The 17 major emitters are making a last ditch attempt to resolve the impasse over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol and the shape of a future global legal deal to tackle climate change. With a fortnight to the UN-sponsored climate meet at Durban, the Major Economies Forum is meeting in New York this week to hammer out a working compromise.  In the past, the US State Department-sponsored Major Economies Forum...

Global climate strategy needs a new storyline. The original United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (“Plan A”) was signed almost 20 years ago, but lacked the specifics to drive real action. The Kyoto Protocol aimed to resolve this by curbing emissions from the industrialised world, but the US refused to play its part (Plan B). Just as Kyoto came into effect in 2005, the world was changing, with...

Climate change negotiations are with us again, this time in Durban following the high-level meetings in Cancun (2010) and Copenhagen (2009). The aim is to agree on a regime to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (particularly CO2) post-2012, when the present commitments under the Kyoto Protocol run out. Climate change and global warming are important issues for India. Agriculture, which provides a livelihood for two-thirds of our population, is heavily dependent on...

The contentious issue of finance will be among the key items that will take centrestage at the UN-sponsored climate talks in Durban. Predictable and continuous funding to undertake steps to tackle climate change lies at the core of a balanced global deal. At the pre-conference meeting, South Africa said that the Durban meet should go beyond operationalising the Green Climate Fund agreed on at the Cancun meet. Pretoria indicated that...

That wealthy western nations have "over-polluted" the atmosphere may come as little surprise. But the degree to which they have done so is staggering. Thanks to the enormous amount of carbon dioxide that countries such as the US and European Union have emitted over the last century, developing countries such as India and China will never be able to emit even a fraction of carbon dioxide they are entitled to in...