The endgame of climate negotiations at Doha began on Wednesday with India and China falling yet again at the vortex of the fight again. The small island and least developed countries began to target ‘equity’ as the obstacle to a better climate deal even as they dimmed their clamour for finances from the developed countries.
Equity remains a non-negotiable for the larger developing economies, including China and India, who would be expected to take greater action to reduce emissions in the next round and remain worried about the burden being shifted unequally from those who have emitted greenhouse gases historically to those who may in the future.
Till the early part of the second week the small island and least developed countries had publicly aligned closer to the other developing country partners in the G77+China group to hammer the developed countries for clarity on how they would ramp up finance from now to 2020 when they need to deliver US $100 billion every year.
But on Wednesday these countries, who had formed an alliance with the EU at the Durban meet last year, seemed to shift their focus away from finance as they claimed even a fuzzy idea of finance would make them happy. But they warned that ‘equity’ could not be used to distract from increased emission reduction targets for all countries between now and 2020.
The small island countries and the least developed countries had coupled closely with the EU last year tried to sell the idea that equity in burden sharing came in the way of increasing countries’ commitments and should be put aside at the moment. In other words, countries should not bother about comparing who was required to act and who actually was undertaking more emission reduction.
Countering the move India and China both warned that a deal without equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility for any future arrangements would not be acceptable. Both pointed out that studies showed the developing world had already committed greater reductions between 2012-2020 than the rich countries.
“When we talk of equity, it is often perceived as something opposed to ambition. Future arrangements must be built on this principle. How can we advance an ambitious global regime in the post 2020 period if it is not anchored in equity and does not have assurance of access to financial resources and technologies?” said Mira Mehrishi, the head of the Indian delegation said at Doha.
Joint secretary RR Rashmi explained, “The idea of equity finds its place in two tracks of the negotiations but we have to make sure it is articulated in a manner that it gets operationalised and does not remain just as an ideal.”
The Chinese head of delegation Xie Zhenhua too reiterated that under the future arrangements now under discussions the two principles were a non-negotiable for his country.
2012 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.