Copenhagen, Dec 17 (Inditop.com) A fresh attempt to rescue the collapsed climate summit in this Danish capital started Thursday, after the host Denmark gave up its insistence on pushing a Copenhagen Agreement it had drafted. The agreement drafted by 192 countries together will now form the basis of discussions.
Grave doubts remained on whether negotiators would be able to come up with a meaningful draft accord that the heads of state meeting over dinner here could consider, but the restart of the process after it had collapsed was heralded as progress by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Now two “contact groups” had been formed in an attempt to sort out the many crucial differences remaining in the drafts, de Boer informed, while warning that the groups had less than seven hours before they had to report success or failure.
“People made it clear that they are not looking forward to texts from the sky,” de Boer said, and the rescue attempt could start only after Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen agreed that the two drafts prepared under the aegis of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol would form the only bases for negotiations.
Before this development, the summit, purportedly meant to save the world from climate change effects had collapsed, as Denmark had insisted on pushing its own “political declaration”, ignoring the pleas of the poor nations.
India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had said: “The blame game will now start, but the developing countries are not to be blamed.”
But even when the negotiations restarted, the impasse continued over the text of the political accord expected to be signed Friday.
“We tried our best to make the Copenhagen summit a success, but the process is deeply flawed and there’s a huge trust deficit. There has been no sincere effort by the Danish government,” Ramesh said.
“We’ve repeatedly asked the Danes for the draft (political accord). They have repeatedly promised to give it to us, but the promise has not been fulfilled. We’ve worked in good faith, but they are working to delay because they want to present it directly to the heads of state,” Ramesh said.
Condemning this “confusion and lack of clarity”, Ramesh said: “We want negotiations to continue. We don’t want a blame game. The text (for a draft treaty) can be finalised within two months. We’ve approached the US and other rich countries; we’re working with them.
“We’re also working very closely within the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) which is now a reality. And of course we are coordinating with China on an hourly basis,” he said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will reach late Thursday evening and may or may not be in time for the gala dinner for heads of state, where the draft of the accord may be presented.
Most ministers and delegates gathered here no longer expect anything more than a weak wishy-washy political accord, which will do little to help tackle climate change that is already affecting people worldwide.
Manmohan Singh’s statement before he left for Copenhagen made it clear that India would stick to its stand that the Kyoto Protocol – the current global treaty to tackle climate change – must continue, though many rich countries want it buried.
“Climate change cannot be addressed by perpetuating the poverty of the developing countries,” the prime minister’s statement said.
Manmohan Singh offered that India could do more to move to a greener economy “provided there are credible arrangements to provide both additional financial support as well as technological transfers from developed to developing countries”.
While there may be some progress over the technology transfer issue, financing has been stuck in the talks here.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to get that moving with an offer of raising $100 billion a year from around the world by 2020 to fight climate change, but left all details unsaid, thus failing to enthuse most delegates.
Ramesh informed that the prime minister would hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao Friday.
While most developing countries are together on climate negotiations, there are divisions that became clearer during the collapse Thursday.
The Alliance of Small Island States want stronger action to fight climate change which has started to drown their countries, and are unhappy that emerging economies have not given more support to their stand.
Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed told the media: “It is difficult to maintain political groupings that were formed in a different context”, referring to the Group of 77 countries that, together with China, negotiate at the climate talks as a bloc.
