Coercive tactics

Though the Cancun climate conference is into the second week now, there does not seem to be much progress from the unsatisfactory outcome of the Copenhagen meet held last year. Much preparatory work has gone into the meeting but the 16th conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have stuck to the positions they held at earlier. Japan has made the first unhelpful move with the declaration that it would not accept new targets under a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. This would mean the death of the agreement. This is not exactly a new position but at Copenhagen it had been agreed that the Kyoto Protocol would be safe. What the Japanese position means is that a new binding treaty on carbon emission may be difficult to achieve at the current conference.

The Japanese are unhappy with the US which has not even ratified the protocol but it is more directed at countries like China and India which have refused to accept binding targets. The position will hurt developing countries more than others because the expiry of the protocol will free the developed countries of even the responsibilities they had under it. The Japanese stand would suit the developed countries. The agreement at Copenhagen to provide $30 billion to the developing countries by 2012 for mitigation and adaptation has not been adhered to by the developed countries. Only a small part of it has been released and the rest is caught in deliberate misinterpretation of the terms and conditions.

The UNFCCC maintains that a deal on adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer is still possible if there is a spirit of compromise among the parties. But the developed countries’ idea of compromise is skewed in favour of protecting their interests and treating all countries alike. This would undermine the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ which is the basis of the Kyoto protocol. The developing countries should continue their pressure for adequate funding and technology transfer. The refusal of the developed countries to make any forward movement may be a bargaining tactic to pressurise the emerging countries to give more than they should in the negotiations. While the developing countries do what they can to reduce emissions, as both India and China have said they would,  they should resist coercive tactics.