D.Raghunandan
22nd December 2009

The Copenhagen Climate Conference has ended disastrously, the only saving grace being that things could have been even worse. People’s expectations that this meeting of world leaders would finalize a legally binding global arrangement to rescue humanity from calamitous climate change have been rudely dashed. Frustration, anger and disappointment are widespread, but not surprise, since many had predicted just such an outcome including in these columns.

No agreement was reached on targets for deep and binding emission cuts by developed countries. No firm commitments were made regarding finance and technology transfers to help developing countries cope with climate change, or on mechanisms and measures for effective implementation. None of these were in fact on the agenda of at least some countries at Copenhagen.

From day one, the US and its developed country allies made a planned and systematic effort to kill the Kyoto Protocol itself, remove the crucial distinction in the global Treaty architecture between industrialized and developing countries, and decisively shift the burden of reducing global emissions on to developing countries. They have half-way succeeded in these attempts and it was only the determined and united resistance of the developing countries that prevented the complete subversion and formal dismantling of the Kyoto Treaty, although this unity too started fraying at the edges towards the end. 

Just as the Conference was about to close in complete disarray, a so-called “Copenhagen Accord” was drawn up by the US along with the BASIC group of Brazil, South Africa, India and China, with the assistance of 22 other countries drawn from all continents and groupings. The Accord is in the nature of a political agreement with no legal force or approval by the Conference and, as such, its very operational status is very much in doubt. Even though it was widely perceived to be weak, flawed and dangerously open to differing interpretations, it was finally supported however reluctantly by most countries and blocs as providing at least some basis for future negotiations. Without this Accord, the Copenhagen conference would have closed not only with no agreement but also with no future direction and perhaps even no hope of ever attaining a global pact. This would have suited the US and other developed countries who have always, and in all contexts, opposed internationally binding agreements since, under a laissez faire dispensation, they can carry on with business-as-usual and impose their will upon others through bilateral and multilateral arrangements. The Accord should be seen as merely an instrument to keep the ball in play so that the game is still on. 

Serious consequences No one can seriously call what transpired at Copenhagen “negotiations” since the term assumes parties willing to move from earlier stated positions and converging towards a common one. Developed countries, led by the US, did not budge an inch from their emission reduction pledges made several months before Copenhagen, even though these were far below the 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 as called for by the IPCC and despite knowing full well that this would condemn hundreds of millions of people especially in the developing countries to grevious deprivation or even death due to climate change.

The US stayed at their pathetic 3 percent, the Japanese at roughly the same and even the EU did not raise their 20 percent to 30 percent as they had promised to consider.
As UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon put it, “Nature does not negotiate with us.” IPCC has warned that the window of opportunity to prevent runaway climate change and irreversible damage is small and narrowing with each passing day. Indeed, since the release of IPCC’s Fourth Report in mid-2007, evidence has been mounting that the situation is deteriorating even more rapidly than earlier believed. A secret UN report released during the Conference showed that, with the low emission cuts pledged by developed countries at Copenhagen, global emissions would not peak (i.e. reach maximum) by 2015 and then start declining as required, which would mean that global temperature rise could reach 3 degrees C by 2050, not 2 degrees as repeatedly promised.

But in effect, therefore, the world is now where it was before Copenhagen, teetering on the brink of runaway climate change, hanging on by a frail thread offered by the Accord which, as we shall see, is like a minefield, strewn with traps for the unwary. But the game will not be just about the right words but about power equations and purposeful negotiations to bring about the best results. The world is replete with Treaties crafted with the best of intentions but which are manipulated and twisted to suit the interests of the US and other forces of global capital. In the months to come, India and other developing countries will have to carefully work their way through the minefield in order to reach the goal of an internationally binding climate Treaty.

A great deal of introspection based on experience of the past few months, and during the Copenhagen Conference itself, is called for. The failure of the Conference to extract deeper cuts from developed countries, and of negotiations leading up to it including the tactics adopted by large developing countries, must rank uppermost among the aspect s calling for analysis. A few other salient features are discussed below.

Towards a new Treaty? US President Barack Obama’s take-it-or-leave-it speech at the Conference shattered his carefully cultivated messianic image and the illusions of many. At Copenhagen, his smiling “Yes we Can” slogan changed to a grim “No we Won’t”. Obama told the Conference he had come “not to talk but to act”, but all he did was to say that the US had done whatever it had to and had nothing more to offer. He also pushed the US agenda of dismantling the Kyoto Protocol and called upon developing countries to forget the past (meaning historical responsibility of developed countries for high atmospheric GHG concentrations, 30 percent contributed by the US alone) and leave behind the “fault lines… we’ve been imprisoned by… and the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years” (meaning differentiated responsibilities and equitable sharing of the global atmospheric commons) leading therefore to the conclusion that “all major economies… must reduce their emissions”, once again removing the crucial Kyoto distinction between industrialized and developing countries.             
It was difficult to believe that two years had gone by since the Bali Action Plan was drawn up and two Ad-hoc Working Groups, one on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) for enhanced emission reduction commitments by developed countries and the other on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) towards achievement of broader and longer-term goals, were set up. These two Working Groups had held extensive consultations with national governments, experts and civil society organizations around the world in order to promote a convergence of views and prepare draft negotiating texts for Copenhagen. Yet all this work was rudely and arrogantly cast aside by the US and its allies, ably aided by the Danish Chair of the Conference who manipulated the proceedings in such a way that discussions on the KP track were completely sidelined while all discussions focused on the LCA track. The aim was clearly to by-pass the Kyoto Protocol with its differentiated targets for developed and developing countries, and to work on a single track that would later be converted into a new Treaty.

It took two walk-outs by African delegates, with India playing intermediary in the second instance (Indian negotiators were at pains to point out that they had not actually joined the boycott), for the Conference Chair to even nominally restore the twin-track discussions. It was only in the last couple of days, just prior to the arrival of the Heads of Government, that a virtual complete revolt on the Conference floor by all developing countries finally forced the issue but by that time the stalemate was set in concrete.

Poor Tactics It is a matter of some surprise why these moves by the US and its allies, actively aided by the Danish Chair, were not nipped in the bud at the very outset in the opening days of the Conference rather than being allowed to overwhelm the Conference to the point of completely undermining it. The official and often reiterated Indian position that it did not want to take issues with anybody but would adopt a constructive role offers some clue. In Copenhagen, cooperation was taken for, and to a great extent translated into, acquiescence.

In fact, if one looks back to developments over the past few years going back to even before Bali,  it would seem that India and other large developing countries have paid a heavy price for going along with supposedly “consensus” formulations of the US and other G7 countries in earlier meetings of the G8 plus G5. This is not just hindsight. As regular readers of these columns would know, warning bells had been sounded even at those junctures in reviews of climate discussions at these Meetings. Joint statements of the G8 plus G5 on aspirational goals of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C and collaborative efforts to combat climate change were issued at the G8 Summits at Heiligendamm in Germany in mid 2007, at Toyako in Japan in 2008 and at the so-called “Major Economies Forum” in L’Aquila, Italy earlier this year. While India basked in the supposed glory of dining at the high table of global powers, and others thought these had brought about a gradual shift in the US position, these Statements implicitly put forward the idea that the US, other developed countries and India along with other large developing countries were all sailing in the same boat. All these came back to haunt the Copenhagen Conference. The dangers contained in the “Copenhagen Accord” should therefore be looked at in this light as well.    
The mostly unilateral commitments by developing countries such as China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia prior to Copenhagen, which they were not obliged to do under the Kyoto Protocol, also need to be re-examined. To some commentators these declarations appeared to have enabled these large developing countries to seize the moral high ground. However, as events unfolded it became clear that, again as forewarned in these columns, they were used by the developed nations to their advantage. The US and allies merely kept pushing the developing countries to cut more, or to concede more ground for instance as regards monitoring and verification, while themselves refusing to increase their emission reduction commitments. The leaked UN report revealed that the mitigation actions volunteered by developing countries  amounting to 5.2 billion tonnes of GHGs was considerably more that the emissions cuts pledged by the developed countries amounting to reduction of just 2.1-3.4 billion tonnes! Since the commitments by developing countries were made unilaterally, not conditional upon reciprocal action and deep cuts by developed nations, there was no pressure on the latter. In fact, the US and others also took the opportunity to put a further spin on this saying developing countries had made no concessions at Copenhagen, conveniently glossing over the fact that all these major concessions had been made before!

Looking ahead The real task now lies ahead, hopefully with lessons learnt. First the minefield of the Copenhagen Accord. The mines are in plain sight but still need careful navigation to avoid tripping over them and setting them off.

At the very outset, there is no date set in the Accord itself for arriving at a global and legally binding Treaty. The earlier reference to the next Conference in Mexico City in December 2010 has been deleted in the final version. First priority should be to prioritize this goal which, though, is implied in references to the LCA Working Group Report which contains it. Failing this, this will be only an open-ended “national pledge-based” agreement as the US has been pushing for with a review only in 2015.

Targets for global emissions, or for a peaking year, have been left out, not just in the Accord but even during negotiations and especially by India which has pretended that that these are of no concern! There is perhaps a fear that, if global emission limits such as 50% of 1990 levels by 2050, or a peaking year of not later than 2015, are mentioned, this will be used by developed countries to adopt low targets for themselves and thrust the balance on to developing countries. But this is where linkages with developed country targets and reciprocal actions come in and should be insisted on. 2 degrees C is not an operational target but an outcome that depends on limiting the quantity of emissions and the time within which this is done, both of which can be achieved through targeted actions and monitoring of the same. Current formulations suffer from the same weaknesses as previous ones.

Doors have been opened in the Accord for the removal or at least blurring of distinctions between developed and developing countries. At US insistence, even voluntary mitigation actions by the latter will be subject to “international consultations and analysis”, a thinly veil over international monitoring and verification. The provision for funding is worded not as a binding commitment of developed countries but that they would seek to “mobilize” these amounts from various sources leaving open the possibility not only of uncertainty as to amounts but also of diversion of aid money, funding from World bank or IMF etc.    

India also needs to think seriously about differences among G77 developing countries that came to the surface in Copenhagen. While India has rightly paid attention to cementing the BASIC alliance, and of course is falling over backwards to please the US in the interests of the “strategic alliance”, it needs to ensure that it cements its natural alliance with the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), the African Union and the bloc of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) together accounting for over 85 nations. There is a deep sense of disquiet among these countries that the “big four” developing nations are making common cause with the developed countries while sacrificing the interests of the most vulnerable. This is one red line India would do well not to cross.

17th December 2009

D. Raghunandan

More than two-thirds of the way through, with Ministers having already joined their negotiating teams and with heads of government starting to arrive for the final three days supposedly to seal an accord to save humanity, the Copenhagen climate conference is heading nowhere. The negotiations, if one can call them that, are exactly where they were before the conference began.

The US and its allies have completely ignored the substantive offers tabled by China, India, Brazil, South Africa (the BASIC bloc), Mexico and Indonesia to reduce their emissions growth rates. These offers have gone a long way towards meeting US objections that the existing Kyoto framework does not call upon large developing countries with relatively high emissions to contribute to global mitigation efforts. Yet industrialized nations are pretending that nothing has changed. US chief negotiator Todd Stern --- who attracted universal anger for his remark that while the US and other developed countries were indeed responsible for historical emissions but the US felt neither guilt nor the need to compensate for the damage caused --- stated with a straight face that he could not envisage any agreement that did not include Chinese commitments and at the same time stressed that the US would not increase their low emission reduction commitment amounting to 3 percent below 1990 levels!

Developed countries led by the USA have not budged from their earlier positions and have shown no readiness to seriously discuss, let alone agree to, their commitments for deep emission cuts which are essential for tackling the imminent crisis and which was the key element to be finalized in Copenhagen. Instead, they have concentrated all their efforts on trying to kill or re-write the Kyoto Protocol which is at the very heart of the existing global Treaty on climate change and on pushing large developing countries to accept binding emission reduction targets on terms similar to those applicable to developed country parties.

Conference collapse This has brought the Conference to the point of collapse, bar some last minute miracle, and may well have spelt doom for millions of people especially in developing countries.  As UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon put it, “Nature does not negotiate with us.” IPCC has warned that the window of opportunity to prevent runaway climate change and irreversible damage is small and narrowing with each passing day. Indeed, since the release of IPCC’s Fourth Report in mid-2007, evidence has been mounting that the situation is deteriorating even more rapidly than earlier believed.

With no concrete outcome in sight on emissions reduction, the agenda in Copenhagen has already shifted to a “political statement” expected to be issued by the more than 110 leaders gathering in Copenhagen as we go to press. Of course, nothing substantive can be expected from this statement either but, since the leaders cannot go back empty handed despite this grand assemblage, it does not take a genius to predict that the “political statement” will be full of lofty goals of saving the planet, promises to keep temperature rise within manageable limits and assurances that sufficient funds and technology will be made available by developed countries, and a decision to meet again in six months or a year to work out details. Such a statement may actually be dangerous rather than merely farcical since its wording can and will, given the track record of the US and other developed countries, be used later to justify their positions.  
Will some or other grouping of countries take up the gauntlet, display the courage to call a spade a spade, and announces to the world that Copenhagen has been an utter failure because the rich countries of the global North have betrayed humanity? Given the shameless behaviour of the US and its allies in Copenhagen, unless firm ground rules are set in advance, what guarantee is there that the next conference will not meet the same fate as this one?

Yet the fight must go on beyond Copenhagen, globally as well as in different countries. So let us look at the salient developments and trends in Copenhagen thus far, at least to assist in a more detailed post-mortem next week, if not to give us some pointers for the future. 

Killing Kyoto The Copenhagen conference discussions were supposed to be organized around two tracks, each led by an Ad-hoc Working Group set up under UN aegis and functioning since the Bali Conference in December 2007 to hold extensive consultations with all countries and prepare negotiating texts. The first Group or AWG-KP was to deal with enhanced emission reduction commitments by developed countries for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from 2013 onwards. The second Group, AWG-LCA, was to deliberate upon long-term cooperative action by all countries aimed at furthering the key goals of long-term mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance, keeping in mind and not independent of the short-term emissions reductions in the second commitment period decided upon in the parallel KP track. These two Drafts or negotiating texts with specific portions placed in square brackets signifying areas of disagreement or difference were to form the basis of negotiations in Copenhagen,

The sabotage of this entire process, and of the Copenhagen conference itself, was engineered by the US and its allies even before the conference began and at Copenhagen right off the bat. Various parallel texts started doing the rounds including the notorious Danish text. Denmark, which as host and Chair of the conference was expected to display neutrality and facilitate a democratic process reflecting the views of all delegate nations, steered almost all discussions towards the LCA track to the virtual exclusion of the KP track. This in effect meant that developed country obligations to substantially reduce emissions in the second commitment period was simply ignored while a single track involving all countries became the focus of all discussions.

This very same agenda, of imposing a single Treaty framework to replace the twin-pronged Kyoto framework of common but differentiated responsibility wherein developed countries would undertake legally binding emission cuts while developing countries would undertake mitigation and adaptation actions supported by finance and technology from the former, was simultaneously focused on by the US and its allies in their conference Plenary speeches as well as in press briefings. In fact this idea of replacing the Kyoto protocol with a single Treaty framework, in which developing countries especially large ones such as China and India would also take on binding cuts,  has been the central cleft that has split the Copenhagen conference and shattered the international compact on which the entire global negotiations process has been based.

Even at this late stage, efforts are underway to “parachute in” a Danish text known to be a surrogate for US views, by-passing the two AWG Drafts. When developing countries protested, Denmark’s Prime Minister, who has taken over as the Conference Chair from his environment minister, remarked that “the global outcome should not be hostage to procedure.” Apart from the fact that crucial substantive issues are at stake, no drafts or texts other than the AWG-KP and LCA Drafts have any locus standi in Copenhagen and should not be countenanced in any form.

Poor tactics, wrong strategy It is a matter of some surprise why these moves by the US and its allies, actively aided by the Danish Chair, were not nipped in the bud at the very outset in the opening days of the Conference rather than being allowed to overwhelm the Conference to the point of completely undermining it. The official and often reiterated Indian position that it did not want to take issues with anybody but would adopt a constructive role offers some clue. It took two walk-outs by African delegates, with India playing intermediary in the second instance (Indian negotiators were at pains to point out that they had not actually joined), for the Conference Chair to even nominally restore the twin-track discussions. In Copenhagen, cooperation has been taken for, and has translated into, acquiescence.

In fact, if one looks back to developments over the past two years and more going back to even before Bali,  it would seem that India and other large developing countries have paid a heavy price for going along with supposedly “consensus” formulations of the US and other G7 countries in earlier meetings of the G8 plus G5. This is not just hindsight, as regular readers of these columns would know that this had been noted even at the time in reviews of the climate discussions at these Meetings. Joint statements of the G8 plus G5 on aspirational goals and collaborative efforts to combat climate change were issued at the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm in Germany in mid 2007, at Toyako in Japan in 2008 and at the so-called “Major Economies Forum” in L’Aquila, Italy earlier this year. While India basked in the supposed glory of dining at the high table of global powers, and others thought these had brought about a gradual shift in the US position, these Statements implicitly put forward the idea that the US, other developed countries and India along with other large developing countries were all sailing in the same boat.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, in a signed op-ed article published during the Copenhagen conference (International Herald Tribune, 15 December, 2009) made clear that the US position in Copenhagen was no aberration and represented continuity from the Bush era, and that US indeed saw India and China as part of one club along with itself and therefore wanted a single climate Treaty framework for all together. Clinton wrote that success at Copenhagen required that “all major economies, developed and developing, need to take robust action to reduce their carbon emissions”, that “they agree to a system that enables full transparency” (i.e. that commitments by India and China too should be subject to verification as with developed country targets), and that the US had taken the lead to bring developed and key developing countries to tackle climate change together through initiatives such as the “Major Economies Forum… and agreements at the G-20 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation” meets.
The dangers of yet another “political statement” at Copenhagen should be obvious!     

Need for introspection        Other large developing countries would no doubt draw their own lessons, but India certainly needs to do a great deal of introspection. We have earlier commented in these columns on India’s defensive posture and reactive positions on climate change, all with an eye on developed country audiences. We had also noted last week the severe problems in India’s unilateralist position, all of which were very much in evidence in Copenhagen. Leader of the Indian delegation, India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh repeatedly declared that India had come “to defend its own interests, not anybody else’s”. Does the Indian government think they are in Copenhagen for trade talks where each country is engaged only in defending its own turf, and where only forces of imperialist globalization think global interests are at stake? In the climate crisis, national interests are inextricably intertwined with global climate change and therefore with the actions of other nations. All the red lines the Minister drew upon arrival in Copenhagen referred only to the LCA track, not one referred to the KP track and developed country emissions. Does the Indian government think it can address national interests without addressing the need to tackle climate change itself which is a global phenomenon and for which developed country emission cuts are essential?

India also needs to think seriously about another depressing new trend that emerged in Copenhagen, one that is scarcely being noted by commentators even though it has been simmering for some time now, perhaps for fear that doing so would also bring other worms too of the woodwork. Small island nations grouped under the umbrella Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), latterly joined by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and together accounting for over 85 nations, have developed and strongly expressed their own distinctive position and negotiating stance, different from that of the mainstream grouping of G77 plus China comprising 130 countries. While this has not led to any acrimony or disputes, or even to any specific demand on the floor of the Conference, it has brought to the surface several issues hitherto brushed under the carpet. The Island nations and the LDCs are, with good reason deeply concerned about climate change, the former because they are about to disappear under rising sea levels and the latter because they are hugely vulnerable and threatened, and without the resources to cope or survive. These countries see China and India with huge economic growth rates and with high emissions, and do want some definitive action on this front from nations with the financial and technological capacity to do so. There is also a deep sense of disquiet among these countries at parleys taking place among the “big five” developing countries or between them and the developed nations, fearing a mutually accommodative deal that would leave them to fend for themselves. Yet it was only on Tuesday of the second week in Copenhagen that China, and not yet India, declared that it would not take even a single penny of any finances made available by developed countries under the climate agreement.
There is much to think about after Copenhagen.       

12th December 2009
D. Raghunandan

As this piece goes to press, the Copenhagen Conference on climate change has begun. Predictably, the developed countries are up to their usual games, tabling outrageous proposals which they know will be unacceptable to the developing countries but which they hope will pressurize the latter into accepting other unfavourable terms. The so-called Danish proposal, which is in fact a draft jointly drawn up by the US, EU and some others, is one such. Australia had already put forward another proposal earlier. All these seek to reverse the entire almost two decades old Kyoto framework. Almost everything is being called into question and thrown up for renewed debate: whether at all to have binding emissions cuts, having a single framework for both developed and developing countries in place of the Kyoto principle of common but differentiated responsibility, putting an extremely low price on the damage caused by historical emissions by developed countries and so on.

We shall examine all these developments next week as they unfold. For now, let us look at the position that India has taken with it to Copenhagen, especially as outlined by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh in Parliament the week before. It is important to understand the implications of this position since, over the next ten days in Copenhagen, it will have significant impact on how India negotiates and, since India is a key player as a large growing economy,  also on the outcome itself

New Indian Position The Minister’s announcement in Parliament of a new Indian position on climate change, namely a unilateral quantitative target for slowing down the growth of Indian emissions, has stirred a new debate in India. Some in India have hailed the decision to voluntarily reduce emissions intensity by 20-25% by 2020 as a major step forward for the Copenhagen conference and have also praised the supporting arguments advanced by the Minister. The main thrust of the government’s new position is however based on a faulty if not deliberately misleading understanding of climate change and on flawed perceptions regarding the outcome from Copenhagen. Since the Minister was at pains to point out that, contrary to appearances supposedly caused only by his colourful language, there were no differences within the government, his arguments will be taken as those of the government as a whole.

It seems to have gone almost entirely unnoticed that the Minister’s speech contained no mention of deep cuts in developed country emissions as called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the run up to Copenhagen, the US, EU and most developed countries have announced extremely low targets, dashing hopes of concluding an effective Treaty to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations below danger levels. While the government has gone along with joint statements elsewhere calling for deep cuts by advanced countries, including in the recent BASIC draft initiated by China, when speaking for itself it has chosen to completely ignore this requirement.

Some “non-negotiables” were declared for India, such as no binding emission cuts (which nobody was seriously asking for) and no peaking year for Indian emissions (which too can be derived from pronounced trajectories). But no similar “bold red lines” were drawn underlining the minimum that India expects developed countries to do, clearly signaling that their current low targets are of little concern to it. This despite IPCC having made amply clear, and the Group of 77 plus China having repeatedly demanded, that developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050.

In sharp contrast, the US is offering only 3 percent by 2020 and less than 80 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. The EU is putting only around 25 percent on the table. So too is Japan, but with reference to 2005 levels, equivalent to single-digit reduction compared to 1990, the baseline year under the Kyoto Protocol. If developed countries, together accounting for around half of all global emissions, are going to make only such small reductions, then whatever India does with regard to its less than 4 percent of global emissions will not matter. The world will be left staring at possibly irreversible climate change impacts and the Copenhagen conference will amount to nought. But no red lines here for the Indian government, no non-negotiables.

Even these measly cuts by developed countries will not materialize in real terms, since actual cuts could be discounted against supposedly equivalent tree-plantation or other mitigation action in developing countries. Again, no red lines on offsets.

On fund transfers, US President Obama has proudly declared that there is growing consensus among developed countries on putting together a climate fund of $10 billion and that the US would make “suitable contributions” towards it. This compared to the $100 billion per year required as per EU estimates. No red lines here either.

Unilateralism So what exactly is the government negotiating for in Copenhagen? Is no shift in position or minimum commitment expected from developed countries in terms of emissions reduction, fund or technology transfers? Why has India announced new measures to reduce emissions intensity without seeking anything in return, such reciprocity being the very purpose of any negotiation?

The major answer provided in the Minister’s speech, and one he has been repeating often, in his letter to MPs, his leaked letter to the PM and in numerous press interviews, is that India needs to take unilateral emission control measures because India is one of the major victims of climate change. “India, of all the 192 countries in the world, owes a responsibility not to the world but to itself to take climate change seriously. We are not doing the world a favour. Please forget Copenhagen; forget the UN.  We have to do it in our own self-interest.”

That such an idea can be advanced seriously stretches one’s credulity and one may be forgiven for therefore concluding that the real intention is to mislead the Indian public. Climate itself, and thus climate change, are global phenomena: the monsoons and their vagaries, frequently referred to by the Minister, are not purely Indian nor are they caused in the atmosphere above India only. Erratic rainfall, extreme weather events, melting glaciers and rising sea levels inundating coastal areas will all occur in India not just because of Indian emissions but due to changes in the global climate resulting from accumulated greenhouse gases emitted mostly by developed countries. These impacts will occur even if India reduces its emissions to zero! It is completely fallacious to argue, and highly irresponsible of those in positions of authority to convey to the public, that Indian actions alone can tackle climate change impacts in India.

This writer has long argued including in these columns, that India does indeed need to arrive at and declare a quantified target for slowing down emissions growth rates, but conditional upon developed countries committing to the steep cuts required. Not only does the science demand such action by large developing countries, such a stance would also help them to occupy the moral high ground and leave developed countries with no excuse not to undertake deep emissions cuts. One’s quarrel is therefore not per se the offer to reduce emissions intensity over the next decade --- although modalities and priorities still need to be discussed, particularly as regards reducing inequalities in energy access among sections of society --- but the unilateral nature of the declaration, the abdication of any demand for reciprocal measures and deep emission cuts by developed countries and the open license given to them to change the terms of reference in Copenhagen. Non-negotiables for India should go along with non-negotiables for developed countries: sauce for the goose must also be sauce for the gander!

The Minister’s claim that the new stance represents a bold and major departure from the traditional ponderousness of Indian diplomacy, waiting for the last minute before arriving at even tepid decisions, makes a virtue of necessity and is completely belied by the very manner of its announcement. India could have made such a conditional offer much earlier and to more telling effect on the negotiations process as a leading voice of the developing world. Instead, India arrived at a flawed decision, the last major developing country to do so, having been dragged there by China and pressured by earlier declarations by Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia. No encomiums greeted the Indian announcement in the international media or by other governments. Only President Obama mentioned it, and well he might, for he can now breeze through Copenhagen comfortably with no pressure on him, certainly not from India. India has gained little by its gesture, not even the few brownie points it may have expected. On the contrary it may have squandered a crucial opportunity to exert some positive influence on the global climate negotiations process.

Dangerous Implications The days ahead will show how much the new Indian stance will influence the negotiations in Copenhagen. Since the Indian stance is one of unilateral action, it will be perceived that, whatever else India says or signs on to with other countries, India does not really intend to put pressure on the US and other advanced countries. Further, unilateralism would also convey to smaller developing countries, especially the Island States and Least Developed Countries, that there is some covert understanding between the US-led developed countries and India wherein both have already agreed on a mild outcome in a process where neither will push the other. Signs of this are already being seen where the Island States and even Bangladesh, for instance, have signaled their unhappiness at larger developing countries carving out a separate negotiating stance throwing open the possibility of a compromise that leaves the least developed and most vulnerable to fend for themselves. Straws in the wind, no doubt, and surely egged on if not prompted by some clever manipulation by the developed countries with centuries of divide-and-rule experience. But that is precisely why these are dangerous waters to go fishing in and India’s unilateralism bait will certainly attract the sharks.