Carbon cut: India, China demand global fund

Technology transfer sought to counter climate change

The four countries want an “appropriate institutional arrangement” and a “Global Climate Fund” to ensure “additional, adequate, predictable and sustained funding” from the developed nations so that the developing countries can absorb more green technologies.

Since almost all climate-friendly technologies are expensive, less-developed nations demand finance and technology support from the economically advanced. The demand is in hundreds of billions.

Technology transfer and financing remains a controversial subject at the core of the climate change debate.

The BASIC draft — a copy of which is available with Deccan Herald — suggests that the seed money for the global fund can be made available by reforming the existing “Global Environment Facility”. The contribution would come from the developed countries, multilateral development banks, private sector and carbon markets. The fund will have specific windows for mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and capacity-building.

However, it does not provide any architecture of the carbon market. The BASIC document is not a part of the 200-page official negotiating text.

But it has been put on the table by these four nations to counter a rather harsh proposal from Denmark.

The G-77 countries support many provisions in the BASIC draft. “The Danish proposal has tough conditions, many of which are not acceptable to India,” said Sunita Narain, director of Centre for Science and Environment. Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh went to China almost ten days ago to put India’s seal of approval on the BASIC draft that will be discussed at Copenhagen. Climate negotiations from 192 nations will start the negotiations on Monday.

Sensing US and EU moves to use climate change as “non-tariff barrier” harming the economies, these four countries strongly recommended against any such move.
To counter contentious issues related to technology dumping without assessing its social implications, they wish to have an “appropriate forum to address the potential economic and social consequences and impacts of mitigation response measures”.
On the forestry sector, they demanded sustained funding from the developed world to maintain and improve their forests, which act as huge carbon sink.

“If Brazil and Indonesia can demand incentives for reducing deforestation, countries like India and China can also demand incentives for adding to their forest cover,” Ramesh has stated.