Climate change focus shifts to "post-Cancun": Ramesh

Betwa Sharma
New York, Sept 21 (PTI) Noting that "no major
breakthrough" was possible at the climate change conference in
Cancun, Environment Minister of India, Jairam Ramesh said that
the focus of the international community had now shifted to
what measures needed to be taken "post-Cancun".
The minister, who initiated the discussion at the
Major Economies Forum in New York on Monday, pointed out that
the discussion at MEF had revolved around discussing what
would be the likely outcomes at Cancun, Mexico.
"Clearly now the focus is on post-Cancun…we recognise
that there is no breakthrough possible in Cancun but let's now
try to cut our losses and see what we can do after Cancun,"
Ramesh told PTI.
"So we get a set of COP (Conference of Parties)
decisions at Cancun and let those decisions serve as a further
basis of further action post-Cancun," he said, after the MEF
meeting.
The countries present in the two-day MEF meeting are
Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union,
France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico,
Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States.
Countries that come to the conference in Cancun, later
this year, are expected to produce a legally binding treaty to
combat climate change, which the conference in Copenhagen
failed to do.
Instead, two-weeks of negotiations yielded the
non-binding Copenhagen Accord, which was produced by 29
countries, but principally drafted by the United States,
China, India, Brazil and South Africa, in the last few hours
of the Conference.
It was criticised by certain countries including
Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba for having left the
majority of the nations out of the negotiating process, and
led to charges of a "trust deficit" between the developed and
developing world.
Key elements of the Accord included a limit 2 degree
rise of global temperature, 100 billion dollars on finance in
long term finance to developing countries and 30 billion
dollars to short-term finance to the poorest and most
vulnerable countries.
The minister reiterated that one of the reasons for
the lack of progress in Cancun is the absence of any action
towards dispensing of USD 30 billion by developed countries
promised at Copenhagen.
India and other emerging economies do not benefit from
this aid. "We should be realistic of what you can expect to do
in Cancun," Ramesh said. (MORE) PTI BS RET
MRD



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