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Govt rejigs climate talks team
21.05.2010
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Govt-rejigs-climate-talks-team/articleshow/5955440.cms

NEW DELHI: The hold-outs against the Jairam Ramesh line on climate change have been dropped from the team of climate negotiators decided for the UN negotiations slated to start in Bonn on June 1.

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta and Prodipto Ghosh, members of the PM Council on climate change and two senior-most negotiators, who along with Shyam Saran, PM's erstwhile envoy on climate change, had opposed the environment minister's controversial positions on climate change, have been taken off the list of negotiators.
But in a balancing act, government has also not entertained proposals to include other non-official delegates that the minister was known to favour. These include Navroz Dubash from the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi and T Jayaraman from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
The team for Bonn will be led by environment secretary Vijai Sharma and will only have government officials on board from various ministries, including ministry of external affairs, environment and forests, power and finance.
The current structure of the Indian climate negotiators team comprises of a permanent core negotiating group (CNG) which helps government draw red lines for negotiations and delegations. Negotiators are expected to defend the "bottomlines" at such formal climate jamborees.
The last cabinet decision on such red lines for climate negotiations was taken before the Copenhagen meet in December 2009 where the rift between the negotiators and the minister had become evident.
The government had been left bruised by two conflicting views, one suggesting that sticking to traditional lines was to India's advantage while Ramesh advocated a dilution of the stance. The lack of clarity in PMO during and after the talks had caused immense confusion in the climate team.
With Shyam Saran's resignation from his position after the Copenhagen talks and the minister's recommendation to drop the two ex-bureaucrats and old hands, Dasgupta and Ghosh from the CNG it was expected that the PM would reconstitute the team. But the PM's continued reluctance to take a call till date on the CNG has again generated anxiety.
While the original CNG with the two retired officials on board continues to exist and would vet the new negotiating text prepared for the climate talks, it remains unclear when and how the government would reinforce or alter the red lines.
While India's acceptance of the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 had altered the negotiation space significantly, an internal assessment by the government had led to a consequent flurry of actions by India to redraw defenses that the had been breached. As part of this move, the government had recently made formal submissions to the UN, which strongly opposed the post-Copenhagen moves by the US.
Sources said the government had not indicated if it would want to formally review its posture before formal talks this year, leaving a window of ambiguity open yet again.

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