Long drawn arguments through two days of almost continuous negotiations broke out over the key decisions that the Warsaw meeting would make. A draft of the decisions brought out on Monday became the new battleground as developed countries tried to remove any difference in the responsibility thrust upon the developing countries from that of the rich nations.
Even as US, Australia and Canada blocked negotiations on the issue of compensation for loss and damage caused by climate change in one parallel track of talks, they pushed hard along with EU on the other to pull down the firewall of differentiation between the developing and developed world.
The Like-Minded Developing Countries which includes China and India, took a common stance on the draft decisions pushing that the existing principles of the Convention not be subverted. They also noted that the decisions merely re-iterated what had been said last year and did not demand any delivery against the commitments made. They demanded that the developed countries provide US $ 60 billion by 2016 as part delivery of their promise to ensure US $ 100 billion by 2020.
They demanded that developed countries be made to commit actions to fight climate change between now and 2020 before the world moves on to the new regime that will come into play by 2020 and is to be negotiated by 2015.
The developed countries, instead of focusing on actions within the UN climate convention, demanded that the other bilateral and multilateral actions outside the convention be acknowledged and accounted for without a reference to differentiation between countries.
On one such issues - refrigerant and greenhouse gases HFCs – China and Kuwait sided with India to demand that it be phased down under the principles of the climate convention and not right away under Montreal Protocol where equity and other principles do not apply similarly.
As these talks went on at negotiator levels the high-level segment of the climate talks at Warsaw kick-started and the UN Secretary General too got busy meeting country blocks behind closed doors to lobby at his level.
The Indian Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan reached Warsaw with a series of meetings including bilateral ones, country group meetings and an official statement to the UN climate meeting.