Tuesday, December 22, 2009

China's Role at Copenhagen

Xinhua Ram has posted two links regarding China's role in undermining prospects of a stronger accord at the recently concluded Copenhagen climate summit (here is the Guardian report and here is the one from FT). Today's Guardian has a provocative insider account of the negotiations that went on and how China systematically eliminated any meaningful outcome acting both on its own and through its proxies (do not expect this report to find any space in tomorrow's Hindu edition). This story is in sharp contrast to the recent Hindu editorial ('Far from inspiring') which largely laid the blame at the door of the developed world. Economists too have commented -similar to the Hindu editorial - that the $100 billion is not large enough to spur agreement but it appears, as Mark Lynas points out, that the US was willing to up the amount had China so insisted. One thing seems clear: an international agreement to move forward is not feasible in the near future which means change will have to come through domestic initiatives and/or technological progress.

3 comments:

Sandesh said...

Very interesting inside account. Also, don't miss the lashes on India in the article. While India does not have a political consensus on any matter, let alone the climate thingy, it is fascinating to see china being so aggressive. Wonder what their agenda is..apart from asserting their growing super power status.

Sandesh said...

on a totally unrelated note,
why is it that a positive measure as compulsory voting in gujarat not being covered by ELM ? Some of them who did (like fake the nation in cnn-ibn) cover the issue, did so by not even bothering to analyse the proposal fairly but went back to modi bashing.

Sorry I even asked the question..anything that modi does is automatically 'communal, fascist' to ELM !

Xinhua Ram said...

The saddest part was that India, along with Sudan, was helping the Hans while a vast majority of nations were sincerely working for progress on climate talks. What did we gain from it, Jairam Ramesh? A thicker Asian Brown Cloud?