World has changed, all must cut emissions: US, EU

Annex-I countries are mandated to make legally-binding emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol as they are held responsible for causing unregulated emissions.

Making clear that they would like to see “all” countries contribute towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the US and the EU have said they no longer agree with the differentiation that puts the burden of emission cuts only on the developed and rich countries.

They said in the Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions (INDCs) that every country has to announce in the run-up to the Paris conference next year, countries should mainly include actions that will reduce emissions, preferably without any financial support from the developed world. India and other developing countries want adaptation measures to also be counted as “contributions” in INDCs which will form the basis of the climate agreement expected to be finalised in Paris.

Amidst a marked spurt in activity at the Lima climate conference at the start of the second week, both US and EU said the world had changed “dramatically” since 1992 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) had been agreed upon and therefore division of the world into Annex-1 countries (the 37 nations mentioned in Annex-I of the Convention) and the rest was no longer valid.

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Annex-I countries are mandated to make legally-binding emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol as they are held responsible for causing unregulated emissions and also have the capacity and resources to reduce the emissions. There is no such requirement for the 150-odd non-Annex countries.

“Nations have undergone enormous evolution. So we cannot differentiate according to the old rules of 1992 in which there was a bloc of countries in Annex-I and the rest that does not make any commitment,” said EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

The US special envoy on climate, Todd Stern, made the same point in similar words. “Those categories (Annex-I and the rest) were set up to make sure developing countries would not be expected to take on burdens with respect to climate change that would interfere with their policies on development, of eradicating poverty. It was a completely appropriate principle. But the world doesn’t stop. The world keeps changing and it has been changing in a material way dramatically. Every year there are dozens of countries now that are non-Annex countries that are at a higher level than some Annex-I countries,” he said.

“To say we are going to frame the structure, form and content of the (future climate) agreement based on who is in which category in 1992 seems to us to be untenable,” he said.

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The principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) enshrined in the UNFCCC is something that developing countries, including India, swear by while negotiating every proposal at the climate conference. It is this principle that has allowed China, and India, to let their emissions rise uncontrolled in the last decade even while developed world was forced to take action to cut emissions.

India has rejected the proposals to alter the CBDR principle as it exists. “We are not here to rewrite the Convention (UNFCCC). The negotiations have to happen in accordance of the principles stated in the Convention,” India said at one of its interventions.

An Indian delegate later said the new negotiating texts were “disappointing” but only a “work in progress”.

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