COP21: Climate finance sticking issue as India, US step up outreach

India has rejected a US backed contentious plan to measure climate finance from rich nations and has termed the plan as flawed. According to the plan, the US wants the methodology used in an OECD report to calculate the financial contribution to be adopted under the United Nations process to review climate finance. India has questioned the methodology in the report and said it did not reflect the realistic contribution.

As the BASIC group reiterated its stand on the ongoing climate negotiations, US secretary of state John Kerry met India’s Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar in the Indian delegation office at the climate summit venue at Le Bourget on December 9.

Addressing the flaws in the OCED report, Mr Javadekar said the high number on climate finance was based on “double accounting” and was not the real picture.

The two discussed the progress made in the ongoing climate negotiations in view of both the countries’ respective positions over all the issues including finance, review mechanism, equity and differentiation. Mr Javadekar told reporters that they had a good meeting and they discussed all efforts both the countries have been making to forge a climate agreement which must ensure that the world can get a fair and effective deal.

Paris agreement

With barely 72 hours to go, the stakes in the COP21 deal are higher than ever. “We don’t mind being part of the Paris agreement, but South-South climate finance (from developing to developing countries) should not be under the UN convention,” said an Indian negotiator, adding that it was now the developed world’s responsibility to provide a clear road map for funding post 2020.

India and other developing countries like China and South Africa have also described the methodology to measure climate finance as flawed.
Making a strong joint statement, the BASIC nations Brazil, South Africa, India and China, flagged the group’s non-negotiable point that the developing countries, including those in the G77, will not accept dilution of the UN convention that put the developed and developing countries in two different categories under the principle of the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) which, they said, and stressed that this cardinal principle must be “at the heart of the Paris agreement”.

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