News | Energy Efficiency

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/UNs-climate-text-talks-of-Copenhagen-Accord/articleshow/5951383.cms

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the June climate-change negotiations in Bonn, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has released the text by the chair of the Bali track (ad hoc group on long-term co-operative action) of the negotiations.

The text represents a victory for the developing countries as it incorporates the Copenhagen Accord into it. This text, in some measure, allays the apprehension that the Copenhagen Accord could emerge as a third track or the sole negotiating track.

India has been vocal in demanding that the Copenhagen Accord be merged within the existing two-track negotiations. While the United States has been pushing to make the Copenhagen Accord the basis of negotiations.

The chair’s text gives countries an option to go ahead with the provisions of the Accord or opt for something else. The provisions of the Accord have been incorporated often with two options — one that is almost identical to the accord and second where intent of Accord is merged with the text.

This is part of the effort to take the Copenhagen Accord, which was formulated by a few countries, and to incorporate it into the multilateral process of negotiations. The chair’s text, however, does not move forward from the text that was put forward by the Bali track at Copenhagen.

Since countries can make suggestions for inclusion in this text, it runs the danger of getting unwieldy. It could also upset the precarious balance that had been achieved in the Copenhagen Accord as suggestions to increase mitigation ambition, or making the outcome legally binding or bringing down the temperature threshold to 1.5 degrees could be made.