India and China have demonstrated commitment to a climate accord struck in Copenhagen last year and their refusal so far to “associate” with it should not be overblown, the UN’s climate chief said yesterday.
The Copenhagen Accord reached last year was not legally binding, but over 100 countries have already said they are willing to “associate” with it, which means their names are listed at the top of the document.
China and India are yet to say if they will associate or not, but the head of the UN Climate Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, said he was unworried by that.
“Both China and India, together with about 60 other countries, have submitted plans or targets on the actions they plan to take. In that sense, I think there is both a political and substantive commitment in the context of the Copenhagen Accord,” he told reporters at a UN environment meeting in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali.
“The Indian prime minister has indicated that he supports the Copenhagen Accord and India has submitted a national action plan in the context of the Copenhagen Accord. India has formulated eight national goals in different areas that are directly relevant to climate change. India is moving forward on this topic at the national level,” de Boer said.
People should focus less on the Copenhagen Accord and more on finalizing the implementation of a legally binding agreement. Only after that, he said, would countries be expected to sign up.
Indian Environment Secretary, Vijai Sharma, on Thursday played down his country’s reluctance to associate with the accord.
“India has gone a step further. We are already taking action,” he told reporters.
De Boer, a Dutch national, will resign from the UN in July to join consultancy firm KPMG.
When asked if he was interested in replacing De Boer as chief, Sharma responded by giving the thumbs up sign.
De Boer said yesterday that Europe, Japan and the US were looking at using existing financial institutions and mechanisms to distribute the US$30 billion in climate aid promised by developed to poor countries in Copenhagen.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said yesterday that quick disbursement of this promised money was vital, but Norway’s Environment Minister, Erik Solheim, said he was not aware of any progress being made on that front.
“It’s too much up in the air, still. Time is very short. It must be done in the next two months,” he said.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS