At a time when India is under severe attack from the Press in the US and the UK for the overhanging cloud of pollution affecting its capital, Delhi, the constructive deliberations held in Bonn by BASIC-Brazil, South Africa, India and China are most welcome. BASIC has resolved to take up all critical issues like access to finance and technology in the last few days of the UN Climate Conference (COP23). That will help enable implementation of the historic Paris Agreement in 2015. Representatives of the four nations unaligned that the issue of free 2020 actions should be given equal treatment at COP23. They demanded that the issue be included in the agenda of the ongoing conference. COP23 should give clarity in the design of the facilitative dialogue in 2018. The BASIC also urged the developed countries to take the lead towards closing the ambition gap so as to avoid transferring the burden to developing countries from the pre 2020 to the post 2020 period. The pre 2020 actions are mandated for only rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol. The post 2020 actions under the Paris Agreement are meant for all countries in keeping with their voluntarily stated goals in the global deal.
At the high level segment, which began on Wednesday had German chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron progressing towards a political approach regarding a collective stand of developing countries for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. However, it remains to be seen how the Paris Agreement can be actualised as US President Donald Trump has pulled the US, the most unreliable developed country in this sphere, out of the Paris treaty saying its country has been ‘conned’.
