From Cancun to Durban to a Catastrophe?

This writer was travelling around in India for three weeks. Hence this interval for nearly a month.
In the meantime COP 17 is over at Durban, South Africa. While fully appreciating the efforts on the part of the Chairwoman, and even agreeing when she said 'This will make a big, big difference', Durban was not a success in terms of what was decided at the previous Cancun Conference(see the column on 19 January 2011). It was decided then that the industrial countries will reduce their gas emission to the degree of 25 to 40% by 2020 against that of the standard year 1990, and the developing countries will start reducing theirs by then. Neither of them was agreed to this time. Needless to say those two are closely interrelated in the field of international negotiations, if not in the language of science.
The small island countries, and other low-lying ones, were desperate in pleading their cases. And they had many supporters, mostly in Europe. But where were the several countries which were really to reckon with as far as the gross emission was concerned, like China, the US, Russia, India, and Japan?
China and India, which prodeced 8% more and 6.2% more of warming gas in 2010, respectively, did not seem to be taking a positive stance in a discussion of world sustainability. As a humble Gandhi sholar I would have thought that Durban being the place where Gandhi landed almost 120 years ago to begin his twenty-odd-year long stay in South Africa, India might send out some message which would serve as the model of behaviour for the emerging countries, especially the BRICS. That was not to be.
The BRICS seem to be united that the emission should be measured not by the gross quantity but on the per capita basis. This is with a good reason. This, however, should not justify those countries consuming energy and emitting warming gas as much as they want. This apprehension would apply more to China than to India. And there is of course the US, which is not known for taking any remarkable initiative for global sustainability, particularly when they are expecting a Presidential election less than a year ahead. Moreover, China and the US are suspicious of each other lest the other would not outmaneuver her. COP is one of the theatres of their global rivalry.
In those circumstances, it may have been a great task indeed, 'a big, big difference' to keep the COP itself unbroken, and to extend the KP(Kyoto Protocol) after 2012 with the understanding that a new agreement applicable to all member nations will be reached by 2015 to be effective by 2020. It was reached in the informal discussion in the small hours of 11 December.
Russia, Canada, and Japan have turned their back to the extension of KP. This is in spite of the plea by the UN Secretary-General, Mr.Ban Kimun. Take Japan, for instance, whose then Prime Minister told the UN General Assembly two years ago that Japan will reduce the emission by 25% by 2020 if the other major emitters will cooperate. It would be politically immoral to go back on that pledge without taking any serious initiative to bring others into a positive discussion. Her chief negotiator, a Mnister, did not mention the above pledge in his speech this time. He was not to be seen in the informal discussion of the final morning.
It is a sure way that nobody will be going to take Japan seriously, sooner than later.