New Delhi, 25 January 2010 - Greenpeace welcomes the position
taken by Ministers of the BASIC group of countries (Brazil, China,
India and South Africa), who met yesterday in New Delhi, to
continue negotiations on a fair and ambitious climate agreement
within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. However,
Greenpeace emphasised that such an agreement needs to be legally
binding in order to ensure its implementation.
In their joint statement, ministers from the four leading
emerging economies called for meetings of the climate convention's
working groups on long-term co-operative action and the Kyoto
Protocol to be held in March 2010. They also want the working
groups to meet at least five times before the next major UN climate
conference which is scheduled to start on 29 November 2010, in
Mexico.
The Ministers underlined that UN climate talks occupy a central
position and they called for all negotiations to be conducted in an
inclusive and transparent manner. They also outlined their desire
for better South-South scientific co-operation and support for
vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.Greenpeace is
encouraged by the willingness of the BASIC group to support
vulnerable countries, both by ensuring their participation in open
and transparent negotiations and by providing technological and or
financial support.
However, Greenpeace is calling on the BASIC countries to make
this support more tangible by the time of its next meeting that the
South African government is to host in April 2010.
Greenpeace also noted the further consolidation of the BASIC
countries as a group and urges them to assume the responsibilities
that go with an alliance of such influential economic powers.
Though the BASIC countries demonstrating leadership in
furthering negotiations on a fair, ambitious and legally binding
agreement, Greenpeace wants them to exert pressure on
industrialised counties to
urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make their own
appropriate contributions in emission reductions.
"Continued inaction by governments would allow global warming to
engulf us all," said Siddharth Pathak, Climate and Energy Policy
Officer, Greenpeace India. "If we are to keep this demon at bay and
avoid dangerous climate change, industrialised countries must cut
their emissions together, 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and provide
massive financial and technological support to enable developing
nations as a whole to reduce their projected growth in emissions by
15-30% over the same timescale. It's not easy but the consequences
of failure would be among our worst nightmares," he said.