Crack in summit ice

“Today’s big success has been that the negotiations are back on track. Under sustained pressure from developing countries,the host nation has given a commitment that there would be no attempt to thwart the two-track negotiating process,” Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said. Ramesh was among the group of ministers from a number of developing countries,including China,who met the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen to get this assurance.

Following this,the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA),that is formulating the long-term action plan to deal with climate change,and the other working group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) whose mandate is to finalise emission-reduction targets for rich countries for a period beyond 2012,began their work.

The two groups together have divided the work in 13 smaller groups in order to finish the job expeditiously. The reports by the two working groups would form the basis of the political agreement of the heads of states.

Helping kickstart the talks was an announcement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the US would press to raise $100 billion a year worldwide by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with global warming. She made this offer contingent on reaching a broader agreement on “transparency.”

So far,the negotiations had been stalled because of two reasons.

The developing countries,led by the African group,complained that not enough attention was being given on the AWG-KP track because of which the emission-reduction targets for the rich countries were not being finalized. Additionally,developing countries were also resentful of Denmark’s decision to prepare its own draft agreement outside of the negotiating process.

In another important event,India and China were seen to be making progress in bilateral discussions with the United States over the issue of international verification of their domestic voluntary mitigation actions. The United States has led the rich countries in demanding that India and China allow the review of their voluntary actions by the international community,something that the two countries strongly resist.

Chinese vice minister for foreign affairs He Yafei told reporters that his country was willing to offer “explanations and clarifications” on its domestic actions to the international community,if need be. He said China was also willing to “consider international exchange,dialogue and cooperation that is not intrusive and does not infringe on China’s sovereignty”.

Ramesh said the Chinese position was consistent with the bilateral agreement reached between India and China on this issue.

Meanwhile,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Copenhagen this evening to attend the Heads of States meeting on Friday. Manmohan Singh’s flight was delayed by about three hours after a hydraulic trolley carrying food accidentally hit the aircraft at the Delhi airport before the take-off.

In a statement issued in New Delhi before taking off,the Prime Minister said he was looking forward to “constructive deliberations in Copenhagen which meet the collective aspirations of all humankind and enable us to move forward in the global efforts to combat climate change”. Singh is slated to meet his Chinese counterpart Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday morning.