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Smoke billows from the chimneys of a wood products factory - Source: Reuters -
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China and India joined almost all other major greenhouse gas
emitters on Tuesday in signing up to the climate accord struck in
Copenhagen, boosting a deal strongly favoured by the United
States.
More than 100 nations have now endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, a
non-binding agreement reached after two weeks of tortuous wrangling
at a 194-nation summit in December.
The accord plans $142 billion ($US100 billion) a year in climate
aid for developing nations from 2020 and seeks to limit global
warming to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, but
produced no timetable of emission limits to reach that goal.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told parliament that
India would also let its name join the list of "associated"
countries on the three-page document.
"This will strengthen our negotiating position on climate change,"
Ramesh said.
Chinese negotiator Su Wei wrote a one-sentence letter to the UN
Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn saying that it could "proceed to
include China in the list".
China, the United States, the European Union, Russia and India are
the main emitters of the greenhouse gases that are blamed for
global warming - mostly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.
Only Russia has yet to associate with the deal.
The endorsements are a small boost for the Accord, which
environmentalists say was a bare-minimum outcome from a summit that
many nations hoped would end with a broad, legally binding pact to
fight climate change.
But they offer little indication of how, or when, rich and poor
nations might agree on a binding mechanism for combating climate
changes that scientists say will multiply droughts, floods, storms
and heatwaves, and dramatically raise sea levels.
China and India have preferred since Copenhagen to stress the
supremacy of the 1992 UN Climate Convention, agreed in Kyoto, which
puts the emphasis on rich nations cutting emissions.
Lukewarm
Ramesh reiterated that India's support for Copenhagen was
lukewarm.
"The Accord is a political document. It is not a template for
outcomes," he said, adding that it could not supplant years of
UN-led talks meant to yield a new, binding treaty.
In contrast, the United States, which wants to bind the major
developing economies such as China and India into commitments to
limit emissions, has said that the Accord could guide talks on a
new treaty.
It has urged "further formalisation of the Accord" at the next
major UN climate meeting at the end of 2010 in Mexico.
Progress on a new treaty has stalled, partly because the US Senate
has yet to decide whether to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
President Barack Obama wants a cut of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020,
or about 4% below 1990 levels.
Few countries want to commit to a costly shift to renewable
energies unless Washington joins in. Sceptics are questioning the
2007 conclusions by a UN panel of scientists that blamed mankind
for global warming after errors in the report.
At the end of the Copenhagen summit, the BASIC group of nations -
China, India, South Africa and Brazil - joined the United States,
the European Union and a small number of other countries in
agreeing to the Accord.
But the text was only "noted" by the summit as a whole after
objections from a few developing nations such as Sudan, Ecuador and
Venezuela. In a compromise, it was decided nations wishing to
"associate" with it would be listed at the top of the text.
