Taking a hard stance for the coming climate talks in Durban this December, the government has submitted a proposal to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to include three contentious issues of unilateral trade measures, intellectual property rights (IPR) and equitable access to sustainable development for inclusion in the talks’ provisional agenda.
Global climate talks are scheduled to be held in November-December this year in Durban and will be significant in deciding the future of the Kyoto Protocol whose first commitment period is set to expire in 2012.
“These issues have been neglected and not properly addressed in the 2010 Cancun decision on the outcome of the adhoc working group on long-term cooperative action under the convention despite being raised by India and a large number of developing countries prior to and in Cancun,” said the ministry of environment and forests in a statement on Monday.
The MoEF’s stance assumes importance as developed countries, especially the United States are of the view that these issues were settled in Cancun last year whereas most developing countries are of the view that not all the issues were addressed in Cancun and remain unresolved.
The December 2010 talks mentioned “equity” without defining it. India has defined it as a right to have equal access to global atmospheric space – something opposed by the developed countries.
India requested that the three issues be included in the 17th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 17) provisional agenda and developing countries in the Bonn talks- that ended on 17 June- objected to attempts to have these items addressed by the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) that has no mandate to provide guidance (thereby influencing) the COP agenda.
