(CNSNews.com) – In another blow to those hoping a major conference in Copenhagen in December will deliver a global deal, China and India agreed Wednesday to work in unison, hardening their stance against accepting legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Despite their rivalry in other areas, the giant neighbors -- which together produce around a quarter of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases blamed for “global warming” -- pledged in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to coordinate their climate strategies over the next five years.
 
Central to their joint approach is the position that “developed” countries should take the lead in cutting emissions, and that “developing” countries – including big emitters such as themselves – will not accept mandatory emission caps or reduction targets.
 
Led by China and India, developing countries have long rejected binding caps on the emissions their industries produce. They argue that their economic growth should not be hindered by constraints which industrialized nations did not face at similar stages in their development.
 
The MOU was signed on the same day that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao had a phone conversation in which, according to the White House, they agreed to work together and with others “to achieve success at Copenhagen.”
 
A Chinese foreign ministry statement quoted Hu as telling Obama, “Even though there are still many problems that need to be solved in the current negotiations, as long as all parties join hands and strive hard, there is still hope that the Copenhagen meeting will achieve positive results.”
 
But with less than 50 days to go, and only five remaining days of negotiations scheduled – they will take place in Barcelona early next month – the China-India MOU only adds to the difficulties.

Another complicating factor arose on Tuesday, when India and seven other regional partners agreed on a coordinated stance at Copenhagen rejecting binding limits on their emissions. The eight are members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Bhutan.
 
Some environmental activists and others have been warning that Copenhagen represents the last chance to avoid catastrophic climate change.
 
“We have just four months,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a speech in August. “Four months to secure the future of our planet.”
 
With 190 countries attending, the U.N. conference in the Danish capital aims to produce a climate deal to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement that set binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 37 developed countries but not for developing ones. That key Kyoto principle – known in the treaty’s jargon as “common but differentiated responsibilities” – and the exemption it gave to China and India was one of the main reasons for the Bush administration’s rejection of the protocol.
 
The most recent round of pre-Copenhagen negotiations was roiled by differences between developed and developing nations over whether Kyoto and its “differentiated responsibilities” should be retained in the new deal.
 
Developed nations also want industrialized ones to put up generous financial assistance to help poorer countries adapt to and combat climate change. Figures of several hundred billion dollars a year and more have been suggested by the World Bank and others to cover the costs.

In the MOU, China and India said they would adhere to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities, in particular that developed countries should take the lead in and continue to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and provide financial resources, technology transfer and capacity building support to developing countries.”
 
They would also collaborate in the field of renewable energy and technologies aimed at helping developing countries advance while controlling their CO2 output.
 
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the two nations were in complete agreement over achieving an outcome in Copenhagen that was in keeping with Kyoto and “fully protects and promotes interests of developing countries.”
 
Obama urged to attend, push for a deal
 
The two regional initiatives – the China-India MOU and the agreement among SAARC members – come at a time when the U.N.’s top climate official, Yvo De Boer, has started to dampen expectations that the Copenhagen will produce a strong agreement.
 
Last week De Boer, whose official position is executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), was quoted as saying that the Copenhagen conference may end up being “half baked” unless wealthy nations are prepared to put forward more ambitious emission reduction targets.
 
This week, in an interview with the Financial Times, he suggested that it was unrealistic to expect that the conference would actually deliver a new international treaty, although he said it might produce the structure of an agreement.
 
“If you look at the limited amount of time that remains to Copenhagen, we have to focus on what can realistically be done and how that can realistically be framed,” he said on the sidelines of a Major Economies Forum meeting in London.
 
De Boer also urged Obama and other world leaders to attend the conference, saying that it was “abundantly clear that we need a push at the highest possible political level.”
 
A similar call came earlier from British Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, who told The Times of London there would be a much better chance of a deal being struck if Obama led the U.S. delegation to the conference.
 
The administration has not announced who will head the delegation in December, but U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern, speaking at the Major Economies Forum gathering, said “we’re not ruling out, in the right circumstances, some attendance by the president.”
 
Before the conference, Obama is due to visit China in November, and there has been speculation the two governments will sign a bilateral climate change agreement when he does.
 
For any such agreement to be meaningful, one or both sides will have to shift positions by then.
 
U.S. officials have argued that the global deal needs to include clear undertakings from all countries to reduce emissions in transparent and measurable ways. But when he attended a U.N. climate summit in New York in September, Hu said China would reduce carbon intensity in the coming years but set no target or goal.