Big Asian powers sceptical on climate deal
10-May-2010
Source: Financial Times
Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, said the discussions had reached “virtually a dead end”, with the two largest emitters of carbon – the US and China – unwilling to take on any new commitments. “The prospect of a breakthrough in 2010 is very, very remote,” Mr Ramesh said on Sunday, after attending a climate-change conference in Beijing at the weekend. After what many governments viewed as the failure at Copenhagen to achieve a strong deal, high hopes had been expressed that some of the thorniest issues could be resolved at the planned conference in Cancún this December. Xie Zhenhua, China’s lead climate change negotiator, also sounded sceptical about the prospects for a more robust international agreement at Cancún. “Climate change negotiations have already made gradual progress, but there is still a relatively long way to go to reach a legally binding agreement,” said Mr Xie, who is a vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, the main planning body. Mr Ramesh said that the failure to get Senate approval for climate change legislation in the US had undermined the authority of the Obama administration in the discussions. “The moral and political authority of the US has been completely eroded,” he said. He added that some of the reports in European media criticizing the outcome of Copenhagen reflected fears in Europe that the region has become much less influential in the climate change debate. “Europe is not yet used to the fact that it got completely bypassed in the last two days [of the Copenhagen talks],” he said. Mr Ramesh said the alliance between India, South Africa, Brazil and China at Copenhagen had prevented China from becoming isolated at the conference, despite attempts by developed-country governments to “ambush” China. There were now discussions about broadening the group of large developing nations at future climate-change talks to include countries such as Indonesia, Argentina and Pakistan, he said. He confirmed reports of a sharp disagreement between the US delegation and Mr Xie during the key final meeting in Copenhagen between the US and the leaders of the large developing nations. After President Barack Obama told the meeting – which was also attended by Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, and Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state – that an outline agreement had been reached, he said Mr Xie shouted and twice banged the table. “What did he say?” Mr Ramesh quoted Mrs Clinton as asking. “He’s congratulating us,” Mr Obama said, according to Mr Ramesh. When asked what he thought Mr Xie was shouting, Mr Ramesh said: “I think he was saying the Americans were not fulfilling their part of the bargain. That’s my guess.”
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