In the run-up to the Paris talks, negotiators have come up with a 17,500-word draft — the text that is to be negotiated into an agreement. It has many points, sorest of which is finance. And derailing of the negotiations is not good for India.
The first point is how to stop us from burning ourselves extinct (‘mitigation’). This essentially means doing anything to stop emitting greenhouse gases. This is very important for India.
Two, what to do to save ourselves from climate change effects that have already become inevitable — or ‘adaptation’. This involves steps, such as flood and drought prevention measures and smart agriculture. This is important as developed countries may be ‘mitigation-centric’ and leave it to the others to adapt themselves. Three, ‘loss and damage’ — what to do when adaptation fails and climate change hits us. This is less relevant for India. Mitigation is anyway embedded in the voluntary measures that countries have offered to do; Paris only needs to formalise them. The other two are steps that would be taken in the future and are not too difficult to agree upon.
Here’s the rub. Negotiators will scream at each other on Finance, Technology Transfer and Transparency. Finance is the most ticklish. Who should give money to whom and how much, is what it is all about. On the surface, it appears simple enough. The developed countries should pay the developing countries. But in this world nothing is so black and white. Should Greece, which bears the ‘developed’ tag, pay (given that it can’t)? Should Saudi Arabia, a ‘developing country’ which can pay, and whose oil contributed to the planet’s blackness, not pay? Whether ‘developed countries’ or ‘countries in a position to do so’ be asked to cough up, is a sticky point.
How much should the developed countries shell out? May the funds include loans by World Bank, ADB, etc?
Developing countries are digging their heels in. They want the funding to be “scaled up from a floor of $100 billion a year.” They also want to make it clear in the agreement that the funds they receive from the developed world will be “public funds distinct from official development assistance” and that “the short-term quantified goal by developed country parties shall be periodically reviewed and assessed, based on the needs and priorities identified by developing countries.” Read - They’re saying, as we go along, we might ask you for more money and you shall pay. Fat chance that the developed countries will smile and dip their hands into their pockets!
There seems to be no meeting point on ‘finance.’ Almost as difficult are ‘technology transfer’ and ‘transparency’. Sharing of intellectual property (of great importance to India) is not going to come easy. On ‘transparency’ — or ‘monitoring, verification and reporting’ (MRV) — sovereign issues usually come up.
“Why should I let you audit what I am doing” is the stance of many countries like India. Even technology transfer and MRV issues are tied to the tough-nut — finance – which today threatens to derail the negotiations.