India demands climate change cash pledge

By Fiona Harvey in Bonn
Published: April 14 2009 16:34

India has thrown down the gauntlet to developed nations in the latest round of climate change talks, saying the developing world wants to see pledges of cash before it is prepared to discuss emissions curbs.
The move draws battle lines between rich and poor countries and threatens to halt progress on climate change: rich countries insisted that they cannot name sums before getting commitments that future emissions will be reduced.

Shyam Saran, special envoy to the Indian prime minister, said at a UN meeting in Bonn: “The question [of developing country curbs] should not be divorced from what financial support is available. Rather than ask, are you prepared to deviate from business as usual, the question is what kind of efforts are possible if adequate financial resources and technical resources are made available.”
Developing countries also want to see much bigger cuts in emissions from the developed world than have been proposed.
But the stand-off meant there was little progress at the meeting, the first in a series of UN talks this year that will culminate at a conference in Copenhagen in December to formalise a successor to the Kyoto protocol.
“This is a dangerous game to play,” warned Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the US Natural Resources Defense Council, who said there was little time by December to hammer out the details needed. “It’s chicken-and-egg. Finance is a key issue, and it’s dangerous as you have countries getting further away from each other instead of closer together.”
Connie Hedegaard, Danish minister for climate, who will be one of the hosts at Copenhagen, took the unusual step of chiding fellow ministers.
“The industrialised countries have not yet shown the necessary leadership,” she said. “Not leadership when it comes to reduction commitments. Not leadership when it comes to finance.”
Developed nations said it was crucial for emerging economies – which are overtaking rich countries as the biggest sources of emissions – to curb their greenhouse gases. While recognising that poorer nations might need to increase their emissions as their economies grow, they want emerging countries to ensure CO2 output is substantially lower than under “business as usual”.
Several developing nations demanded sums of between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of industrialised countries’ gross domestic product as the price for their co-operation. South Africa asked for enormous reductions in emissions from industrialised countries, including a 75 per cent cut in the UK by 2020.
Governments will meet again in June to discuss a draft text of the climate change treaty, and three times more before Copenhagen. But the failure to break the deadlock on finance would stall progress further, warned Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace: “As things stand, this exact same meeting will be repeated in June,” she said.
Jonathan Pershing, deputy special envoy for climate change at the US State Department, said it was “improbable” that the US could produce figures on its financing offers by June. The European Union failed to agree on its financing offer last month.
Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate change official, said the stalemate could be broken. “There is a broad understanding that developed countries need to provide financial support and developing countries need to submit plans for actions. I don’t know which will come first but the right one will,” he said.
The talks were also remarkable for the way the US was fêted, as delegates relished the sight, not seen for eight years, of US officials agreeing with the rest of the world on the urgency of tackling emissions. Todd Stern, special envoy for climate change, was cheered and applauded when he announced: “We’re glad to be back.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009