India sets Tuesday night deadline

When the first heads of state arrive at Copenhagen on Wednesday, they must have an agreed text to look at, says India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. - Morten Andersen - 14/12/2009 - According to The Economic Times of India, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh “categorically” insists that an agreed text on a global deal reaching beyond the present period of the Kyoto Protocol must be worked out during the night of Tuesday, December 15.
“Ministers and heads of state and government cannot negotiate a text. The heads of state and government will be arriving from December 16 and they have to work on adopting a political statement,” Jairam Ramesh says.

According to the Indian newspaper, the country is contributing to reaching a deal by “displaying flexibility in its climate change position by offering to adopt the international guidelines under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)” – meaning India is prepared to let the UNFCCC verify that internationally funded projects are yielding the expected results.

“We have agreed to a national communication once in two years for both supported and unsupported actions. For the unsupported efforts the monitoring will be domestic only. The manner in which we do our domestic evaluation would be on the international guidelines as prepared by UNFCCC,” says Jairam Ramesh.

According to The Economic Times of India, this approach should satisfy both the international community – seeking verifiability – and the domestic audience, who fear India will give away too much control over its own development.

Mr. Ramesh also dismisses any suggestions of replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an alternative agreement: “India is not here to renegotiate agreement. The mandate enables (the) existing two track approach of the Kyoto Protocol and the Long-term Co-operative Action to move ahead. The two tracks must be completed by 2010 at the latest.”

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