news from the cpi(m)
Press Statement
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marist) has issued the
following statement:
On Copenhagen Climate Conference
The Copenhagen Climate Conference has ended without meeting its goal of a
legally binding agreement for the second commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol. Without a treaty committing the rich and industrialized
countries to deep emission cuts, the lives and well-being of hundreds of
millions of people, especially in the developing world, have been put at
risk. This will most adversely affect people in South Asia, large parts of
Africa, least developed countries and island nations that could be
entirely submerged under rising sea-levels. People all over the world had
been hoping that the Conference would chart out a clear course to save
humanity and the planet from runaway global warming and climate change.
This has not been happened. The political leaders who gathered in
Copenhagen have failed their people by not delivering an effective and
equitable climate change agreement.
Such an agreement in Copenhagen was made impossible by the positions and
tactics of the US and other developed countries. From the first day to the
last at Copenhagen, the US and its allies tried their utmost to kill the
Kyoto Protocol itself, negate the cornerstone principle of differentiation
between the industrialized and developing countries, and pressurize the
developing countries to take on the major burden of reducing global
emissions. Their inability to achieve these aims was due to the stiff and
united resistance put up by the developing countries, a resistance which
was one of the few positives in Copenhagen.
Major developing countries such as the BASIC bloc of China, India, Brazil
and South Africa, as well as Mexico and Indonesia, voluntarily announced
reductions in emissions growth rates in the interests of humanity, going
far beyond their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. However, the US,
EU and other developed countries did not budge an inch from the low
emission cuts they had declared before Copenhagen. A leaked draft UN
Report has revealed that pledges made by large developing countries will
contribute more to emission reductions than the low commitments of the US
and other developed nations.
The CPI(M) had warned the Indian Government that unilateral concessions,
before the negotiations, and without conditional linkages to deep cuts by
developed countries, would not yield results. This is indeed what has
happened.
A complete failure in Copenhagen has been averted with the face-saving
text of a "Copenhagen Accord" with the promise of a legally binding
agreement in 2010. The Accord was crafted in the closing hours of the
Conference by the US, the BASIC countries and 22 other developed and
developing countries from different continents and groupings. Though the
Accord has no legal status and would not bind countries, it at least
provides some way of keeping future negotiations going along the current
twin tracks. Without this, the failure of the Conference could have meant
the collapse of the Climate Treaty and the Kyoto framework.
However, this Accord is extremely weak in terms of the deep and immediate
emission cuts by developed countries that are required to tackle climate
change. It is deeply ambiguous with several loopholes and the possibility
of different interpretations, particularly with regard to emission cuts by
developing countries, and fund and technology transfers.India should
therefore ensure that in future negotiations, the red lines committed by
the government in Parliament are adhered to. India must also press for
deep and immediate emission cuts by the US and other developed countries
and work with other developing countries to ensure sustainable development
and equitable terms in any final Treaty.
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