With the financial crises deepening in Europe and the United States, "money" is likely to become the major bone of contention between developed and developing countries at the UN climate change conference in Durban, South Africa. The increasing influence of stakeholders from different countries seems to be pushing various groups further apart and the climate conference looks likely to see greater flaunting of agreed principles, including "common but differentiated responsibilities".

Journalists have begun writing premature obituaries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), especially of the Kyoto Protocol that is due to expire next year. All this makes the Durban conference look like the last ditch effort to save the planet, though no one seems to appreciate the travesty of this situation.

US President Barack Obama dealt an early blow to the climate conference when he told a press conference in Canberra, Australia, that advanced economies "can't do this alone" and insisted that "if we are taking a series of steps then it's important that emerging economies like China and India are also part of the bargain". This after the US reneged on its commitment to the Green Climate Fund recently, and has refused to ratify the globally recognized Kyoto Protocol and postponed its promised date to join post-Kyoto climate change regimes from 2016 to 2020.

Similarly, British Climate Secretary Chris Huhne has been talking of the need to evolve a new "system that reflects the genuine diversity of responsibility and capacity". He says a country should not be described as "developed" simply because it "happened to be in OECD in 1992".

Indeed, the US and the UK both have been talking about discarding Kyoto Protocol and evolving a new legally binding regime by 2015 which could "begin to bite" by 2020.

Most scientific projections, on the other hand, call for immediate mitigation efforts. But debates on mitigation remain stuck to blame fixing.

Greenhouse gas emissions on per capita or cumulative basis during the last 250 years put the US, the EU and Russia in a very different light but these countries insist on basing their mitigation on static 2007 levels, which makes China the largest polluter and India the third largest. This distorts the "polluter must pay" principle.

The Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 created a fast-start-fund by developed countries to help developing countries adapt to and fight climate change. It was to have $30 billion as fast-start finance during 2009-2012 and provide $100 billion a year by 2020. But since no specific methodologies of raising and disbursing the money were finalized, it continues to be a non-starter.

These developments seem to have pushed developing countries to the wall. Because of the developed countries' increasing unilateralism, the developing nations have proposed a "ban" on any unilateral trade measure on grounds of climate change mitigation. Historical responsibility and equity remain central to developing nations' negotiation strategies. They continue to insist for an unconditional commitment to Kyoto Protocol II and will not agree to any new legally binding regimes.

The least developed countries, small island states and African nations that are most vulnerable to climate change, are the most enthusiastic about the Durban conference. They are the strongest proponents of building consensus between developed and developing countries on the extension of the Kyoto Protocol and emission reductions targets. They are the only groups that are trying to cobble together some face-saving measure to prevent the Kyoto Protocol from dying in Durban.

But the developed countries seem too occupied with their economic crises and are desperate to avoid any additional financial commitments at home or abroad. They are trying to legitimize their existing low level of commitment and weak mitigation, preserve their carbon trading and continue with their current patterns of production and consumption. They expect developing countries to transform their voluntary actions into legal commitments without agreeing to make support to them equally legally binding. This void seems too wide to be filled at a 10-day conference.

The author is professor and chairperson, Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament in Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.

Related

• Carbon capture: One answer to climate change
• China issues white paper on climate change
• Police prepared for Durban climate change talks
• Addressing climate change: China's internal demand
• China to cope with climate change in 11 major aspects

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)