India has 'open mind' but reassurances needed: Environment Minister

Durban, Dec 6 (PTI) After China showed its willingness to agree to legally binding emission cuts, India too indicatedtoday that it was "open" to all ideas at the climate talks but wanted more reassurances from the developed world before taking any further commitments. Following China's announcement that it is willing to take conditional legally binding commitments after 2020, Durban is abuzz with talks of which direction would India take on the contentious issue that has stalled any progress in climate combating measures. As the high-level segment of the climate change talks kick off, India's Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan stressed that she is looking for more reassurances from the developed world. Natarajan also maintained there was no change in the position of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group, the alliance of emerging economies. "I have come to Durban with an open mind," Natarajan said in response to the demand for a new legally-binding treaty being raised here by the European Union, Japan and other parties. "But I would like to know whether it would be binding only for mitigation and whether it will be same for Annex-1 (developed) and non-Annex 1 countries (developing)," she added. After joining the talks this week, Natarajan met top negotiators from the US, European Union and the BASIC group. "We are very optimistic that we will understand each others' positions," she said. Developments over the past week, however, indicate deep divisions between developed and developing nations that are yet to be bridged. After losing out in last year's talks in Cancun, the Indian delegation insisted that negotiators here revisit its three-point agenda, which was submitted in the first week of the climate talks. The agenda includes -- equitable sharing of atmospheric carbon space, technology sharing and intellectual property rights (IPR) and unilateral trade barriers. "Commitment for finance and technology, whether it will be present or not, how will equity figure in such an agreement, how will IPR be handled," Natarajan asked here. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, 37 developed countries have been placed under international legal obligations to reduce carbon emissions during a first commitment period, which expires next year. Some countries like Japan and Canada are withdrawing from the treaty stating that it is ineffective because it leaves out the bulk of carbon emission produced by China, India and the United States, which has not ratified it. The EU is willing to sign up for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol if emerging economies also agree to take binding carbon emissions cuts in the future. EU is also proposing a new track of negotiations that will place all countries under one legally-binding treaty, which the bloc wants to negotiate by 2015 so that it can come into force by 2020. This is viewed by developing countries as an abandonment of the current negotiation tracks that have been agreed to by the governments in the past decade. But now China has said it will consider signing up to such an instrument if developed world does its part in bringing down greenhouse gas emissions in this decade -- and these efforts should be effective in controlling the problem. "Could we reassure each other against unilateral actions in such a treaty? How will the ratification process of Kyoto Protocol be resolved and most importantly we at this time of our development we need to keep the imperatives of developing country in mind and the need to grow," Natarajan said earlier. Responding to accusations that India was being a spoiler, Natarjan said, "I don't perceive this as a correct perspective." She added, however, "our development imperative is important." "We are very optimistic that we will understand each others positions," she said after meetings with negotiators. Pa Ousman JARJU from Gambia, who represented the Least Developed Countries, indicated that bloc agreed with India's three-point agenda in principle but there really isn't time for new discussions on the issues that New Delhi is pushing. "We are in agreement with India but we cannot wait any longer... Everyone must do something," he said. Artur Runge-Metzger, from the European Union, said that the present conference in Durban was not the right time to add new-agenda items to the current discussions. "That is overloading the process," he said. In 2005, developed countries promised to transfer complex technologies to developing countries free of cost to cope up with climate change. But in 2009 at Copenhagen, they failed to commit to such transfers citing the problematic intellectual property rights regime. Runge-Metzger also noted that the discussion on IPR had been carried out for more than a decade but no solution had been reached. The European diplomat reiterated the continent's position that trade discussion should be taken up under the WTO and not the UN framework (UNFCCC). "Is the UNFCCC to do the work of the WTO?" he asked. "Is the intention of India to duplicate the work?" PTI