok. EU too seems to be taking a deal-breaking condition saying, "environmental integrity" was central to the UN treaty and "equity" of different countries' rights was just one element.

The negotiations at various levels seem to be grinding into a logjam with US determined not to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol. The US negotiators fought hard at different forums within the UN talks to block any progress on industrialized countries' commitments to reduce emissions in the mid-term under the second phase of Kyoto Protocol.

India stood steadfast in demanding that the rich countries put up their offers in terms of hard numbers for emission reductions over 2012-2020 under the existing protocol. But, US and many other developed countries seemed determined to do away with the Kyoto Protocol entirely.

This is not the first time that US has voiced its opposition to the Kyoto Protocol which demands quantified targets from rich countries. US had not signed on to Kyoto earlier and it continues to oppose the only tool the global treaty has for making measurable and comparable reductions in the dangerous greenhouse gases.

The protocol is also seen by a select band of industrialized countries such as US and Japan as a wall of differentiation constructed in the convention. The parent treaty -- UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- lays most of the burden of mitigation on the industrialized countries that caused it in the first place. The Kyoto Protocol activates this principle of burden sharing into hard actions and targets. The protocol in its first phase sets fixed percentages by which countries reduce their emissions by 2012 below 1990 levels.

Link TOI