Canada, a major energy producer, has become the first country to quit the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saying the 1997 accord was an 'impediment' on cutting global carbon emissions with top emitters like the United States and China not covered by it.
As hopes for any deal on global warming dims at the Cancun meet later this year, United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres on Wednesday made it clear that the Kyoto Protocol will continue post 2012 as a second protocol since it does not have a 'sunset' clause.
The Kyoto Protocol is the "make or break" issue for UN climate talks in Cancun, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, as he pointed not only Japan but many other countries are opposed to continuation of the treaty that legally binds industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
India on Sunday made it clear that it was opposed to any amendment to the Kyoto Protocol as the 12-day climate talks headed into the second week where environment ministers would seek to give a political push to the negotiations that were in disarray.
Chairperson of Ad Hoc Working group on Kyoto Protocol, John Ashe, said parallel negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol are being carried on at the conference and will be wrapped on December 15 after which a report will be presented.
Unhappy with the move, India said it will not accept any changes or extension to the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only legally-binding document that imposes emission reduction targets on industrialised countries, excluding the US.
The overall climate negotiations are moving under two tracks -- the first track is LCA under Bali Action Plan that requires parties to produce a legally binding treaty before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.
New deal to curb carbon emissions could copy features from the Montreal Protocol, which US and China favoured over its Kyoto counterpart.
Pachauri maintained that in the case of Kyoto Protocol, it (punitive action) was there but it was rather weak.
According to the Kyoto protocol, one carbon credit can be earned by reducing a tonne carbon dioxide. One carbon credit is worth $10 as per the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) guidelines.
Indian companies are set to benefit from carbon credits in a big way.
Being one of the most ecologically modernized state in the world, Japan heads to Copenhagen with its ambition of green leadership in the post Kyoto regime. Japan has nurtured this ambition through smart diplomatic endeavors, ecological restructuring of policies and technological innovations.
Europe, led by Switzerland, leads the way as the U.S. falls.
He said the coastal and deltaic regions of India are reported to be vulnerable to the risks of flooding.
Road map agreed for future treaty to legally bind polluters to cut emissions.
India and Africa on Wednesday asked the developed counties to take "ambitious actions" to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and also provide finance and technology to the developing counties so that they could effectively address the impact of climate change.
A 35-member team represents India at the world's biggest climate change conference at Copenhagen.
"It (clear future direction for carbon markets) also indicates a new lease of life for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), especially in the Indian context where this market mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol has been a catalyst for enhanced action on climate mitigation by Indian industry," industry body Ficci said.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said a major achievement was that it was a 'non-legally binding' accord and negotiations would continue under the Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan to be completed at the end of 2010.
Amid no signs of a breakthrough, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday said the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit may fall short of expectations and warned against any dilution of the principles of UNFCCC, particularly of 'common but differentiated' responsibilities.
With hopes for a far-reaching deal on climate change receding, India is making a strong pitch for extending the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 and commitments that legally bind developed countries to reduce emissions.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh along with his counterparts from Brazil, South Africa and China walked out to meet Connie Hedegaard, the Danish President of the COP, and convey their protest.
The international climate change talks, which started in Copenhagen today, will see a 35-member official delegation from India. The attempt will be to negotiate a new global climate treaty to replace or extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
One hundred-and-ninety-two countries have signed the climate change convention.
Pushing for a legally binding substantive outcome at the Copenhagen climate change meet, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said India is willing to sign on to an ambitious global target for emission reduction or limiting temperature increase, if it is accompanied by an equitable burden-sharing paradigm. He denounced attempts by some developed nations to junk the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Ramesh expressed deep concern about the US offer to reduce carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels.
In a significant development, India's National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited on Thursday launched its futures contract for Certified Emission Reduction. Forward Markets Commission, chairman, B. C. Khatua inaugurated the launch at NCDEX Exchange Platform. The CER contract of NCDEX will be traded in multiples of one lot of 500 CERs each.
The prime minister's comments come close on heels of the developed countries threatening to cut vital aid to the developing nations if they do not back the deal agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
A survey of 40 firms suggests that there's money to be made fighting climate change.
The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has said India has capitulated at Cancun, betrayed its poor and agreed to "a weak and ineffective text that paves the way for ineffective emission reduction targets for the developed countries and scrapping of the Kyoto Protocol."
The United States, India and China are not in favor of accepting a legally binding agreement.
GLOBE, a group of legislators from developed and developing countries, has put forward a proposal which it hopes will break the impasse between the US and the rest of the world at the ongoing UN climate summit in Cancun.
United Nations climate negotiators on Sunday struck a compromise deal on a roadmap for an accord that will, for the first time, legally force all major carbon emitters to cut greenhouse gas emissions, ending days of wrangling between India and the European Union over the fate of the Kyoto protocol.
Five top United Nations officials have urged world leaders to "seal the deal" at Copenhagen in December on an ambitious new climate change pact aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
India's JSW Steel has been awarded more than 5.4 million carbon credits, including four million carbon credits in the single largest issuance of emissions permits to a Kyoto Protocol project, by the United Nations.
Rejecting allegations that India has succumbed to US pressure at the historic meet, Rajni Ranjan Rashmi, joint director in environment ministry, maintained that the way the direction of the talks were going at the Danish capital, India was expecting nothing but equity.
Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh said he was 'happy' at the development and believed it to be the result of 'sustained pressure brought to bear by developing countries'.
Even if the leaders can't negotiate a binding agreement, many countries hope to work out commitments to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions and provide assistance to poorer countries likely to be hardest hit by the effects of global warming.
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