Climate negotiations at Cancun headed nowhere: Ramesh

Betwa Sharma
New York, Sept 20 (PTI) India on Monday said that the
international community should not expect much from the
upcoming Climate Change summit in Cancun and underlined that
the West should do more to achieve sustainable development.
"I think frankly Cancun (Mexico) is headed nowhere
because the financial commitments made by the developed
countries at Copenhagen have not been fulfilled and are
unlikely to be fulfilled in any substantial measure,"
Environment Minister of India, Jairam Ramesh told PTI.
The Climate Change conference in Copenhagen last year
yielded the contentious and non-binding Copenhagen Accord.
The Accord was produced by 29 countries, but was
principally drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil and South
Africa at the eleventh hour of the Conference. It was slammed
by certain countries including Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua
and Cuba for having left the majority of the nations out of
the negotiating process.
Key elements of the Accord included limit temperature
rises to 1.5 degrees, USD 100 billion on finance in long term
finance to developing countries and USD 30 billion to short-
term finance to the poorest and most vulnerable countries.
The climate conference in Cancun is expected to
produce a legally binding climate change treaty but so far the
developed and developing countries have been unable to reach a
consensus on key negotiating texts.
There is still no clear mechanism for the actual
collection and disbursement of the aid money pledged in
Copenhagen.
"I don't expect a breakthrough but I don't expect a
breakdown either," Ramesh said, adding that "expectations
should be very very modest."
As part of his week-long trip to New York, Ramesh
attended the Global Sustainability Panel meeting at the UN on
Sunday and will speak at the Major Economies Forum on Monday.
At MEF, Ramesh said that he will highlight "what are
the lessons that we learnt from Copenhagen both the process
lesson as well as the product lesson" and called for clarity
on "financing issue, technology issues, forestry related
issues", among others.
During the week, he will also attend the Conference on
Biodiversity and meet his counterparts from several countries.
The UN has found that the world has already missed the
2010 deadline for biodiversity conservation with potentially
grave consequences, and the number of species facing
extinction is growing by the day especially in developing
countries.
India will host the Biodiversity Summit in 2012.PTI