The recent controversy on the IPCC report regarding Himalayan glaciers has been all over the media.

Somebody recently asked me why India supported the Copenhagen Accord. It is correct to say that the proposed accord has no meaningful targets for emission reduction from Annex 1 (industrialized countries). Global emissions will increase or reduce at best marginally. So it will be bad for the world’s efforts to combat climate change. We are victims of climate change.

Monday, December 14, 2009: Standing in line in the freezing cold, waiting to be registered to the conference of parties to the climate change convention being held in Copenhagen, I have strange sense of foreboding that this will be an eventful but disappointing week.

For two years the world has negotiated for an equitable, ambitious and legally binding climate agreement on basis of the Bali Action Plan. And now we are being told that a legally binding agreement is not possible and that we should be happy with a political agreement/ statement at Copenhagen.

 

“And the riot squad they’re restless

Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the United States Environment Protection Agency (USEPA), on December 7, 2009 announced to the world that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people, and therefore, can be considered an air pollutant under the US’s Clean Air Act. The US is now the first country in the world to call GHGs air pollutants. 

Obama will grace COP15. And that is the biggest story out here. The story is so big that negotiators are forced to take this fact into their negotiating account. Why? It is because Obama cannot afford to lose a game. It does not really matter if the atmosphere or the planet goes to hell. Bottom line is that Obama must be able to claim a victory.

The Copenhagen conference will definitely go down as the worst meeting in global climate negotiations. There is a complete mess here: lines of people standing outside the Bella Centre, where the conference is taking place, wanting to get in. Inside the meeting has broken down for the umpteenth time because industrialized countries refuse to commit to cutting emissions.