BASIC countries to discuss climate strategy at Delhi meeting

New Delhi - Officials from Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) are scheduled to meet in New Delhi Sunday to devise a common strategy ahead of formal climate-change negotiations. The bloc of emerging powers seeks to persuade more developing nations to support the Copenhagen accord, official sources said.

The four countries are also likely to announce a climate fund for the most vulnerable developing countries, the sources said.

Twenty-six nations including the BASIC group agreed to the accord, a non-binding agreement that emerged from the fractious conference in the Danish capital in December.

The accord has a January 31 deadline and the signing countries are expected to set national emission targets.

The targets would not be binding but the accord was expected to provide the base for further negotiations leading up to a legally binding treaty at a meeting in Mexico scheduled for November.

Brazil and South Africa have already signed the accord, while India and China have yet to do so.

"India's signing the accord would depend on the outcome of the BASIC meeting in Delhi," an Environment Ministry official said.

Another official, who was part of the negotiations at Copenhagen, said India was one of the five nations that brokered the accord and could not avoid signing it.

Brazil, China, South Africa and India along with the United States brokered the deal near the end of the Copenhagen meeting, after which it was presented to the other 187 nations.

The stated objective is to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius. Some non-governmental organizations have said at the current level of commitments, temperatures would rise more than 3 degrees.

Several developing countries in Africa and Latin America accused the BASIC bloc of having moved away from the larger G-77 grouping of developing nations.

The accord is regarded by some as falling far short of the more ambitious goals set for the Copenhagen meet.

"The BASIC bloc has to get the backing of more developing nations for muscle power. It has also to show it is looking at the interests of wider developing world," an Indian official said on condition of anonymity.

The bloc is expected to announce a fund with contributions from all four countries to help the most vulnerable nations combat climate change.

"With 41 per cent of the world's population, 11 per cent of global gross domestic product and accounting for 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the four nations have a major responsibility to lead the world in finding solutions to the climate crisis," a Greenpeace statement said.

"BASIC ministers will take stock of all issues arising from the Copenhagen conference and the steps needed to ensure the interests of the developing countries," an unnamed senior Environment Ministry official was quoted as saying by PTI news agency.

Brazil's Minister for Environment Carlos Minc, his South African counterpart Buyelwa Sonjica, and the vice-chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission Xie Zhenhua are expected to attend the meeting convened by Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

The ministers are also scheduled to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305341,basic-countries-to-discuss-climate-strategy-at-delhi-meeting.html.