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Journalism of Courage
Amidst the widening rift between countries over the future of Kyoto Protocol,the climate change conference here in Cancun seemed headed for another Copenhagen-like finish,with little chance of an outcome acceptable to everyone.
At the end of the first week of negotiations,China and Japan on Friday engaged in a very public spat that summed up the seemingly irreconcilable positions that countries have boxed themselves into over the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol,and put question marks over the fate of these talks.
While China accused Japan of trying to sabotage the talks with its decision not to agree for an extension of Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012,Tokyo snapped back saying that major developing countries like China and India were not taking their responsibilities seriously.
India,EU and the United States joined the debate,taking expected lines. The main issue now and the main problem that we are facing… is that some countries dont like the Kyoto Protocol and want to kill the Kyoto Protocol. This is a very worrisome move. To us it is very clear. For any balanced outcome to be possible,there has to be a continuation of Kyoto Protocol. There must be a second commitment period. Without this,there would be no balanced outcome at all, Huang Kuikang,deputy head of Chinese negotiating team,said.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol requires a group of 37 rich and industrialised countries,including Japan,to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions by about five percent below the 1990 levels in the period between 2008 and 2012 what is called the first commitment period.
India and China,both being developing countries,are not covered by this mandate,while the US has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Finalisation of emission reduction targets for a second commitment period,beyond 2012,is one of the key areas of climate negotiation.
Japan,earlier this week,said it would not agree for a second commitment period and instead called for another legally-binding framework with the participation of all major emitters the US,China and India.
India said it was very,very uncharacteristic of Japan to take such stand. It has made things very difficult. Continuation of Kyoto Protocol is intrinsic to any progress on the overall outcome of these talks, Environment Minsiter Jairam Ramesh said.
But Tokyo shot back,saying developing countries were ignoring the fact that they too had the responsibility to deal with climate change. The EU also made it clear which side of the divide it was. While stressing on the differentiated responsibility principle,countries often forget that the principle actually has a common at the start and respective capabilities at the end, said Laurence Graff,head of the international relations unit in the climate department of the European Commission. Graff though reiterated that the European countries were in favour of having a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
A group of Latin American countries warned that the talks would collapse if there was no second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. We will not allow these countries to get away and make no commitments. We want concrete commitments for Kyoto, said Claudia Salerno,Venezuelas special envoy for climate change.
The row over Kyoto Protocol has completely undermined some real progress made in areas of technology transfer and forestry. Negotiators said,in both these sectors,there was widespread agreement between countries on what needs to be done and a deal was ready to be clinched. But in the absence of any agreement over the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and some other areas including finance,these might have to be held back for now.
