BASIC nations bat for finances to fight climate change

Bonn, Nov 14 :  Batting for adequate financial and technology resources to assist the developing world, BASIC countries, including India, on Tuesday emphasised the need for openness, transparency and the country-driven nature of negotiations at the ongoing UN Climate Change conference.

Ministers underlined the importance to prepare the ground towards completing the work on implementing of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, said a joint statement on the conclusion of the 25th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change Ministers here.

It said the ministers reiterated the work on both the pre-2020 and post-2020 periods should be in full accordance with the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

They also emphasised the importance of openness, transparency and inclusiveness.

This was the meeting of the grouping -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) -- that came into effect after the Paris climate change conference in 2015.

"India expects a positive outcome from this COP (Conference of Parties). We are here with supportive mind and we are pushing for certain action, which are pending," C.K. Mishra, Secretary in the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, told IANS here.

Admitting open access to financial and technology responsibilities by the developed world, he said the BASIC ministers expressed concern over attempts by some developed countries to unilaterally apply new eligibility criteria for the access of developing countries to funding under the Global Environmental Facility and the Green Climate Fund.

The ministers recalled that such criteria are not compatible with guidance from the Conference of the Parties and are a departure from the letter and the spirit of the Convention and its Paris Agreement, the joint statement said.

Furthermore, they indicated that such attempts violate the terms of the Instrument for the Establishment of the Restructured Global Environmental Facility, as well as the Governing Instrument of the Green Climate Fund, falling outside the mandate of the Global Environmental Facility Council and of the Green Climate Fund Board on eligibility criteria.

The statement stressed the view that such attempts are tantamount to renegotiating the Paris Agreement and potentially undermine the level of ambition of developing countries in the global effort against climate change.

The BASIC ministers urged developed countries to honor their commitments and increase climate finance towards at least $100 billion per annum goal by 2020, to be scaled up significantly thereafter.

In the post-2020 period, the ministers called upon developed countries to provide financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the convention.

Two years after the world united around the Paris Climate Agreement and a year after its entry into force, the 197 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 197 have reconvened for their 23rd annual climate change talks (this one is COP 23) in Bonn till November 17.

The talks, which began on November 6, are expected to take a number of decisions necessary to bring the Paris Agreement to life, including meaningful progress on the agreement to implement guidelines to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius with an aim to cut greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.