US President Barack Obama called Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, as he works to spur a successful conclusion to the climate talks outside Paris. He anticipates that Obama will be calling other world leaders in the coming days.
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The US has been working to persuade developing countries like India to take aggressive action on climate change, a major sticking point in the talks.
The Climate Investment Funds have established a Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience, which assists developing countries in putting in place frameworks for climate resilience and helps them cope with changing climates.
Earnest did not elaborate about Tuesday’s call, but said that the United States has played a leading role in securing emissions commitments from other nations and that the administration is optimistic about the outcome of the climate conference.
But Kerry rejected a key argument from developing countries that the current structure of the deal – that was widely influenced by the United States – did not adequately reflect those different economic histories.
India’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar, who was present in the joint briefing made by the BASIC group, said it would depend on the “collective wisdom” of the parties (countries) whether the deal would come in next 80 hours or 100 hours. The group at the same time appears very clear that the path of 1.5 degree celsius temperature rise limit, if finally accepted, would be the obligation of the rich nations who are historical polluters.
He apparently also told Fabius that India had not yet officially got the text of a possible agreement that had been widely talked about, although the text had been circulated unofficially.
Stern said he supported a “nuanced and flexible” new system “in which all countries do what they can on a nationally determined basis, urged to do the most that they can, and fully differentiated because they make their own decisions”.
“I think you can write that aspiration into the agreement in a way that doesn’t make it the target or guidepost for the agreement”, Kerry said.
Earnest said the US President is closely following the developments in Paris where more than 180 countries are trying to hammer out a deal on climate change. This is unlikely to happen as developing countries have said that fossil-fuel based growth for them is imperative till alternative methods are available.
A final draft of a new global climate agreement was reached by negotiators in Paris on Saturday, ready for ministers to read and deal with sensitive political divergences this week before the 12-day conference ends on Friday. “I believe we can”, he said.
China’s Xie Zhenhua also disagreed with the OECD figures.
Such a system could see the four fast-growing economies treated the same as nations that remain poor and that stand to suffer the most from climate change, such as Haiti and Bangladesh. “We appreciate the good effort of the Indian delegation”, Kerry said in brief comments.
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The second week of negotiations at the Climate Summit in Paris is overshadowed by the question of who pays the bill.
