Weak deal on the horizon in Doha as six European Nations offer finance

Doha: With just hours to go before the close of the United Nations conference on combating climate change being held in Doha, Qatar, it's becoming clear that "no strong commitments" may emerge at the end of the two weeklong meeting which officially come to a close in a few hours. Even at the eleventh hour, the contentious issues of finding Finance to combat effects of climate change, setting up of stronger carbon emission reduction targets starting 2013 and the issue of environment friendly technology transfer to developing nations continued to effectively block strong commitments coming out of Doha.

Philippines' climate envoy Naderev Sano made an urgent and impassioned appeal to leaders gathered from 190 nations at Doha asking leaders and diplomats gathered here to "do what the world demands of us and to send a strong political message to the world about our common commitment to tackle climate change."

Referring to the ongoing devastation in Philippines which was hit by a typhoon that has left close to 500 people dead and lakhs homeless, Sano told NDTV that "the world was on the verge and there was no choice but to work together, if we want to prevent similar scenes from repeating across the world."

But the irony at Doha is that while today there seems to be little doubt about Climate change and its increasing effects including more erratic weather and storms, the political commitment has continued to be elusive, even in the face of mounting scientific and real evidence of the effects of climate change.

The BASIC group of nations of which India is a part at the conference and negotiating together as a group, also asked for urgent measures to ensure a satisfactory outcome at Doha. Informing the conference President Al-Attiyah that the deal of finding financing for developing nations was not satisfactory. In fact, the released text on Long Term finance at the conference, does not mention the amount of money either the European Union or the US will commit to  developing nations to help adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change. So far just six European countries have behind closed doors talked about possibly pledging between 40-60 billion dollars per year to developing countries, but so far nothing has been formally endorsed by them.

Negotiators cautiously added that this could be a start to try and arrive at some consensus on the tricky issue. As per earlier pledges, developed nations have to ensure 100 billion dollars to developing nations by 2020 to combat climate change but developing nations want the rich nations to start scaling finances between now to 2020 to help with immediate outcomes and mitigation action linked to climate change.

Angry with the lack of progress, the other negotiating group, the LDC or the group of least developed nations today threatened that they would not sign a deal which not reflect their concerns on adequate financing, adding that "we are not going to be rushed into taking a decision". The chief spokesperson for the group added, "we wanted to go home with something acceptable."

One area of large consensus is however emerging on extending the Kyoto Protocol into its second commitment period. The first period of the treaty is set to come to an end on December 31. The Kyoto protocol is the only existing agreement which binds nations to take action to combat climate change.  

Green groups at the conference have however said that the current commitments at Doha don't go far enough to curb carbon emissions which are largely the residue of industrial action. They warned that the planet was fast reaching a point of no return as politicians fail to undertake tough decisions to curb industrial processes which contribute to greenhouse gasses including burning of coal in power plants to growing fleet of cars and vehicles adding to the global output of gasses.

With still a couple of hours left, the President of the Conference Of Parties, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah urged negotiators to try and come back in a few hours with a deal, but also aware of the enormity of the task mockingly added that "while most of you have told me that you have flights to catch on Saturday, my home is just 10 minutes" hinting about the possibility of negotiations extending over into Saturday to try and break a deadlock. The next couple of hours are going to be crucial as negotiators are expected to report back to the chair of the conference on whether they have reached a deal.