Somebody recently asked me why India supported the Copenhagen Accord. It is correct to say that the proposed accord has no meaningful targets for emission reduction from Annex 1 (industrialized countries). Global emissions will increase or reduce at best marginally. So it will be bad for the world’s efforts to combat climate change. We are victims of climate change.
Obama will grace COP15. And that is the biggest story out here. The story is so big that negotiators are forced to take this fact into their negotiating account. Why? It is because Obama cannot afford to lose a game. It does not really matter if the atmosphere or the planet goes to hell. Bottom line is that Obama must be able to claim a victory.
The Copenhagen conference will definitely go down as the worst meeting in global climate negotiations. There is a complete mess here: lines of people standing outside the Bella Centre, where the conference is taking place, wanting to get in. Inside the meeting has broken down for the umpteenth time because industrialized countries refuse to commit to cutting emissions.
I thought of staying away from climate change completely. I thought any sort of engagement with climate change negotiation was nothing but lending my support to a corrupt process. But a few incidents at home just before the ‘epic’ meeting at Copenhagen forced me to say something.
