Amid intense efforts by nearly 200 nations in Rwandan capital to strike an ambitious deal to phase down climate-damaging refrigerant gas, a US delegation today met Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave here ahead of the ministerial round of conference on Montreal Protocol.
The meeting between Dave and the delegation headed by administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, assumes significance in the wake of allegations that pressure is being put by the A2 parties (developed countries) on the developing nations to accept the 2020-22 baseline for developing nations proposed by China.
India is in favour of having two different HFC phase-down schedule for developing countries -- one for China and whoever else wants to join China, and another one for the remaining developing countries.
China is currently the world's largest producer of HFCs and consumes 20 times more than India.
India, which earlier had taken 2028-2030 as its baseline, has shown flexibility on the issue, agreeing to consider preponing the baseline to year 2024-2026 and cut HFC consumption by 10 per cent by 2032, if developed countries agree to freeze their HFC consumption by 2016 and reduce HFC consumption by 70 per cent by 2026 or 2027.
During the course of debate, a general consensus seems to have emerged within the A5 parties (developing nations) at the Conference at the Rwandan capital to have a dual baseline for HFCs.
The baseline is the year against which each country's consumption of HFCs is capped. Countries will have to reduce HFCs from that capped amount.
The US delegation met Dave ahead of US Secretary of State John Kerry's expected visit to Kigali to attend the final round of negotiations.
Meanwhile, India and a group of developing countries are not happy over the discussions being centred around baseline issue alone.
During his intervention at the conference, lead Indian negotiator Manoj Kumar Singh has asked the developed world to take a concrete decision on distributing financial incentives for developing nations at this conference itself.
"If financial mechanism or incentive is there...It should be taken at the point of negotiation what we are having right now," Singh had said yesterday.
Incentives are offered by certain developed countries to the developing nations for helping them in carrying out research on technologies in wake of early phase-down of harmful greenhouse gas.
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