The Union Cabinet is likely to decide the non-negotiables for the upcoming climate change negotiations on Thursday. The Cabinet will take a call on the shape of the new global agreement that India would push for at these talks and over the next two years till the pact is signed in 2015.
The External Affairs and Environment Ministries have together recommended that India should seek to ensure that the new agreement remains firmly embedded within the existing U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. They have recommended that the principle of historical emissions should remain one of the critical parameters in deciding the responsibilities of countries to cut emissions under the 2015 agreement.
The government is likely to empower the climate negotiators to defend the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities in the talks just as in previous years. It has been recommended that India should not agree to letting the global community dictate terms by which climate actions are taken outside the U.N. convention — something referred to as “complimentary and supplementary actions” in climate negotiation jargon.
The nodal Ministries have also recommended that under the new agreement developing countries are permitted to volunteer their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and the developed countries are required to do enough to meet the global target of keeping temperature rise below 2°C.
India will work closely with the emerging group of Like-Minded Developing Countries and the BASIC nations to demand that there be a clear timeline for how the promised finances from the rich countries will flow to the poor. The developed countries had promised the annual flows of $100 billion starting 2020 but are yet to provide details on how these would be transferred and generated. India is likely to set the differentiation clear between provision of public funds and private investments from rich countries and not let them sell one in place of the other.
The Union Cabinet will also take a call on whether developed countries should be allowed to set up new markets under the 2015 global regime for trading in carbon credits even before they commit to deep emission cuts.
In the matter of the greenhouse refrigerant gases — HFCs — the government is likely to continue with its existing stance which has found support from various G20 countries as well as the BASIC group.
