China's exit may leave India isolated on climate

NEW DELHI: The first signs of a break up in the G77 plus China grouping in the climate negotiations emerged at the Obama sponsored 20-country Major Economies Forum in Washington with South Korea breaking away from the developing and poor country block.

The meeting called by the US to find a breakthrough in the climate talks saw the first palpable evidence that one of the most influential blocks with a a de-facto veto at the negotiations, could crack before or during the Copenhagen round in December 2009.

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The block led by India, China, Brazil and South Africa besides other countries has consistently thwarted attempts by the industrialized nations to dictate terms to the UN framework convention on climate change. It has played a singular role in ensuring that emerging and developing economies are not forced to take on economy-hurting emission reductions by groups like the EU or countries such as US, Japan and Australia.

But at the MEF, South Korea broke away from the consensus within the G77 and offered to open its domestic actions to reduce emissions to international scrutiny -- a move that indirectly implied quantified targets to reduce emissions under international vigil.

At the meeting, where US demanded that it be not asked to reduce emissions too quickly to begin with in the face of an economic recession, the pressure being built on other nations was visible, sources told TOI.

The sources said that China too made ambiguous noises about such greenhouse gas reductions commitments -- something it and India have a well crafted and long standing coordinated position against. But it remained unclear, the sources said, if China was actually diverting from its earlier positions or if the Chinese stance was `lost in translation'.

Indian officials, however, pointed out that the latest Chinese submissions to the UNFCCC -- the formal negotiating forum -- remained closely aligned to the Indian ones and stuck to the basic demands that G77 plus China has made for long -- funds and technologies to undertake a clean economic pathway and high emission reduction targets for industrialized countries responsible for the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere.

One source in the Indian climate team pointed out that in earlier rounds of negotiations too symptoms of a crack in G77 had emerged. "The economies of many countries are dependent on or have strong linkages to industrialized countries. Within the G77 umbrella, there are differences that some industrialized countries and lobbies are trying to exploit," he said.

A close observer of the negotiations from India pointed out that, as in all international negotiations, other economic interests could be used as leverage against more vulnerable nations of the G77 block and such `diplomatic and economic handle' would be employed with greater vigour as climate negotiations in December at Copenhagen near.