Careless Whispers

Posted on 08. Dec, 2010 by Leela Raina in India

As we sat outside the Maize Room a place where the BASIC group of countries comprising of Brazil, South Africa, China and India sit, we can hear some careless whispers. It’s just the ordinary UNFCCC day filled with theatrics of ministers and their minions and all the drama they create.

Any resemblance to any character living or dead is purely intentional and this is probably as close to reality as it gets.

China enters. The first.( in small but fast, less talk more walk) with a whole army of translators walking on after the other and forming a little huddle in the centre of the room. They wait for all the ministers to come and talk about how much they miss Chinese food, pork soup and schezwan curry with extra chilly.

Brazil enters next, looking terribly flushed. Asking each other, how can we coordinate so many meetings?

South Africa enters, and no one notices. (They ask themselves, why are we still here?)

India enters with Jai Ram leading the whole lot

India coordinates lets be fast and quick and see whether we can finish the meeting by the earliest rather than getting stuck in endless gossip about what the Island states and Africa are saying about what we do at the moon palace beach . I am sure that we understand that people will always gossip when you are important. We also agree that we cannot indulge 15 min of this meeting to US bashing - and please keep your interventions short and let’s try to be informal.

(as soon as he realises that he’s himself been speaking for 5 min )

Agenda no 1

Kyoto Protocol

We need to have a bilateral set up with each of the Japan and Canada, ask them what there problem is?

Ok decision Tabled

China (I don’t really mind giving or keeping the Kyoto. Although, it works for me since I escape serious action to reduce emissions if the Kyoto stays)

India (we can make the Kyoto a little more “on the table” for negotiations just maybe, maybe)

So we all agree that Kyoto is non negotiable? Yes in Unison.

China: We could in our next meeting consider new Kyoto text and negotiate on that to lobby for a better deal in the long term cooperation track. So please consider the option of a weaker Kyoto second commitment as a bargain for compromise in the long term cooperation track.

Let this be part of the new text.

Moving to Agenda No 2

The transparency and monitoring instrument of pledges under the Copenhagen Accord where the developing countries took mostly energy intensity based voluntary reduction pledges. It is called the ICA – International Consultation Analysis.

India – Lets club the discussions on this with the ones on measuring, reporting and verifying the emission reductions in general (MRV)

Any objections?

Brazil : : Minister Izabella Teixeira looks a little lost, must be the hangover from yesterday , eyes her chief negotiator, Ambassador Figueiredo and asks , “ What is MRV?” After a brief tete a tete she sits quietly again saying – this proposal does not make sense. But she lets it go.

India: So if we open the proposal of the ICA infront of the chair tomorrow , we expect the BASIC to support it since as far as India is concerned, we see it as a solution to a deadlock. Also it could fit in perfectly into the new text.

5 min of murmurs, more careless whispers….

China and Brazil whisper….. (. How can they introduce this to us now? Why did they not consult us before Jai Ram presented this paper at the ministerial meet before this conference? , how do they expect us to support this? ….)

Brazil – this has too much scrutiny in it. Do you think we want to be an open accounting book to the world? (We will be considering other proposals that are on the table)

Persuasiveness from India: Jai Ram explains that the proposal is gathering fast momentum amongst the developed countries especially the European countries and the US also seems to be bridging differences on this.

China: Don’t talk about the US. Do they have nothing to offer here? Anything tangible to reduce? , then why should we be held accountable to our emission reductions? I think we should take our personal actions in our countries and report back on them. That is enough.

The South African Minister taking quick notes: doesn’t look like any decision will be coming out from Cancun, will have to table this as an agenda for the Durban conference, sheesh will have to start some serious lobbying to bridge this gap which I thought was getting smaller.

China: But we can compromise and we are here to find the compromise.

India: so you agree to the proposal

China: with some cautious optimism – it’s a good starting point but we need to consider other alternatives as well

Brazil: We agree. So even though the US can’t put any emission cuts on the table, the least they can do is get working on the fast track finance and establishment of a green fund.

Okay, so this brings us to agenda no 3 – finance.

India: I think we all agree we need to prioritize the money for the island states and Africa considering we still need to go to G77 meetings and don’t want to lose face there.

We all could do with some extra money (South Africa in particular agrees) but this is just to bridge some harmony and strengthen our image in the G77 and China meetings. This is after several consultations with Africa; least developed and island states who are willing to support us on the ICA and MRV if we push for this.

Agenda No 4 – technology mechanism

First of all, thank you for showing your support for technology mechanism lets focus on the problems.

Why is the US blocking this? Brazil: they want the technology committee and the centres to independently report to the COP convention. They just wanted to have some fun I guess.

India: we talked about this over drinks yesterday, it will get resolved, just some drama was required for them so that they could say that they were working really hard on getting an agreement and it works for us, since we are talking about Balance between tracks. This will delay the track on tech transfer so that it can catch up with the slow speed of the rest of the pillars.

Brazil: Thank god forestry is not digressing like that. I think we ensured that should not happen as chairs of the working group ( India looks really jealous)

Ok, so any outstanding reports?

South Africa: heard that the Bolivian ambassador was sacked for being too radical. ;

India: So let’s meet for drinks after the ministerial and discuss all the gossip.

Meeting adjourned.

And the Chinese, with their army of translators scurry out of the room in search of the Chinese food they had been missing. Jai Ram stops to talk to the media and South Africa leave unnoticed.

Meeting adjourned.

Tags: Brazil, Cancún, China, consultation, featured, Finance, forestry, gossip, ICA, India, Jai Ram, Mitigation, REDD, scrutiny, South Africa, technology, UNFCCC, whispers