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“Modest fillip to climate change negotiations”

L’Aquila, Italy: Briefing journalists after the Major Economies Forum meeting, Indian special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran said the declaration would provide a fillip to the negotiations at Copenhagen, “modest though it will be.”

The negotiations on mitigation were the most difficult and the developing countries could not get the industrial nations to commit themselves to an intermediate goal of reducing their emissions by 40 per cent by 2020. Still, the agreement to work towards limiting the maximum rise in global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial period was a worthwhile target to aspire for.

From the Indian standpoint, the strong part of the declaration on the global partnership to develop climate friendly technologies was “one of the more forward looking parts” of the document. As for the funding mechanism for the developing countries, the issue was not addressed in any great detail but there was recognition that the climate change negotiations would not be successful unless financial resources were made available to the developing countries.

The Green Fund proposed by Mexico was a forward looking proposal that would be based on assessed contributions from all countries and provide a stable source. Still, the pattern and criteria for contributions was not clear.

As for the British proposal outlined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, its merit was the specific target of $100 billion set for 2020 but it would draw financing from the markets and might not be a stable source as the recent collapse of the carbon markets in Europe had demonstrated.