India scores point at climate meet

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India scores point at climate meet
Emerging Economies Demand Rich Countries Cut Emissions By 40%
Nitin Sethi | TNN

New Delhi: India has extracted a small victory in one battle of the long-running climate war with key emerging economies forging an alliance that has formally demanded that industrialized nations take at least a 40% cut in their emissions below 1990 standards in the next 11 years, by 2020.
The move, engineered after a great amount of persuasion and negotiations on the side, has ensured that the loss caused by fractures in the G77 block, which was tested to its limit in the just-concluded Bonn negotiations, is limited and the key countries from the developing world remain intact for the next round of UN climate negotiations. While China and India had individually demanded the deep cuts from the rich countries, the formal tabling of the demand in the draft agreement text being negotiated by 181 countries by the powerful collective including China, India and Brazil will put the rich nations on the defensive at least on one front.
The negotiations are generally being held at two levels, to discuss the long-term actions to be taken by all the countries, and what level of emission cuts the industrialized nations should take to stem climate change in the short run.
The industrialized nations have kept the pressure on to get emerging economies to sign on to emission cuts in the long run but they have been demure in committing much in the short run. By putting up a common proposal demanding deep cuts from the rich nations, India and others will have a bargaining chip at the next round of the UN negotiations as it is now part of the proposed text.
The small victory also comes against the backdrop of a fracture in the G77 unity that showed up with Costa Rica putting up an individual proposal for complete revamp of the Kyoto Protocol, which binds only the rich nations to emission cuts. India, China and the rest of G77 had so far worked on consensus that they did not want the protocol scrapped but wanted enhanced commitments from the rich countries for short run under the compact.
Indian officials also said that the fractures were visible in some other instances as well with Bangladesh too breaking course from the G77 consensus to venture out on its own in one instance and some Latin American countries too deciding to move back from the battle lines. But, they explained that with key emerging economies along with almost 30 others sticking behind the above-40% proposal will keep developed nations on the backfoot on one front.