Climate meet opens with clarion call to save earth

Copenhagen, Dec 7 : Under the shadow of skepticism and hope of a consensus, the world's biggest climate meet began in the Danish capital on Monday with delegates from 192 countries attending the conference that would witness a slugfest between the developed and developing nations over carbon emission cuts and aid.

'This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we got a new and better one. If ever,' said conference president Connie Hedegaard, who was formerly the Denmark climate minister as the UN conference, billed as the greatest opportunity to save the mother earth, opened.

'The world is depositing hope with you for a short while in the history of mankind,' Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told delegates at the Bella Centre here.

'Global warming knows no borders. It does not discriminate, it affects us all,' Rasmussen said as he went on to add: 'We can change, and we have to change.'
He said 110 world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, would attend the summit that would end on Dec 18.

The two-week talks are set to kick off today (Monday) in the Danish capital, and by the end of the summit, Governments must adequately respond to the urgent challenge posed by climate change, said Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

'Negotiators now have the clearest signal ever from world leaders to craft solid proposals to implement rapid action,' he noted.

The developing countries in Group of 77 meanwhile said they want both EU and the US to deliver higher ambitions at the conference.

Developed countries should come up with more ambitious emissions reduction targets than they have already promised, a leading negotiator of the G-77 told a news agency.

Meanwhile, Indian parliament witnessed a walkout on Monday over the country's position on the talks.

The opposition BJP on Monday walked out of the Rajya Sabha dissatisfied with the government's explanation on India's stand in the Copenhagen climate talks even as environment minister Jairam Ramesh said the country would not compromise its stand on the issue.

'There is no compromise on India's national interest. I am as patriotic as any other member (of the house). I am being made an accused,' Ramesh told the upper house defending the government.
India announced voluntary carbon intensity cuts by 20-25 percent on 2005 levels over the next 11 years, an announcement that drew flak from the opposition and climate experts since countries like US made no such domestic declarations.

Ramesh said the basis of all negotiations in Copenhagen would be the one agreed by India, China, South Africa and Brazil.

'We have a basic draft for the basis of our negotiations,' he said and emphasized that India would reject legally binding targets.

'We are dissatisfied with Jairam Ramesh's answers. We will walk out,' BJP leader Arun Jaitley said and walked out.

On November 28, China, India, Brazil and South Africa signed a 10-page agreement on the 'non-negotiable' issues at Copenhagen.

At Parliament on Monday, Ramesh said there is no dissolution in India's stand.

'The two negotiators are going to Copenhagen in a day or two,' said Ramesh, referring to the duo- Chandrasekhar Dasgupta and Prodipto Ghosh- who had earlier threatened to pull out of the Copenhagen summit fearing the baseline of India's stand was being changed in the name of flexibility.

The environment assured that the basic core of India's negotiations is not being violated. He said that India's negotiations will be based on 'historical responsibility' and 'per-capita principle'.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would attend the conference.