CSE at CoP-16, Cancun

Cancun draft pleases all, except a belligerent Bolivia! The deal circumvents all the contentious issues, erases historical debts, avoids legally binding global emission targets for wealthy nations, leaves the thorn of IPR in technology transfer mechanism for Durban CoP17 among others.

As CSE had warned, Cancun turned out to be compromises of epic proportions for the poorer countries, without any substantive returns from the developed nations. Lest Development and Millenium Development Goals be forgotten.

Politics, surely, has triumphed over science.

December 11, 2010
The Cancun Camouflage

Historic debt turns 'bad', politics wins over science of climate change 
By Aditya Ghosh

In international diplomacy, there is nothing called 'absolute consensus' so expecting one on climate change would have been plain stupid. But beyond various national interests and commitments to billions of a future without excruciating poverty, we wanted a simple mechanism – one that would save the earth from the catastrophic impacts of climate change that might jeopardise human civilisation itself.
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December 10, 2010
The Last Hurrah, soaked in 'spirit of compromise'
Negotiators have a menu too long on the last day, here how they are poised
By Aditya Ghosh

It is uncannily similar to Copenhagen CoP15 last year, just too many discords to resolve on the penultimate day for the negotiators and ministers to pave way for a climate deal. Except a fractured mechanism of technology transfer and reducing emission from deforestation and degradation (REDD), there is no consensus on the critical issues of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV). Future of Kyoto Protocol looks bleak, mitigation mechanisms are still mired in differences. 
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At Cancun the move is to replace the regime to voluntary targets for all. India’s shift in policy to support this regime will be disastrous for an effective and equitous agreement

The climate endgame in Cancun and how I suspect it will play out in the next 48-hours
By Sunita Narain, December 10 2010

In the past day, key players at the Cancun road show have made separate moves. But these actions are all linked and all part of the Cancun gambit – to take the final steps to replace the current global framework built on responsibilities of countries to the climate problem, into a weak ineffective regime built on the right to pollute for the US. This is the climate-end game and we are seeing it being worked out in the public and behind the scenes.
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India stuns all at Cancun by opening up to binding emission commitments

Minister goes extempore, deviates from written speech to make announcement that writes off 'historical debt' and poses a challenge to development of millions in poverty
By Arnab Pratim Dutta

In an unprecedented move, India’s minister for environment and forest announced today at the CoP16 that the country was open to legally binding commitments for its domestic actions to combat climate change. At the plenary of the 16th Conference of Parties on Climate Change, Jairam Ramesh said: “All countries, we believe, must take on binding commitments under appropriate legal form,” hinting that India was also agreeable to such a provision.
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December 6, 2010
Indian ICA proposal finds partial support in new drafts on mitigation actions
By Arnab Pratim Dutta

India's proposal that all the countries with over one per cent of global emission share should subject their voluntary targets and mitigation actions have found partial mention in two notes by the co-facilitators of the AWG-LCA on mitigation actions.
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Tech-transfer finds consensus on all but IPR issue
Text to be presented to high level ministerial segment could be the first positive outcome at Cancun  

By Arnab Pratim Dutta

A semblance of agreement on the crucial element of technology transfer may emerge as the first positive outcome at Cancun on the 10th day when a rather diluted text on the matter is handed over to the high level segment, where ministers get involved in negotiations.
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December 6, 2010
A week of non-results

By Arnab Pratim Dutta

A week of negotiations has passed in Cancun, but seekers of a binding deal on climate change continue to grope in the dark. With almost all negotiations being caught in a deadlock, the two-week conference may not agree even on the bare minimum to take the talks forward to the next year. At best, it can only produce some sort of a ministerial statement or a Conference of Party’s decision, one which may have little substance.
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December 2, 2010
India rejigs MRV, proposes middle path on 'transparency'

By Arnab Pratim Dutta

Cancun: India has urged the Negotiating Parties at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico to work through a middle path on the controversial issue of transparency on mitigation actions carried out by developing countries.
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December 1, 2010
New European Union report on funding commitments fails to meet developing countries’ expectations

By Arnab Pratim Dutta, news editor, Down To Earth

CoP-15 in Copenhagen last year had begun with a bang. On its very second day, a leaked copy of the Danish proposal to replace the two track negotiations on Kyoto Protocol and Long Term Cooperative Action had found its way into the hands of the Western media, triggering off a furor among the negotiating parties.
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December 1, 2010
Japan says ‘no’ to Kyoto Protocol second commitment period

By Arnab Pratim Dutta, news editor, Down To Earth 

The ghost of the Copenhagen Accord has emerged at the Cancun climate change meeting, with Japan pushing for a single all-inclusive treaty. On November 27, in the opening plenary of the CoP-16, Japan had tried to justify why it wants to withdraw from the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
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