On the actions taken by the developing countries, the accord talks of implementing nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs), voluntary. However, there is no aggregate aim for the ambition of developing country actions, but their pledges are listed in an annex. This is again contrary to the IPCC’s suggestion of developing countries deviate from the Business as Usual emission to the tune of 15-30 per cent by 2020. Perhaps, the only good thing in the accord is about national communication, with governments agreeing to submit their national communication once every two years. This is indeed significant, as many of the developing countries have so far submitted only one national communication. India for instance has so far submitted only one, way back in 1994.

Even on issues where the negotiations had progressed such as the fund for reducing emissions from deforestation, land use change and on technology cooperation, the accord remains silent on rules to implement them. Last but not the least, the accord in itself is not legally binding; it is a political declaration. And is supported by an unknown number of countries. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it will be implemented.

The Copenhagen summit did come out with a number of decisions, known commonly as the decisions of the Conference of Parties and Meeting of Parties. However, only three are of importance to the future of climate negotiations. They are – a) the decision on the Copenhagen Accord, b) the decision on the outcome of works under the AWG-LCA and AWG-KP. While the decisions of the LC and KP leave it open for further negotiations. This does not mean that the Kyoto Protocol will be discarded and c) the work programme for 2010 in the lead up to the next Climate Summit in Mexico is yet to be defined. Given the track record of negotiations in the last two years, one wonders, if an “open ended process” as defined in the decision related to the LCA and KP in Copenhagen would help us achieve much in Mexico. At the end of the day, it is more a “political will” which works, and there is only so much the negotiators can do. Are there any losers or gainers from this two year long negotiation exercise? Is there any hope to achieve in Mexico a fair, ambitious, equitable and a legally binding deal?

The clear gainers are the countries with large emission rates, both from the industrialised and the developing world. The industrialised countries led Maldives’ M Nasheed; his country is among the most threatened by rising sea-levels by the US, with support from Canada, Australia and Japan have benefited by delaying the announcement of concrete emission reduction action plans by a year. In addition to this, they also managed to make the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol open ended. It means that they push for domestic legislation and a pledge and review approach as against an internationally binding regiment. This also leaves room for the manner in which they reduce their emissions, domestic targets versus offsetting, by buying credits, by investing in developing country actions.

Large emitters from the developing countries also benefited, as it successfully stalled any attempts to get them on to a “legally binding emission reduction regime”. This also means that, they are free from subscribing to any “emission peaking year”.      The clear losers are the least developing economies and the smaller of the developing economies. The reason, they have by and large vast population which are highly vulnerable to climate change. The prevailing economic condition of the countries does not help the population to cope up with the issue.

Road Ahead As far as the Mexico Climate Summit is concerned there continues to be some hope. The world leaders have seen the public dismay at their conduct at Copenhagen and given the fact that there is still room open for negotiations as per the decisions taken at Copenhagen. However, countries now need to look at the issue as a “Global Issue” rather than as a “trade issue”. A number of heads of states have announced that a global deal is possible in Mexico, which includes the Indian Prime Minister. It is now left to collective effort to make it a reality. Not just a deal but a fair, ambitious, equitable and internationally legally binding framework for a post 2012 era. One which will ensure the maximum temperature rise to be kept as far below as two degrees Celsius, limiting it to 1.5 degrees as far as possible. 

The author is policy advisor, Greenpeace, India.

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