It's time the green brigade joins the banker-bashing, Occupy Wall Street movement

Another climate summit and another potential disappointment facing the green brigade. Even before it officially kick-starts, there is a widespread feeling that the Durban Summit is expected to be another brick in the collapsing climate wall. The reason this time, though, is that governments in the West are overwhelmed by the sovereign financial crisis and hence climate change mitigation action is out of the window.

The time has come to develop a national consensus, define the national position and determine red lines for future negotiations, otherwise we risk endangering our future growth prospects.

On my last couple of days in Cancun, while vestiges of the sense of despondency and low achievement of the initial days remain, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh's impromptu statement on "binding commitments" and "appropriate legal form" has jerked many pundits -- especially those from the subcontinent -- up.

How does the UNFCCC select its various locations for its annual climate change meets? What I am hinting at is, why Cancun? Why, for that matter, Copenhagen, Poznan or Bali? I have been told that cities vie for the honour, just like a sporting event such as the Olympics or the Asiad, and pay for it.

I have reached Cancun few hours’ back to attend the 16th Conference of Parties (CoP-16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and have been greeted with news that can only be characterised as bad or worse.

The post-2012 emissions reduction commitments for Annex 1 countries under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) are presently going nowhere. Japan had fired the first salvo when in the opening plenary, it categorically stated its opposition to the second commitment period of KP. Now, countries like Australia, Canada, and some European nations have joined the chorus to disband KP.

Navi Mumbai airport gets 'green' signal

- Business Line, 23 November 2010

Developing countries must guard against a repeat of the situation at Copenhagen, where negotiations under the UNFCCC were deliberately stalled, and Heads of State/Ministers from developing countries were pressured to agree to “something” to save the climate regime from collapse.

It is in the interest of developing countries to agree to legally binding national emission limits alone to secure their fair share of the global carbon budget.

India’s response: point by point and blunt

For once, India’s submission to the climate secretariat (AWG-LCA) was blunt and took on the US head on.