You know your negotiating strategy is in trouble when countries ranging as far as Norway in the developed world to partners like South Africa and neighbours like Bangladesh start quoting Gandhi and Nehru back to you. Two months ago, this was the unfortunate situation Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan had to face at the Durban conference on climate change. That she managed, through a passionate last-minute speech, to ensure that all was...

-The Times of India In one of his most emphatic public statements reaffirming the return of 'equity' in India's climate change stance, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said global cooperation on climate change "must be based on the foundation of the right to development and the need for an equitable distribution of burden".  Coming days before India makes its submission outlining the frame for a post-2020 climate regime, PM's statement was a closely...

The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries’ historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India’s own domestic national approach of actively exploring “co-benefits” – policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains – suggests that it...

The government has decided to set up a strategic advice group of experts on 'equity' in climate change negotiations. The group will advice the government on how to fashion its position in the post-Durban climate talks this year. It will consist of officials and experts from various ministries and also some specialists from outside the officialdom, sources said. At the Durban talks in last December, India had been able to ensure that...

The Durban conference in December 2011 marked a breakthrough in international efforts to combat climate change. The EU and India played a key role in final negotiations that unlocked the pact on the last morning of the conference. Together, we found the compromise that provided the basis to launch negotiations on a new global legal framework for climate action that the world so badly needs.  It is no secret that the...