India, US, China set to...
“There is a difference between the developed and the develop ing world on historical respon sibility and capabilities of each country. It cannot end,” Ajay Mathur, spokesperson for India’s climate negotiations team, told HT.
President Barack Obama has only two bilateral meet ings scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the Paris conference so far — with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’ Xi Jinping.
“The purpose of these meet ings,” a senior White House official said last week, “is to make sure that leaders are on the same page about our objectives and strategy going into these final two weeks of negotiation.”
A comment piece on Sunday in the Chinese official news agency Xinhua pointed to the “stubbornness” of some devel oped nations in accusing devel oping countries and “blaming them for blocking the birth of a new international treaty.”
The US, and other devel oped economies, however want every country to share the responsibility equally for global warming and contribute equally towards its mitigation to keep it below the annual two degree Celsius threshold.
The next big dispute is about how to ensure countries deliver on their commitments, the vol untarily fixed emission reduc tion targets with a stock-taking scheduled for 2025.
India is advocating self assessment and self-reporting Environment Secretary Ashok Lavasa told HT recently “there could be stocktaking of climate action plans by a global body but not a review”.
But the US and European Union want some sort of an international mechanism to verify those claims.
The two also differ on provid ing public climate finance to help developing nations move to cleaner fuels and technology
A proposal for providing “predictable” financing to developing countries is being rested by the US, Indian offi cials said pointing to a paper circulated by the Americans in Paris on Sunday.
But there is convergence too Both India and the US agree the Paris outcome not be binding on countries with penalties.
“We have come here to talk and move forward. I believe we will,” Mathur said when asked about the Modi-obama meeting.
With inputs from Sutirtho
Patranobis in Beijing