New BASIC bloc becomes reality

jairam-rameshBy Joydeep Gupta

Copenhagen, Dec 15 : With environment ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China sharing a podium at the climate summit here Tuesday, the new "BASIC bloc is now a basic reality", according to India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

In a move that did not go down well with representatives of smaller developing countries, the BASIC bloc came up with a joint statement on where it wants the Copenhagen summit to go.

Though the statement did not say anything that the Group of 77 and China have been saying, its separate release indicated a break with the G77 plus China group, a diplomat from Bangladesh told IANS.

The G77 plus China group has been in the climate negotiations as a bloc for 17 years now.

Evidently aware that they may anger other G77 member countries, all four BASIC environment ministers were careful to say exactly what the G77 has been saying.

Ramesh said: "We must continue to work under the Kyoto Protocol (the current treaty to tackle climate change) and the Bali Action Plan" finalised two years ago.

He said the BASIC countries were working together with the Group of 77 and especially the group of African countries that had repeatedly threatened to walk out of the summit. "We are in complete agreement with them."

The African countries want a continuation of the so-called "two track negotiations" approach, under which some of the actions to combat climate change are tackled under the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, while others are under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Ramesh said: "We want an announcement out of this conference that negotiations will continue in 2010 under the two-track process.

He also echoed the other G77 countries when he said: "There must be no attempt to derail the Bali Action Plan, nor any attempt to renegotiate it", as many other G77 countries have accused rich nations of doing.

But despite all that, representatives of many G77 countries here see Tuesday's move as an attempt by the emerging economies to have a different grouping. It will not be new, as the G77 - which actually has 143 member countries - also has members of the Africa group, the Alliance of Small Island States, the Least Developed Countries and so on.

A diplomat from Mali said: "We hope these large developing countries will continue to fight for us on the world stage."

Another from Bolivia said: "These countries want to feel powerful and sit at the high table. Once they get snubbed by rich countries, they will return to us."(IANS)